This group features three giants in form of FaZe, Astralis, and NAVi, and one underdog in SAW.
Eight of some of the best CS2 teams in the world will fly to London to attend the 425,000 tournament BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024 between June 12 and 16.
FaZe Clan, Astralis, Natus Vincere, and SAW are among the eight teams attending the event, and they'll start the competition in group A while Vitality, Spirit, G2, and Virtus.pro fight in group B.
If you fancy following the BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024, here's the preview of group A.
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FaZe, Astralis, and NAVI are heavy favorites to make BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024 playoffs
The formula for the group stage is pretty simple as it is double elimination. Whoever wins their first game will already guarantee a spot in the playoffs, and the winner of the lower final will advance too.
While CS2's competitive scene has been somewhat unpredictable thus far, recent data shows that SAW will have a hard time surviving the group stage as FaZe, Astralis, and NAVI have clearly been better teams.
Here's what you can expect from each initial matchup of Group A.
FaZe vs SAW
Though FaZe haven't been winning too many titles this year, they are undoubtedly the most consistent team in CS2.
Finn "karrigan" Andersen, Håvard "rain" Nygaard, Robin "ropz" Kool, Helvijs "broky" Saukants, and David "frozen" Čerňanský won IEM Chengdu in April, and finished runners-up at the PGL Copenhagen Major in March and IEM Katowice in February.
And if we consider 2023 as well, they won three CS2 events in a row and finished runners-up in two when they still had Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken in frozen's place. This alone suggests that FaZe are unlikely to lose to SAW at BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024.
SAW, on the other hand, are still trying to break into the tier-one. The all-Portuguese lineup featuring Christopher "MUTiRiS" Fernandes, Ricardo "rmn" Oliveira, Michel "ewjerkz" Magalhães, Rafael "arrozdoce" Wing, and João "story" Vieira are having an amazing year by their standard as they became the first dedicated Portuguese lineup to qualify for a Major in February, but that's all there is to highlight really.
Given SAW have failed to punch above their weight in the tier-one events they played this year—the Major and ESL Pro League season 19—apart from defeating Eternal Fire in the latter, they showed they still struggle to hang around the level of teams with great firepower as FaZe.
We'll know for sure when both teams meet on June 12 at 4 a.m. PT in the first match of BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024.
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NAVI vs Astralis
The second initial match of BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024 group A, however, is rather unpredictable. Astralis and NAVI are both great tier-one teams and they proved this throughout 2024.
Though Valerij "b1t" Vakhovsjkyj, Aleksi "Aleksib" Virolainen, Justinas "jL" Lekavičius, Mihai "iM" Ivan, and Ihor "w0nderful" Zhdanov. NAVI won the PGL Copenhagen Major, the most important CS2 tournament ever, they're far from being the best team in the world at the moment.
Recent results suggest that NAVI overperformed at the Major as they failed to replicate their Copenhagen performance in both ESL Pro League season 19 and IEM Dallas.
Astralis isn't close to being the best CS2 team in the world either, but the all-Danish lineup are playing better than NAVI recently.
Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz, Victor "Staehr" Staehr, Martin "stavn" Lund, Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard, and Alexander "br0" Bro made deep runs in the last three big tournaments they attended—IEM Chengdu, ESL Pro League season 19, and CCT Season 1 Global Finals—having been taken down only in the semifinals of these events.
While Astralis are clearly on a climb and NAVI seem to be underperforming a bit, it's hard to predict who's the favorite to win at BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024. Both teams have decent firepower and much will come down to the clash between AWPers dev1ce and w0nderful as they are the X-factor of their teams. So, watch out for them on June 12 at 6:30 a.m. PT.
That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024 content.
