BLAST are putting on two tier one tournaments in the next month, Sao Paulo being the first, and Miami being the last. The field of competitors is slim, but hand picked for the best of the best to play without distractions. (Except for Cloud9. They’re only here to sell tickets to the NA fans.) The round robin is always entertaining, if a little hard to watch, and the finals are always a treat, being played on their own day with two fresh teams, ready to go at each other with all they’ve got. Here are my picks for the tournament.
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What’s even left to be said? Best players, best system, best map pool, best teamplay, best team. Astralis are in the middle of a truly historic run, which means the best thing for us as Counter Strike fans to do is sit back and enjoy the absolute show they’re putting on for us, day in and day out. Consistent excellence like what Astralis is providing is not easy to do, by any means. Even teams with their amount of talent have a hard time winning this consistently, falling prey to the grind and losing their fire. But not the Danes. They press on, moving further and further out of reach of the rest of the GOAT teams list.
They’re almost a certainty to make the finals, and to win, so they really only provide value in a parlay. Bet on an MIBR-Astralis final, or a Na’Vi-Astralis final.
Liquid are the other team favored to make the finals, and I’m still not on board. What have they done with this lineup to show that they’re capable of beating four of these other teams? They won the iBUYPOWER Masters in a 2-1 over Astralis, beat Na’Vi, and lost to ENCE. This isn’t a terribly encouraging resume. This Liquid lineup was one of the most hyped rosters we’ve seen in CS:GO in a while, and they have looked flat and lifeless since taking the iBP Masters from a (likely sandbagging) Astralis.
Luckily for Liquid, the field at this event is not super deep. Only six teams are invited, one to two of which have almost zero chance of making the finals. The only real competition at this event is Astralis, MIBR, and Na’Vi. Best-of-ones are notoriously difficult to predict, and with the amount of pure talent on Liquid, it’s hard to say that they’ll bomb out completely.
Unfortunately for me, it says right in my job description that I have to make that kind of call. So, for this event, I’m going to say that they will bomb out. Liquid showed few signs of life in Poland, and I’m certainly not comfortable putting down my hard earned money on them.
The odds sure caught up fast to MIBR. They had a strong performance at IEM Katowice, after a lifeless showing against C9 on Inferno. MIBR ended up having one of the closest series with Astralis, pushing them to a 14-16 loss in what was almost universally praised as the best game of the tournament.
The best of three ended up looking like a knife fight, with the best player on either team going just +13. This series was one of Astralis’ worst statistically during the event, despite their winning it 2-0. MIBR were able to put the clamps on them on Overpass, like they have in years past. If MIBR can keep turning back the clock like this, and continue to improve, both their aim and their cohesion as a team, they will only get scarier.
That’s what really makes them a tough team to judge. They’re on the upswing, one of just a couple teams who are clearly and consistently improving. The real unknown is how much they’ve improved. Have they been bootcamping since the Major, doubling down on their progress and watching Astralis demos? It’s hard to imagine a team this old would be able to keep that hunger, but FalleN seems to be one of the best leaders in CS, so if anyone can do it, it would be him.
I like MIBR at this tournament. I think they’ll make the finals, and I don’t think it’s out of the question for them to take the trophy home with them. They’ll certainly have a coming out party soon. The question is, will they do it in Miami?
I actually feel better about Na’Vi here than I usually do. They’re the least consistent of the top tier teams, which means best-of-ones help them out a lot. They can more safely rely on s1mple’s ability to carry matches, which means they could win any one of their games at this event. Once they hit the finals, things start to look a little scarier for Na’Vi, and their championship hopes start to ride on the backs of Flamie and electronic.
I like them for a make the finals bet, not so much to win the tournament. MIBR and Astralis could both handle them in a best-of-three, barring a repeat overperformance from Flamie.
There really isn’t much to say about FaZe, except that change might be coming. BLAST Pro Miami doesn’t start until mid March, which gives FaZe the opportunity to change their roster construction, or their gameplan. Their coach Janko could put a better system in place to help cover for NiKo’s tactical deficiencies. They could shift the IGL responsibilities over to Adren, a player who was under the tutelage of Zeus for one of the better parts of his career. Adren allegedly secondary called while playing on Gambit, which means he might be the best candidate for the job.
If changes aren’t made between now and then, things look grim for the multinational mix team. Over the last six months, NiKo has been the highest rated player on the team by far, surpassing the next best GuardiaN in every relevant statistical category.
As someone who pays a lot of attention to CS, I have no idea what Cloud9 is doing. Their roster construction makes absolutely no sense to me. They assembled a team that at least had talent, acquiring kioshima and flusha as free agents, and pairing them with autimatic. While they never really fit together all that well, at least they were all competent CS players, all of whom had all star potential at least. Now it seems they’re picking up Danish cast offs, after releasing kioshima? It’s all very confusing, and I give them literally a zero percent chance of making the finals.
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