In the BLAST Premier Spring Group Stage, we will be able to see the top teams that have been away for a long time.
The 2023 BLAST Premier Spring Group Stage means that we have finally passed the long offseason and ushered in the 2023 offline era. The tournament will take place Jan. 19-29, with 12 BLAST partner teams competing for six spring finals spots and a prize pool of $177,500.
Competition time: January 19th 22:00 - January 30th 01:00
Competition location: Copenhagen, Denmark offline studio
Format:
This year's BLAST Premier Spring Group Stage has made some fine-tuning in the format. The competition is divided into two phases, all of which are BO3. The 12 participating teams will be divided into three groups of four teams each. The group stage is a double-elimination format, with the top team heading for the spring finals. Among the remaining 9 teams, the third and fourth teams in each group will compete in BO3 singles, and the winner will compete with the second in the group to determine the other three teams to advance. The remaining six teams will fall to the spring repechage.
Participating teams:
The prize pool is distributed as follows:
The groupings are as follows:
The first-round matchups are as follows:
A组
Group B
Group C
Astralis in Group A has a lot to offer, and this is their first T1 event after the change. gla1ve, Xyp9x and device hope to bring Astralis back to life in 2018-2019. At the same time, the performance of Buzz, a 19-year-old newcomer from MASONIC, is also quite exciting.
Group A Heroic and Group C G2 teams are the two highest ranked teams in the world. They all ended on a high note at the end of 2022. Heroic won the BLAST Premier Autumn Final, while HooXi led G2 to lift the BLAST Premier Global Finals trophy in Abu Dhabi. Both teams hope to continue the form the following year.
EG, who was looked around by Team A, Little Bee, and Heroic, is not optimistic. The participating North American team Evil Geniuses recently replaced CeRq with newcomer wiz. The 21-year-old previously played for the EG Black team. It was also WIZ's first in-person event outside of the Fragadelphia event. Can they be surprised?
In Group B, although FaZe's focus this season will be Grand Slam, the BLAST Spring Group Stage is still a good opportunity for Big Cousin to test the team's form. Liquid are their biggest rivals in Group B, and Mad Brother's team are eager to get off to a great start to the new year and be ready to break the championship drought.
There is a big battle in the first round of Group C: NaVi vs NIP. Team NIP recruited headtr1ck as the team's new sniper during the offseason, and as another sign of NaVi Junior's success, he will meet his former teammate npl in T1. It will also be NPL's first team debut as an official member of the NaVi first team.
At present, the host and analyst of the competition have not yet been announced. But it's likely to be Freya, BanKs, launders, Scrawny, and others. Maniac and Pimp are also very familiar analysts, and they regularly attend BLAST and other top events.