The second round of the BLAST Spring Showdown 2024 tournament was marked by surprises in the upper part of the barrage. SAW continued with excellent games and after Liquid they also defeated Cloud9, while OG surprised Heroic and came one step closer to the finals of the spring BLAST.
When SAW qualified for the PGL Copenhagen Major, they drew attention to themselves, and many wondered if it was just a short run of success culminating in a Major, or if it was a team that had finally reached its true potential.
Judging by the play from Showdown, it's clear that this is a team that can really handle quality opponents. After exchanging maps, they outclassed Team Liquid in the decisive third game of the first round, and then defeated Cloud9 without losing a map.
Rafael "arrozdoce" Wing played a great game again and it is increasingly certain that he will soon attract the attention of richer teams who will try to get hold of him, but the rest of the team also played at a high level, which was not the case with Cloud9.
The teams fought hard on Nuke, a map that was the pick of the Portuguese, and after two identical 6-6 halves, SAW managed to triumph in overtime with a score of 16-13.
Cloud9 chose Overpass, but SAW who started on the CT side fared better and took an 8-4 halftime lead, which they then turned into a 13-8 win.
The match between the OG and Heroic teams was marked by Nikita "HeavyGod" Martynenko and Lulian "regali" Harjau who achieved 1.68 and 1.42 ratings respectively in their team's great victory.
Whether Heroic is already heavily focused on the Major and they didn't prepare enough for the Showdown, or whether OG is simply in much better shape right now, we can only speculate, but the reality is that OG completely outplayed Heroic on both maps (13-5 Vertigo, 13 -6 Mirages).
On Vertigo, OG took a 9-3 lead on the T side and built up too much of a lead in the first half, while on Mirage they dropped just one run after a 7-5 halftime.
Today at 18:00 they will fight for a place in the BLAST Spring Finals, while in the second match for the passage, Team Spirit and Metzport will meet.
