BLAST Premier Fall Groups Preview: Groups A & C

The BLAST Premier Fall Groups marks the start of the new Counter-Strike Calendar season. The tournament includes some of the top teams in action. It also signifies the start of the new Counter-Strike season that will culminate later in the year with the Shanghai Major.

Group A will be an interesting matchup. The four teams that are a part of Group A will feature the likes of Team Liquid and Complexity. Team Liquid have had several changes to the roster in the past few weeks.

Team Spirit finished 5-8th in the Esports World Cup, losing 1-2 to G2 Esports. After a second-place finish at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade #1, the team has attempted to put up strong performances. However, despite some significant improvements, Team Spirit has only managed to occasionally win an event here and there. 

Their victory at the BLAST Premier Spring Final was epitomized due to their strong performance in the Grand Finals. Donk had a special performance that catapulted his team to victory.

It will be interesting to see how they carry on the momentum in Copenhagen where they will face similar teams. 

OG is possibly one of the weakest teams in this group. The team lost HeavyGod who went on to join Cloud9. The loss of this superstar player is bound to impact OG in a big way. The team was struggling to get the requisite results even with the player on the team and now, without him, it will be interesting to see how far the team can advance. 

Complexity is the other team that is yet to prove itself against top teams. The team’s results do not inspire confidence in their ability to move out of the Play-In Stage at the BLAST premier Fall Groups 2024.

They finished a lowly 12-15th at the Esports World Cup losing 14-16 to M80. However, even before that they bowed out of the YaLLa Compass 2024 with a 7-8th place finish. 

The final team of this group is HEROIC who have been on a downward spiral of late. The team has not had notable results to boast about. They finished 3-4th at the BetBoom Dacha Belgrade #1 and out of the top four at both IEM Dallas 2024 as well as YaLLa Compass 2024. The grop stage exit at YaLLA Compass included losses to Astralis, NIP, MongolZ. The bad start to the tournament meant they could not recover despite showing up in the final few matches of the group stage. 

Overall, Team Spirit is definitely the favorite to come out on top of this group. They are one of the top contenders to make it to the Fall Finals. The remaining teams will attempt to qualify for the Play-In stage of the event.

Here are the four teams that are a part of Group C at the BLAST Premier Fall Groups:

Group C is easily one of the more interesting groups of the tournament. With teams such as FaZe Clan, G2 esports, this group will produce some of the most interesting matches. 

G2 Esports had an unfortunate end to their season with a 7-8th finish at the BLAST Premier Spring Final. The unfortunate result was partly due to issues not in their control. With their star player, mONESY arriving just one hour before the match start, it was always going to be a tough cookie to crack. 

At Esports World Cup, however, the team bounced back, finishing 2nd losing to NAVI in the Grand Finals. While they won Ancient, they were not able to get more six rounds on Nuke and Inferno. NiKo ended the series with 50 frags to his name while malbsMd, the newest addition came in second at 47 frags.

MalbsMd’s performance will be under the microscope at BLAST Premier Fall Groups. The youngster was a part of M80 and was a big reason for the latter’s success in recent weeks. So far, he has already settled in to the G2 style of play and it will be interesting to see how far he can go. 

FaZe’s response has been mostly outside of their desired results. They have finished 5-8th in their recent events, somewhat lower than their expectations. Coming into Fall Groups, FaZe is one of the more consistent teams. Their consistency might play a crucial factor in their success to qualify for the Fall Finals.

NIP and Cloud9 are the two teams that will be interesting to watch. For them, they have to punch above their weight as they attempt to qualify for the Fall Finals. However, it was always going to be a tough task for them. Cloud9 has had massive changes to its roster with three new players. Two of them are completely new to the Tier 1 scene and as such it will be a key test for their resilience. If they can find success early in the Tier 1 scene, there is a bright prospect for Cloud9. 

The key matches to watch in this group are the ones that will determine the top team. Whether it will be G2 esports or FaZe Clan, which team can move ahead when it comes to the Group stage.

The BLAST Premier Fall Groups features some of the top teams in the world. The teams’ will be contesting for a spot in the Fall Finals that takes place later in August. You can catch all the action live on Twitch as well as the esports.gg BLAST Premier Hub here. 

Stay tuned to esports.gg for the latest Counter-Strike news and updates.