BLAST Premier Spring Finals – Group B Preview: Superstar Showdown in London

Counter-Strike 2 in 2024 is dominated by three superstars. donk, ZywOo and m0NESY. The Trifecta make up the modern big 3, taking over from S1mple, device, and NiKo from the past. All three have teams around them that are proven winners. And all three clash together in the BLAST Premier Spring Finals Group B. Fireworks? Guaranteed. But who will survive the battle in London?

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Taking the top seed for the group is Team Vitality. The French-led squad was the top dog in 2023 but struggled to find the same form at events like Katowice. Proven winners, the team has finally hit a consistent level. ZywOo is always the star carry for the team, only really falling off in the Grand Finals. But the key to their return has been mezii. The Brit has developed his game and stage confidence to the point that he can take over as the lead rifler when Spinx inevitably drops off.

That allows the team to remain consistent as a group, even when individual pieces struggle. If XTQZZZ and apEX manage to get their star players’ stage drop under control, this team is a championship squad. But as was the case with Vitality in 2021, the roster may simply be too young to win.

Vitality qualified for the BLAST Premier Spring Finals by winning their group in the Spring Groups. Wins over OG and Falcons are par for the course, but the team went 1-1 against Astralis, pre-BlameF cut. Still more recent results pin Vitality up higher than their group's level.

Team Spirit should have been the one team to rule them all. They already have donk on course to become the greatest rifler in any version of CS. And they stacked that with the stable AWP of sh1ro. Yet somehow, they fall short. Realistically, this is the expected level for a new team filled with rookies. But when your star player’s worst event is a 1.16, you have to capitalize on it.

This team has it all. All it needs is to get the reps in. This event will be another opportunity to prove that Katowice is still a repeatable success story. But even if they fail, every single team must be ready to give their 100% to take them down. Come in unprepared, and you’ll get donked right out of the server.

Spirit made their way through the gauntlet that is BLAST Premier Showdown. After being unable to field their superstar donk in the group stage due to visa issues, Spirit tumbled down. The team was on the favorable side of the showdown bracket, but their run should've atleast included donk's first win over s1mple. Instead, the team made their way past Elevate, BIG, and Metizport to get a comfortable spot at the Spring Finals, plopping them into Group B.

The most recent winners in CS2. G2 Esports should be coming into BLAST looking to go back-to-back. But "should" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. The obvious caveat is that G2’s real roster did not win IEM Dallas. It was a stand-in situation with NiKo taking over as IGL for the event. And it looked better. Some of that comes down to Jake "Stewie2k" Yip being a smarter entry player than HooXi, but a lot of it comes down to the leadership.

Where HooXi’s G2 has been losing despite m0NESY being the best player in the world, NiKo focused the entire team on setting up m0NESY to dominate. That may stem from NiKo’s own history as the hard carry and IGL of prior teams. But whatever it is, IEM Dallas was the best G2 has ever looked. Let’s hope some miracle can happen to keep that G2 alive.

G2's run at the Spring Groups saw the team beat NIP and Liquid, but take two defeats to NaVi. Despite proving that Aleksib can always beat his former teams, G2 can at least find solace in the fact that NaVi went on to win the major. A quick biff through the play-ins landed G2 a spot here.

We often talk about the Jame system when discussing VP. What goes unnoticed is the other half of that system that has been there since day 1, the coach. And that is what the org is attributing it's lack of success to. Dastan "dastan" Akbayev is gone, and 9 Pandas' Xomo has been brought in, but is that enough to change the team's fortunes?

Let's look at the roster moves; this is the fourth hype cycle of the VP super team (FL1T, KaiR0N-, mir, electroNic), and every single time so far, the team has settled around a top 8 position in the world rankings. The consistency is commendable, but they have never been anything more than a dark horse. Even with electroNic, the same trend is holding true, implying a deeper-rooted cause.

So can the coaching change update the system enough to turn this roster into a championship contender? Spring Finals may be too early to judge, but this is the last chance for Jame as an IGL.

Virtus.Pro blitzed through their Spring Group with ease. Taking down BIG twice and managing to take down electroNic's Cloud9 is a solid result that locked them in straight away. But with three top 5 teams in their groups, those results don't carry much weight for this event.

Vitality comes in as a favorite for the whole event with its consistency, even if there are some caveats. Spinx may continue to fall off, but that is a problem to deal with in the playoffs. Against Virtus.Pro, ZywOo will be simply unmatched, and a single other rifle popping off should ensure an easy victory for them. Virtus.Pro has a puncher's chance, but it would require a brand-new playstyle and all players fragging out.

Up until Dallas, we had never seen a battle between donk and either of the dominant snipers. And now we are completing the set with a battle between donk and m0NESY. Even with donk's insane peaks, m0NESY will be the best player on the server; the question is whether G2 will be up there with him. If NiKo can put up big numbers to support his younger teammate, G2 can overpower Spirit. But make no mistake, with HooXi back in the roster, Spirit is the favorite. Their teamplay is immaculate and very hard to beat in group stages.

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Featured Image via BLAST and Michal Konkol