After the CSGO summer break, the competitive scene is back to action with one of the most exciting European events coming up. The BLAST Premier Fall Groups is set to kick off on August 19 and will run through the 28th. This tournament is going to be very interesting to watch because many teams made very important changes in their lineups during the off-season. For example, Evil Geniuses made a few changes to their roster and this will be a perfect opportunity to test them out.
The $177,500 event will feature a best-of-one double elimination group stage to rev up the engines. After the group stage is over, every single team will advance to the Play-in stage, where their placement will depend on their performance during the group stage. The first placed teams in each group will await in the final games of the three gauntlet brackets, the second placed teams in round 2 of the gauntlet, whilst third and fourth will battle it out in round 1. The winners of each gauntlet will make the Fall Final.
The format also features a last chance stage, where the 6 teams eliminated in rounds 2 and 3 of the knockout stage will fight it out in 3 separate best-of-threes, the winners of which will also head to the Fall Final. The Fall Finals 2022 tournament is set to kick off on November 23, which will give the teams plenty of time to work out their issues. In the end, only 8 teams will have the chance to fight for a share of the $425,000 prize pool in the Fall Finals.
The favorite teams to win it all are FaZe and Natus Vincere, who find themselves in separate groups, and won’t meet throughout the event unless one or both fail to finish first in the group stage, which is very unlikely. The event will also be the first chance to see the new-look of G2, Vitality, Evil Geniuses and Complexity squads. Now let’s take a look at the full groups and the opening matches.
GROUP A:
- Vitality vs OG
- NIP vs Astralis
GROUP B
- NaVi vs Complexity
- G2 vs Team Liquid
GROUP C
- FaZe Clan vs Evil Geniuses
- Heroic vs BIG
From the get-go we can see that we’ll have very exciting matches on the opening day. Vitality vs OG is definitely going to be a banger where we’ll get to see Spinx make his debut under the Vitality wings. G2 vs Team Liquid is another must-watch as G2 hasn’t been able to put up good performances in quite a while now, and this tournament might be a good opportunity to turn things around.
There are only a couple more weeks until the Blast Premier Fall Groups 2022 and the stakes are very high so make sure to catch as many matches as you can!
