BLAST Premier Spring Finals: Moses on his favorites and players to watch BLAST \/ Dexerto BLAST Premier Spring Finals will host twelve of the world\u2019s best CS:GO teams to crown the two regional champions. But who\u2019s destined to take the top spot? Between the Spring 2020 regional seasons and the regional Showdowns, the teams are locked in for the Spring Finals. Eight teams will be competing for top honors in the European Finals, while four teams will go head-to-head for the lion\u2019s share in North America. With a combined prize pool of $750,000 split between the two regions, there\u2019s plenty to play for. So who are the teams and players to keep an eye on between June 15-21? Together with Jason \u2018Moses\u2019 O\u2019Toole, we delve into the competition from each region. BLAST Premier Spring 2020: European Finals Who are the favorites? Given their newfound form heading into the tournament, it\u2019s difficult not to go with G2 Esports. Alongside comfortably making the European Grand Finals in the DreamHack Masters Spring tournament, the team\u2019s star player in Kenny \u2018kennyS\u2019 Schrub has found a new lease of life in recent times \u2014 with glimpses of the Kenny of old returning to the server. Speaking exclusively with Dexerto, Moses added that G2\u2019s Main AWP has \u201cfound a new style of play\u201d while the addition of In-Game Leader, Nemanja \u2018nexa\u2019 Isakovi\u0107 and Nemanja \u2018huNter-\u2019 Kova\u010d has ensured that the squad are now \u201cfinally hitting their stride\u201d after a turbulent start to the year. Who are the dark horses? Meeting G2 Esports in their first match is French rivals, Team Vitality. After storming through the Playoffs in the European Showdown, Vitality are another team who seem to have picked up the pace as the year has progressed. With Mathieu \u2018ZywOo\u2019 Herbaut leading the way in the server \u2013 earning himself a positive kill swing of +103 across 12 maps \u2013 it\u2019s no wonder why Vitality can be considered as one of the teams to watch. In fact, Moses contests that there\u2019s plenty of teams who can rub shoulders with Vitality as the dark horses, with the likes of ENCE and Complexity seemingly finding their stride in recent times. Who are the players to watch? While the majority of the teams are pretty evenly matched across the board, there are a few players who could prove to be the difference-maker\u2026 One of which is Complexity\u2019s Kristian \u2018k0nfig\u2019 Wienecke. While his raw talent is indisputable, his actions outside of the server have previously overshadowed the heights he can reach in-game. Under the leadership of fellow Dane, Benjamin \u2018blameF\u2019 Breme, the 23-year-old has been a pivotal cog in the well-oiled machine that is Complexity. Alongside k0nfig, Moses believes that FaZe\u2019s latest addition in 16-year-old, Aurimas \u2018Bymas\u2019 Pipiras, is a talent that shouldn\u2019t fly under anyone\u2019s radar. \u201cThe guy that I\u2019d look out for is Bymas. He\u2019s that new addition who\u2019s stepping into the shoes of Olofmeister \u2013 who\u2019s one of the greatest to ever touch the game of Counter-Strike \u2013 so he\u2019s got a big role.\u201d BLAST Premier Spring 2020: American Finals Who are the favorites? Moving across the pond to the American Finals, Team Liquid are the only team to make it through via the Regular Season. While that alone doesn\u2019t stand for much, their recent run of results does. In DreamHack Masters, the all-American squad have strung together an impressive flurry of results against Gen.G, Cloud9 and 100 Thieves to net themselves a place in the Grand Finals against Brazilian team, Furia. While Moses also supports that Liquid are the number one squad in North America going into the event, he also believes that this is a \u201cdo or die\u201d tournament for the roster \u2014 whose current form is a stark contrast to what they were displaying almost a year ago, when they pulled together a historic run of event to bag the Intel Grand Slam. \u201cI think that this is a do or die moment for them, not in terms of being able to compete with Astralis (and being able to compete with the best in the world), but whether they can actually keep this roster together\u2026 It\u2019s do or die in the sense that we know that they had some issues towards the end of last year \u2013 coming down the stretch \u2014 and those don\u2019t seem to have been resolved.\u201d Who are the dark horses? So who could spoil Liquid\u2019s party? Well it goes without saying that Furia are hitting an all-time peak in their form of late. Under the guidance of Andrei \u2018arT\u2019 Piovezan, the squad has been reaching a level that many thought wasn\u2019t possible. While Furia has had Liquid\u2019s number in their previous four encounters, it\u2019s difficult to ignore the pure potential that lies within the Evil Geniuses roster. After an incredible end to 2019, the squad haven\u2019t quite found their stride as we moved away from LAN events. Moses agrees that should Peter \u2018stanislaw\u2019 Jarguz and co. find their groove once again, it will be difficult for any of the four teams to get in their way. \u201cYou could put EG as the dark horse. As a team that has looked pretty shattered coming into this, I think with their coach, Zews \u2013 who has experience taking a dysfunctional North American team to the top \u2013 at a certain point, EG\u2019s going to have the same jump that I just mentioned Complexity will have, just because their coach is going to start figuring stuff out.\u201d Who are the players to watch? Given that EG could pop off at any given time, it\u2019s hard to ignore the raw potential that Tsvetelin \u2018CeRq\u2019 Dimitrov holds. As EG\u2019s Main AWP, the young Bulgarian can single-handedly turn the tide of a round in his favor in the blink of an eye. There\u2019s no doubt that should EG get off on the right foot against MIBR in their opening match, CeRq will be at the forefront of the team\u2019s tactical approach and will be a centerpiece in their strategy. Which teams have you got your money on? With a mouth-watering cash prize for both regions and a stacked lineup on both sides of the pond, BLAST Premier Spring Finals is shaping up to quite the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BLAST Premier Spring Finals: Moses on his favorites and players to watch BLAST \/ Dexerto BLAST Premier Spring Finals will host twelve of the world\u2019s best CS:GO teams to crown the two regional champions. But who\u2019s destined to take the top spot? Between the Spring 2020 regional seasons and the regional Showdowns, the teams are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}