The first major CS: GO tournament of 2023 will begin on January 31 – BLAST Premier Spring Series 2023. The next weekend in London will host Group A matches, where they will compete for places in the main stage of the championship Team liquid, Faze clan, MIBR and Ninjas in pajamas.
We estimated the chances of the teams in the tournament based on odds analysis from Parimatch, which became the official partner of the BLAST Premier series broadcasts, which was announced on January 23.
Team Liquid – in search of its former form
At the end of 2019, Liquid gave reason to doubt that it was able to impose real competition on Astralis for the rank of number one team in the world. Collective nitr0 steadily entered the late stages of tournaments, but now and then lost to the Danes, and in the finals of the tenth season, the ESL Pro League lost and Fnatic.
How Liquid spent the Christmas holidays is a mystery. If you remember, the break in front of the Berlin major played a cruel joke with the Americans: the team lost that magical form, thanks to which they swept everyone from May to July. Then the team members talked a lot about the fact that they need to rethink their position on the professional stage. The main message: top-1 is not one who always wins, but one who can successfully recover from failure. At BLAST Premier we will see if the team learned this.
Last year Liquid began with a victory in January iBUYPOWER Masters IV. It is possible that BLAST will be the first step in the new victorious tread of the team. Opponents in the group have this in mind.
Group win odds – 2.25.
FaZe Clan – a star hodgepodge in search of itself
IN one of the interviews former Virtus.pro general manager Roman Dvoryankin said that FaZe Clan is an example of an eSports organization that is not very concerned about the results of its teams in tournaments. It seems that the composition for CS: GO is also relevant.
FaZe continues to be ranked among the favorites of the championships rather by inertia: well, well, in the roster there is also Niko, and olofmeister, and rain, and even coldzera! However, over the past year the team won only two tournaments, and both from the BLAST series, where almost all the matches were, as I would say v1lat – “bo1-roulettes.”
To the honor of FaZe, the team spent the end of the year not bad – there were victories over NiP, Evil geniuses and Team vitality. In January, the squad was selected at IEM Katowice 2023 – perhaps the main spring tournament of the year, if you do not take into account the major. In a word, the star roster NiKo has chances to win BLAST, especially since the Europeans have only one really dangerous rival in Group A – it’s Liquid. If the team finds an approach to the Americans, it will be able in the summer to be in Moscow, where the LAN-finals of the spring BLAST Premier series will take place.
The odds for winning the group are 3.50.
MIBR – FalleN does not give up
Fallen – Certainly the greatest e-sportsman in Brazilian history. He raised the local scene to an unprecedented level: it was under his leadership that coldzera grew into a world star, the leading e-sports clubs became interested in the local scene, and very young guys got a chance to leave for North America to train in much better conditions than those that can offer Brazil. Having achieved this, FalleN hardly guessed that already in the status of “godfather” he would have to take to the team completely not those players whom he initially wanted. However, this is exactly what happened.
Over time, the two-time world champions had problems with the game, and it was time for long reshuffles, only none of the transfers played into the hands of Toledo and his bosom friend fer. At first, MIBR wasted a ton of money on Stewie2k and tarik, and then missed a few young players. First of all it concerns ksceratobut fer mentioned that the MIBR also tried to sign other newcomers, but the Brazilian organizations did not want to release valuable assets.
As a result, an old gang gathered in MIBR – FalleN, fer, Taco, kNgV- (FalleN also played with him at one time), and the fifth was a young Argentinean (!) meyern – Other options, as admitted by fer, the team did not have.
For a long time no one has seen MIBR as a favorite in tournaments, but now, it seems, the situation has become even worse. Meyern, who had high hopes, has not yet fully justified the trust placed – the game of the club somehow rests on the same FalleN and fer. It’s just that they are not getting younger, and therefore it begins to seem that they are no longer able to pull the tag legendary for Brazil out of the swamp.
The odds for winning the group are 5.50.
Ninjas in Pajamas – without f0rest and GeT_RiGhT
If everything is stably bad at MIBR, what will happen to NiP is not yet possible – the roster has changed too radically in the new year. Of the “golden” roster that smashed everyone in 2014, there was no one left in the club, and what they could show Lekr0, twist and youth is one big mystery.
In recent years, NiP has consistently entered (or at least padded over the thresholds) in the top 10, but it’s hard to say whose merit is: f0rest, which, it seems, will steadily recoup even at the age of 40, or youth in the form of conditional Plopski, which many predict a wonderful career.
The way NiP will show themselves is perhaps the main intrigue of group A. However, the bookies do not believe in the team at all.
The odds to win in the group are 6.00. All coefficients are taken from the site of the Betimatch betting company and are relevant at the time of publication of the material.
BLAST Premier Spring 2023 consists of the regular season, the Showdown stage and the LAN finals. At the first, the teams were divided into three groups of four participants: the two best teams from each quartet will go to the LAN finals, and the rest will fall into the “Last Chance” grid (Showdown), where six teams will play the last four slots in the final stage.
Next week, Cybersport.ru will publish a preview of group B. Performance at the tournament will begin Astralis, Team vitality and updated Natus vincere and Complexity gaming.
