Heroic, one of the potential favorites at BLAST Premier Showdown are out of the event in the first round itself.

The BLAST Premier Fall Showdown is the final opportunity for teams to qualify for the Fall Finals. The teams are competing in Copenhagen albeit without a live audience. The brutal single-elimination format for the event means teams have no opportunities to make mistakes. 

In the post-match Interview, HEROIC coach, Eetu "sAw" Saha came on stream to answer some questions. He spoke at length about the team’s performance and their expectations. While he did compliment OG for their spectacular win, he also introspected that no team should be able to defeat Heroic the way OG did today. The 0-2 loss means HEROIC are eliminated from the event and lose their only chance of qualifying for the BLAST Premier Fall Finals later in September. 

SAw: "It was a rough match and we just didn’t wake up in the first map, the first half especially"

Speaking about the first half of Anubis, sAw said the team just didn't wake up in time and did not perform well.

"It was a rough match and we just didn’t wake up in the first map, the first half especially. It just went without us being there fully, mentally. People were just not able to (perform). Almost everything we did was out of our control. They were able to punish us. It goes fast also, the way they played they got the info. It was just rough."

When asked about the team's early exit from BLAST Premier Fall Showdown, sAw mentioned how disappointed he was with the team's performance. While OG did step up in the match, it shouldn't so close according to the veteran coach.

"It’s obviously super disappointing to go out so fast especially since We were not able to show any of that. It’s a sad situation. There are so many problems coming into this tournament. I'm sure there are so many close rounds, but if you look at the rounds, it shouldn’t even be so close. We should be able to capitalize on way more situations. Congrats to OG on the win, but there’s no way any team should be able to punish us with these types of plays, so often at least."

Map Veto

  1. OG removed Mirage
  2. HEROIC removed Inferno
  3. OG picked Anubis
  4. HEROIC picked Nuke
  5. OG removed Vertigo
  6. HEROIC removed Dust2
  7. Ancient was left over

HEROIC’s opening match was against OG, a team that has undergone some changes recently. The latter team has had a few changes to its roster and OG will be playing together for the first time with the new roster at Fall Showdown. Meanwhile, Heroic has a lot to prove in this event as they have had a series of poor performances recently. 

Heroic managed to go to double digits on both maps, but they were clearly trailing behind OG on multiple occasions. Despite being a relatively new roster, OG was able to read HEROIC like a book and then counter them repeatedly.

Heroic have been together for some time, but they are still reeling from poor results one after the other. Even though the team is at bootcamp, it did not give them a significant advantage against their opponents. 

Final Results

OG surprised HEROIC with a clean 2-0 performance. The team looked extremely fluent in their performance and they had a plan coming in to most of the rounds. OG’s MoDo had a spectacular performance with 24 frags on Anubis and 16 on Nuke. However, overall, it was a team performance for OG with several players playing their roles to perfection to lead OG to victory.

With this loss, HEROIC finished BLAST Premier Fall Showdown in the 9-16th place. They leave the tournament with $5,000 in prize money, but more importantly, they have a lot to work on. OG moves on to the next round, where they will face off against AMKAL esports who had a 2-1 victory over Ninjas in Pyjamas.