Who won the BLAST Premier Spring Groupstage?

Who won the BLAST Premier Spring Groupstage?

29. January 2023 by Andrew Williams

Natus Vincere punched their ticket to the BLAST Premier Spring Finals after defeating North American Complexity 2-1. NaVi made a comeback to take the win on Complexity’s Pick of Anubis, but put up a poor performance on Inferno and needed the decider on Overpass to take the win, rallying from an 8-14 deficit to end the series in regulation time. Meanwhile, Astralis also played NiP and won.

Natus Vincere got off to a good start on Anubis, and another Complexity win in the first weapon round helped them extend their lead to 3-1. Complexity quickly struck back, however, and Johnny “JT” Theodosiou quickly took control of the map himself. NAVI managed to get back to within seven at the halftime break, but Complexity went into the break with a slight lead and then extended it further to 11-7. That lead shrank, however, when NAVI had pistols in hand again, and it was Valeriy “b1t” Vakhovskiy who put NAVI ahead 14-11.

Natus Vincere vs. Complexity

The first half remained close between the two teams, with the North Americans again taking an 8-7 lead, but after the change of sides the map was completely under Complexity’s control. NAVI was only able to win four rounds in the second half and was unable to stop the onslaught of Complexity, who ended an 0-for-12 streak on the Map to even the series score. Overpass started with NAVI up 4-2, but Complexity took control after that. Another outstanding individual performance by Grim gave his team a 9-6 lead at the halftime break.

NAVI wins

Complexity continued to extend its lead after the break, and although NAVI responded with two shots of its own, JT and Co. maintained control. It looked like Complexity would put the game to bed when they took a 14-8 lead, but they gave up in the final minute and squandered their chance to win. NAVI made eight rounds in a row and took the victory with 16:14.

Astralis vs. NIP

Meanwhile, there was another exciting match with Astralis and NiP. Astralis won 2-1 in the knockout stage against Ninjas in Pyjamas at the BLAST Premier Spring Group (Overpass by 11-16, Mirage by 16-7 and Ancient by 16-10). Astralis didn’t have much success on Overpass, but they bounced back well from their opening loss and dominated the remaining two maps.

They owed much of that success to Benjamin “blameF” Bremer, topping the scoreboard in the following two map wins with a 1.82 rating in a win on Mirage and a 1.31 rating in a closer affair on Ancient. Christian Møss “Buzz” Andersen, who had played a bumpy debut up to that point, played his best series in the groups so far with a score of 49-50, turning it up in some key moments, especially on Ancient, to help his team to victory.