BLAST has revealed the schedule of groups for the upcoming grand finals of the BLAST tournament season, as well as which teams will fight at the very start of the competition.
Group A is headlined by Team Vitality who just won the BLAST Premier Fall Finals and showed that the slip in Sydney was a current weakness and despite the change in the team they are still extremely dangerous and capable of beating anyone.
CIS teams Natus Vincere and Cloud9 found themselves in the same group again, but this time, unlike the BLAST Fall tournament, they will not meet in the first round. Both teams showed good and bad sides during the last BLAST, but Cloud9 made the better impression, which is not surprising when you consider that they were shades separated from the victory against Vitality in the semi-finals, as well as defeating Na'Vi in a direct duel.
At the end of group A there is also ENCE, which is in an obvious decline in form since we switched to CS2, which they proved at the recently held Elise Masters, where they lost to teams HAVU and Apeks.
Taking center stage in Group B is G2 Esports, the current BLAST World Final champion and home crowd favorite who will have a baptism of fire at LAN with a new lineup. Nemanja "nexa" Isaković already made his debut for G2 at the CCT #5 tournament, where the team is slowly playing through weaker names, and it remains to be seen if they will manage to rise to a satisfactory level in the next ten days.
Their biggest rival in Group B will be FaZe Clan, the most dominant team in the CS2 era of counters, but also the team that will debut in a changed lineup, without Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken, who officially said goodbye to the team.
His replacement should be the player of the third team from the group, namely David "frozen" Chernansky from MOUZ. MOUSE will also be G2's opponent in the first round, and as HLTV unofficially learns, they have registered benched ninja Ludwig "Brollan" Brolin as the fifth player for the tournament.
At the end of group B there is Heroic, which still does not have a stable five and is forced to play with multiple changes, which is why it comes to the tournament as a complete outsider.
BLAST Premier World Final 2023 will last from December 13 to 17, with live broadcast on Arena Esport TV and YouTube channel.
Pairings and schedule for the first day of competition:
07:00 Cloud9 - ENCE
10:00 Team Vitality - Natus Vincere
13:00 FaZe Clan - Heroic
16:00 G2 Esports - MOUZ
