Which team has the best chance to win the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown? And Why?
The BLAST Premier Spring Showdown will feature some of the best European CS:GO teams in action. Sixteen teams will compete online for a share of the $162,500 prize pool. The event runs from April 13 to April 18 and features a single-elimination format. The top two teams earn their spot in the BLAST Premier Spring Finals.
The BLAST Premier Spring Showdown has a single-elimination format with the top two teams earning $30,000. There’s more risk with this format but there is a satisfying reward for the two best teams. Here’s a short preview of the top three teams at the event.
The Danish powerhouse: Astralis
The Astralis CS:GO roster is one of the most storied teams in the past couple of years. The team is popular for its consistent performance against the best teams in the world. Despite finishing 2020 on a high after winning BLAST Premier Circuit 2020 and IEM XV - Global Challenge Astralis has been in poor form in 2021. The team started the year on a strong note with a second-place finish at the BLAST Premier: Global Final 2020. But its inability to crack into the top four in its last two tournaments has raised a few eyebrows.
Despite its ‘poor form’, Astralis is still the second-best CS:GO team on HLTV. The experience on the team is a big reason for the deep map pool. Dust 2 and Vertigo are the best maps for Astralis with over 65% win rate. These two maps also comprise two of the most played maps for the team.
Astralis bowed out to FURIA in the ESL Pro League Season 13 quarterfinals. The team remains one of the favorites for the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown and will face OG in its opening match. However, the tournament’s single-elimination format can throw up quite a few surprises.
Vitality - Not just the ZywOo story
Featuring a Forbes 30 under 30 player, Vitality comes into this tournament as yet another team with a championship prospect. The Vitality roster has always one of the favorites to win any tournament it takes part in. With one of the world’s best players on its roster, the team’s strategy-heavy playstyle relies on maps like Overpass, Vertigo and Nuke. With excellent rotations on Nuke and some innovative smokes, Shox and co. carve out an advantage for themselves.
Bringing up player statistics for Vitality can often be misleading. The team acknowledges and uses ZywOo’s brilliance as part of its playstyle. Allowing the youngster the freedom to execute his playstyle is often a win condition for the French squad.
Despite the team’s potential, Vitality is not in great form. Bowing out of the ESL Pro League Season 13 group stage has brought forward several of the team’s problems. The team was also unable to reach the playoffs of IEM Katowice 2021.
Obviously, we're not playing well, a lot of things happened at the beginning of the year that were really hard to handle.
Valve’s restrictions on six-man rosters hurt Vitality the most. The squad had become a prime example of how to efficiently utilize a six-person roster. Vitality winning the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown seems like a long shot, but it is extremely difficult to disregard a team with ZywOo on its squad.
Gambit - The CIS force
The CIS organization scouted most of its current roster in 2019 as part of the Gambit Youngsters project. Helping the players improve and providing them with organizational support is a key reason for the team’s third-place rank in 2021. Gambit esports topped Group C in the ESL Pro League Season 13 dominating opponents such as FURIA and Natus Vincere.
Gambit has a relatively young roster and its players might not be as popular as some other teams. But the team has repeatedly stepped up in the past few months, including topping the ESL Pro League group stage and a win over Astralis in the play-in stage.
While Gambit is very comfortable playing against the players in the world, it often falls short against lower-ranked opponents. The team lost to Copenhagen Flames, a 26th ranked CS:GO team in the Snow Sweet Snow #2 tournament.
Gambit’s inconsistency in the past few weeks can be a cause for concern. The team lost to 26th ranked Copenhagen Flames in the Snow Sweet Snow #2 tournament.
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