Heroic and Natus Vincere opened with wins in Group B and FaZe Clan won its Group C semifinal match on Friday at the BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Heroic swept BIG 2-0 and NaVi rallied to beat Astralis 2-1. Heroic and NaVi will face off in the upper-bracket final of Group B on Sunday.
FaZe beat OG 2-0 and will face either G2 or Team Liquid in the Group C upper-bracket final on Monday. The losing teams dropped into their respective lower-bracket semifinals.
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event began with a double-elimination group stage, with the field split into three groups of four teams.
All matches are best-of-three as winners of each group will advance straight to the Fall Final. The remaining teams advance to the seeded play-in stage.
On Friday, Heroic beat BIG 16-7 on Overpass and 16-8 on Inferno. Martin ‘stavn’ Lund led the all-Danish Heroic roster with 43 kills and a plus-12 kills-to-deaths differential. Karim ‘Krimbo’ Moussa of Germany and Mateusz ‘mantuu’ Wilczewski of Poland each had 31 kills for BIG.
NaVi fell behind Astralis with an opening 16-8 loss on Ancient but came back with a 16-6 win on Nuke and a 16-12 triumph on Overpass. Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev of Ukraine led NaVi with 61 kills and a plus-15, while Denmark’s Benjamin ‘blameF’ Bremer powered Astralis with 60 kills and a plus-17.
FaZe edged OG 16-14 on Inferno before a 16-9 win on Mirage sealed the sweep. Norwegian Havard ‘rain’ Nygaard led a balanced FaZe attack with 39 kills, while OG’s Iulian ‘regali’ Harjau of Romania led all players with 41 kills and a plus-13 K-D.
BLAST Premier: Fall Groups 2023 Final prize pool and points distribution:
1-3. $27,500, 2,400 BLAST Premier points, qualifies to Fall Finals — TBD
4-6. $17,500, 1,800 BLAST Premier points, qualifies to Fall Finals — TBD
7-9. $8,500, 800 BLAST Premier points, qualifies to Fall Showdown — TBD
10-12. $5,666, 300 BLAST Premier points, qualifies to Fall Showdown — TBD
–Field Level Media
