It wasn’t completely smooth sailing, but FaZe Clan rallied from a second-round loss to win the next two straight and lock up Group C at the 2022 BLAST Premier Spring Groups event.
The double-elimination style bracket saw FaZe win in Round 1 19-15 over Team Liquid on Inferno, lose to Team Vitality on Inferno 19-15, then prevail in back-to-back wins over Liquid 19-17 on Inferno and Vitality 16-10 on Overpass in the group’s Grand Final.
That final victory assured FaZe a double bye into the Finals during the play-in stage, which will run from Feb. 3-5 with all matches best-of-three.
During the 16-10 win, three FaZe players finished with positive kills-to-death ratios, led by Estonia’s Robin “ropz” Kool, who finished plus-20 with 29 kills and nine deaths. Canada’s Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken finished plus-4, while Latvia’s Helvijs “broky” Saukants racked up 21 kills for a plus-6.
Vitality was paced by France’s Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, who had a 26-17 K-D ratio (plus-9) and will now be seeded into the semifinals round this week.
Ninjas in Pyjamas and Astralis join Vitality with first-round byes.
The other top seeds along with FaZe are G2 Esports and OG. Each team will only need to win one best-of-three match to qualify for the Spring Finals.
This is the initial phase of the Global Offensive BLAST Premier Spring competition. Twelve teams have been split into three double-elimination, best-of-one groups competing to qualify for the seeded Play-In Stage, which features best-of-three matches. At stake will be the top six spots earning berths in the $425,000 Spring Finals in June, with the bottom six teams falling to the Spring Showdown.
The play-in stage will kick off with three pairings on Thursday:
Complexity vs. MIBR
Natus Vincere vs. Team Liquid
Evil Geniuses vs. BIG
BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2022 prize pool:
1-3. TBD — $27,500, 2,400 BLAST Premier points (Spring Finals)
4-6. TBD — $17,500, 1,200 BLAST Premier points (Spring Finals)
7-9. TBD — $8,500, 900 BLAST Premier points (Spring Showdown)
10-12. TBD — $5,666, 600 BLAST Premier points (Spring Showdown)
–Field Level Media
