In this special series of articles, Esports News UK’s coverage of the Blast Premier Spring Final 2024 is in collaboration with the betting partner GGBET UK
As the world’s best arrive in London, Reece Barrett previews the tournament taking the capital by storm.
What is the Blast Premier Spring Final 2024?
The Blast Premier Spring Final 2024 is Blast’s first big Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) LAN of the year, where eight teams will compete at Wembley Arena for a prize pool of $425,000.
The tournament is running from Wednesday June 12th to Sunday June 16th, with the playoffs being played in front of a usually-raucous London from Friday to Sunday. The Blast Premier 2024 Spring Final broadcast talent were also recently announced, including Brits Freya Spiers, Hawka, Hugo, Harry, James Banks and Jacky.
This is the first Blast event to be played in the English capital since 2020 and the first to grace Wembley Arena since the Esports Championship Series Season 9 finals in 2019.
Whoever wins the event will also receive a direct invitation to the Blast Premier World Final 2024, where they will join Natus Vincere and Team Spirit to compete for a share of the $1,000,000 prize pool in November.
Teams had two chances to qualify for the event.
Partner and affiliate organisations were first invited to the Blast Premier Spring Groups, where 16 teams were split into groups of four.
The winning roster from each group advanced to the Spring Final and the second place sides moved to the play-in stage, which gave the opportunity for two more teams to secure their spot.
All who failed to qualify then moved on to the Blast Premier Spring Showdown.
The ten losing teams from the Groups were joined by six regional cup winners.
Two sides were then able to qualify for the Spring Final by winning this online event.
Now that all the Blast Premier Spring Final 2024 teams have secured their spots, the eight teams have once again been split into two groups of four.
The winning team in each group will advance straight to the semi-finals, while second and third place will go to the quarters.
Fans will be able to join the festivities at Wembley Arena by visiting autograph sessions and other activities throughout the weekend (including more from our coverage partner GGBET UK – watch this space for more information).
The Blast Premier Spring Final 2024 teams
After losing back-to-back grand finals at ESL Pro League Season 15 and IEM Dallas, Team Vitality arrive with home-country hero William ‘mezii’ Merriman (pictured above).
Mezii is the only British player or coach competing in the event – after dropping two aces in Dallas the London crowd is sure to give him a loud welcome home.
With the Englishman in their lineup, Vitality have played two Blast LANs and been victorious in both – Vitality won the Blast Fall Final and World Final 2023.
Jake “Stewie2k” Yip led G2 Esports to a miracle win at IEM Dallas, but the American stand-in will not be in London as in-game leader Rasmus ‘HooXi’ Nielsen returns to action.
There was speculation online that the state side win could put HooXi’s position on the team in question, but coach Wiktor ‘TaZ’ Wojtas confirmed in an interview with players.com.au that the Dane would remain on the roster no matter the result of IEM Dallas.
World #2 side FaZe Clan will also be in attendance after a disappointing 5-6th finish in America.
The quarter-final exit to eventual winners G2 topped off a poor May for FaZe, who also crashed out in the quarters at ESL Pro League Season 19.
Successes at IEM Chengdu 2024 should not be far back in the mind though – FaZe beat world #1 MOUZ in April to win the Chinese LAN.
The European lineup is the oldest roster at the event – FaZe have an average age of 26.7 years old.
PGL Copenhagen Major champions Natus Vincere will also play at Wembley Arena.
Navi were knocked out of the group stage in Dallas and have not made the playoffs of a LAN event since winning the major in March.
World #24 Saw are by far the lowest ranked team in the tournament, and the only team in the event not ranked in the world top 10 by HLTV.
Saw qualified for the event during a run of red hot form in the early months of 2024, which also saw them make it to the Copenhagen Major.
They were agonizingly eliminated in the Opening Stage 2-3 after a last-minute loss to Furia.
The Portuguese side have not mustered up any strong finishes since the Major and were dumped out in 17-20th place at the ESL Pro League Season 15.
Decked out in their new limited edition jersey, Nicolai ‘device’ Reedtz‘s Astralis have acquired two team members since qualifying through the Spring Groups in January.
Benjamin ‘blameF’ Bremer was replaced on the starting lineup and Casper ‘ruggah’ Due has since joined as coach.
Astralis have played three LANs since the coach change and have reached the semi-final at all three – could London be the place they go one step further and win it?
IEM Katowice 2024 winners Team Spirit and world #9 Virtus Pro will also be in attendance.
GG.BET to run on-site activities
GG.BET, the Blast Premier Spring Final 2024 exclusive betting partner, will be offering attendees merch and esports team signing sessions at the GG.BOOTH this week.
A special GG.BET zone at the north side of the Ovo Arena Wembley will allow CS fans to snap some photos to remember the event by, and in the creative zone they can make a poster to support their favourite team with.
There’s also some merch available so attendees can stand out from the crowd.
There will be other activities going on at this spot, with a host and GG.BET brand ambassadors, as well as signing sessions with the teams.
Read more here: GG.BET to run on-site activities at Blast Premier Spring Final GG.BOOTH
First round match-ups at Blast Premier Spring Final 2024
Four best of three games will be played on Wednesday June 12th as eight teams are split into two groups of four.
In Group A, Astralis, FaZe, Na’Vi and SAW will battle it out for the three play-off spots.
Group B will feature G2, Spirit, Vitality and Virtus Pro.
To kick off Group A, FaZe will take on SAW in the day’s opening match – the first time these two teams have met in over seven months.
The world #2 were victorious back in October 2023 when they dismantled SAW 13-6 on both Anubis and Nuke.
Astralis take on Na’Vi next, and this will be the first time these two teams face off on CS2.
They last played at IEM Cologne 2023, when Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev still shined on Na’Vi and device had not yet taken the mantle of in-game leader.
It will be a clash of styles as the experienced leadership of Aleksi ‘Aleksib’ Virolainen’s Na’Vi takes on an Astralis side still fresh-faced after roster changes.
Moving on to Group B, and Mezii will play his first Vitality game on English soil as they take on Virtus Pro.
Vitality have never played against Virtus Pro with Mezii in their lineup, but the Englishman has lost to VP twice when playing for Fnatic and Cloud 9.
Finally on the first day, G2 will face Spirit.
The IEM Katowice winners have an average age five years younger than that of G2 (26.2 versus 21.5 years old), and Spirit’s inexperience has shown in recent high-profile whitewash losses to Vitality and MOUZ.
G2 could not come into the event with much more momentum – their victory at IEM Dallas was their first LAN win since IEM Cologne in August 2023.
The return of HooXi leaves question marks around how the European roster will perform though – will the reintroduction of the Dane slow down their start in London?
Esports News UK will be covering the Blast Premier Spring Final 2024, with Dom Sacco, Reece Barrett and Jonathon Yau on site producing content throughout the event, in collaboration with the betting partner GGBET UK.
Reece is a sports journalist who has previously worked with the likes of BBC Radio Solent, Southern Daily Echo, Salisbury Radio, VAVEL and many more. He is currently studying a degree in Sports Journalism at Solent University.
