In this special series of articles, Esports News UK’s coverage of the Blast Spring Final 2024 is in collaboration with the betting partner GGBET UK. Photo by Jonathon Yau.
With Blast-fever sweeping London this week, figures in the UK Counter-Strike community have given Esports News UK their Blast Premier Spring Final predictions.
Eight teams will grace Wembley Arena in the first Counter-Strike event to take place in the 12,500-capacity venue since 2019.
‘Faze will win’ – Emenjay
Caster and Granny’s Knockers co-founder Josh ‘Emenjay’ Martin bravely jumped straight to the point with his predictions.
Emenjay said: “[Winners will be] Faze – karrigan is the goat.”
“[Runner-up will be] Team Vitality – they love coming second at the moment, why not make it three in a row?
“[For dark horse,] although I think there’s no chance of them winning it, Saw were pretty insane in Spring showdown so I expect at least one upset from them!”
‘It feels odd to call Faze a dark horse but I don’t expect the bottom 4 teams to do anything’ – AN1MO
Freelance Counter-Strike writer and Insite host Sam ‘AN1MO’ McKenzie plotted out the tournament bracket and shared his thoughts on how the event will play out, beginning to end.
AN1MO said: “Looking at the bracket and how it should go without any upsets, you have to say Vitality. They looked strong against Spirit and recent form suggest they’re above Faze right now, I would be surprised to not see at them at least in the final.
“They’ll probably win given they should face Team Spirit in the final too. I think Astralis will top Group A and Vitality Group B, putting Spirit in line for a choke off against the Danes in the semis. Spirit will come out on top in that one, but I don’t expect them to perform in the final.”
The Insite ‘de_constructed’ podcast host struggled to name a dark horse, but managed to eventually settle on one by process of elimination.
AN1MO predicted: “It feels odd to call Faze a dark horse but I really don’t expect the bottom four teams in this event to do anything, especially if G2 are without their young AWPer.”
There have been rumours that G2 will have to play with a stand-in in London due to their young AWPer missing the event through visa issues, though at the time of writing on June 9th, it has not yet been confirmed.
AN1MO continued: “That leaves us with Astralis, who could break their semi final curse at Spring Final. stavn might be a choker, but we know from the Heroic days that he’s a Blast specialist, so Astralis could get their first tier one trophy since 2019 at the Blast Global Final.”
‘Vitality are coming in hot, with UK’s finest King Mezii’ – Affinity
The path to final is not so clear in ESL caster and epic.LAN host Leyna ‘Affinity’ McQuillin’s mind.
Affinity said: “It’s looking like it could be almost anybody’s game here.
“G2, now that m0nesy has managed to get his visa, are also a very likely contender for the trophy. It looked shaky for a while but with him on the roster things could be looking up.
“The outright winner I say has to be Vitality, they’re coming in hot, they have the UK finest’s King Mezii with them so they have the crowd and in the UK, a bit like what we saw in Paris, this can be a big deal.”
Affinity also looked to the recent PGL Copenhagen Major champions when naming a team to finish second.
Affinity predicted: “Runner up is anybody’s game but I’m leaning towards a Natus Vincere in second place, I think they have an easy enough starting group and this will kick their momentum into gear.”
“For the dark horse team I think it’s potentially Team Spirit, they always come in strong and are primed to win. Recently they have been stumbling a bit, but I think they are solid contenders for the trophy.”
‘Spirit boast a 66% map win rate against the top ten teams in 2024’ – Lion
Counter-Strike coach and analyst Nick ‘Lion’ Todd went for an offbeat but well-researched pick for his winner, listing Spirit as his champions.
Lion said: “Spirit boast a 66% map win rate against the top 10 teams in 2024. Most other teams attending Blast sit at around 50% or worse. This makes Spirit absolute top ten merchants.
“IEM Dallas cemented that we’re not quite living in the Age of Spirit, but Spirit are going to be facing six top 10 teams at Blast, conditions under which they’re the best team in the world. Heck, Spirit probably wish they were facing even more Top 10 teams to make their lives easier.”
For his runner-up, Lion pulled on a local connection and picked Vitality.
Lion said: “mezii, the UK’s only player representation in top tier CS, put up an EVP performance at IEM Dallas that dragged Vitality into the finals.
“The Ovo Arena Wembley is only 60 miles from the holy land of UKCS, Kettering. At that distance, mezii is sure to channel the energy of the nation and conjure the will of the people with another grand finals appearance.”
Lion
Finally, Lion backed up AN1MO and named Astralis as his dark horse.
Lion said: “Nicolai ‘device’ Reedtz is in his IGL era and we’ve all bought the outrageously priced tickets to the show.
“Astralis (device’s version) have looked good in the server but something noticeably absent has been victories over top teams. Despite wins over Faze, and a close defeat at the hands of Vitality, Astralis are yet to even face other elite line-ups. Blast is their opportunity to do so and sign off the last event of the season as anything but a Cruel Summer.”
Esports News UK team give their Blast Premier Spring Final 2024 predictions
Counter-Strike 2 content producer Reece Barrett took a fairly safe punt on the team who have won the last two Blast Premier events – the Fall Final and World Final in late 2023.
Reece said: “For winner I’ve got to go for Vitality. They’ve won every Blast event they’ve played with Mezii, and they’re bound to have a raucous London crowd on their side.
“I imagine they’ll play runner-up Faze in the final who will beat Spirit in the semi-final. Faze are always loved by the crowd but London won’t go against one of their own!”
Reece also followed a process of elimination for his dark horse.
Reece said: “Four consecutive semi-final exits, Astralis? Four?
“I’d say Astralis as a dark horse, but I think that they’ll meet Spirit in the quarter finals, who will just have too much quality across three maps. I don’t think that would make Astralis a dark horse, because a quarter final finish is really what would be expected of them at this event.
“So in terms of a true dark horse – as in a team who would outperform their expectations – I’m leaning towards Virtus Pro. Reaching the play-offs at all would be smashing their expectations, especially because they’re coming in without a coach after Dastan ‘dastan’ Akbaev was relived on his duties.”
“Everyone else in their group – Vitality, G2, Spirit – all have won tournaments since December 2023. VP come in after poor performances in Dallas and at ESL Pro League Season 15, but if G2 have no m0NESY, I think VP might just be able to scrape through the group stage.”
‘I think Saw could go far’ – Jonathon Yau
Photographer Jonathon Yau also threw his Blast Premier Spring Final predictions into the ring, naming G2 as his winning team.
Jonathon said: “G2 have always looked like a strong team after their recent event with Stewie2k, it will be interesting to see HooXi back in the team.
“Vitality [are] recently coming off a lost to G2 in IEM Dallas 2024 and they should bounce back from that loss [to be runner-up].”
For his dark horse pick, Jonathon followed suit with Emenjay.
Jonathon said: “Saw qualified from Spring Showdown 2024 in March and as first seed of Spring Showdown, and I think they could go far in this event.”
‘As we have only one UK player here, I’m rooting for him to win’ – Dom Sacco
Editor Dom Sacco also gave his thoughts ahead of the event…
“As we only have one UK player in this tournament, Mezii, I’m going to choose Vitality as my favourites for the Blast Premier Spring Final, followed by Team Spirit as runners-up following their amazing performance at IEM Katowice 2024,” Dom said.
“Then for a susprise package, I’ll go for Saw as I’m intrigued to see how they will get on in London.”
TLDR: Blast Premier Spring Final 2024 outright predictions
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.
