Blast Premier World Final 2022

[PupperChan]

Finally! After a year of tournaments from the winners of ESL Pro League to the most recent IEM Rio, 8 of the best teams in the world are specially chosen for their performance and ranking.

This year’s season will come to a close with the BLAST finale from 14th - 18th December held in Abu Dhabi where these teams will compete for a prize pool of $1,000,000 USD.

Teams that qualified by winning tier-one events throughout the year:

- NAVI (BLAST Premier Spring Final)

- Heroic (Fall Final)

- FaZe Clan (ESL Pro League Season 15 and PGL Major Antwerp)

- Vitality (ESL Pro League Season 16)

- Outsiders (IEM Rio Major)

Qualified teams from BLAST rankings:

- Liquid

- G2

- OG

MAP POOL AND CHANGES

This tournament will be the first ever to feature Anubis, a community made map as part of their new Active Duty pool that was added last month. This will also be played AFTER the cs go update which means… the M4-A1S and Awp has been nerfed! This will be game changing.

though, i wonder how many teams are bold enough to pick anubis

 

 

 

[steveo]

thanks Cool @PupperChangood insight

[Sumit]

Good Information. personally my favourite is FAZE clan. 

[PupperChan]

The M4A1S nerf is a lot more serious than I thought.

The damage got nerfed at range. Now in some scenarios when you’re at mid-long, killing an enemy now requires 5 SHOTS instead of the usual 4 assuming its all body shots.

As quoted from a pro player - 

Scrawny: "When you look at examples of positions that now require five body shots to kill, you really see the impact of the update"

Holy hell, now even at far range, a HS and 1 body shot will only deal 99 DMG.

For example:

 

Shooting from these spots now will put you and these pro players at a HUGE disadvantage. Not being able to finish your enemy off or you end up dying can cost the game.

The AWP’s change however isn’t too significant. From a magazine of 10 to 5 can slow you down during crucial moments but most times, players can go about the round using only 3-5 shots… however things can go sour if you’re being swarmed by multiple enemies or in a clutch moment requiring you to hit 100% of your shots. 
 

This certainly is bad for pro players because they’re always shooting through walls/smokes using the most of their bullets especially s1mple and cadian. This nerf just saved the lives of riflers.

[PupperChan]

Im looking forward to see how these awp players get so frustrated after being forced to reload for the VERY FIRST TIME in their career 🤣

[PupperChan]

Map Pool Addition Anubis replacing fan favorite Dust2

I'm sure many fans around the world are heart broken for the removal of the OG map, literally our childhood robbed right here.

Dust2 has been around for a long time in every counter strike game from 2001 until now. This was the map we always played on as it was a classic and a map we were most familiar and fond of. 

After the announce of Anubis, every single pro team has been busy finding angles and tactics in an arms race to find who will be able to utilize the map best to their advantage so it is unlikely we'll see this map being played much anytime soon. So far, many crazy spots have been discovered but all in all, the map was incredibly buggy. 

Despite being released in early 2020, there has been constant fixes but new ones kept getting uncovered. From broken terrains to absurd invisible walls blocking utility, there is still a lot of things that needs to be fixed before we see it in competitive play. Great!

With every new map, teams are required to adapt onto it quickly to win in unlikely situations and this will affect tournaments and match betting DRASTICALLY. We should expect upsets to happen during Anubis and big teams somehow get taken down after losing 1 map card, so... stay tuned for all the great odds that's likely to occur.

 

[PupperChan]

Well… not surprised there’ll be backlash concerning the team OG’s qualification for BLAST despite a largely disappointing year for them. I’m still saddened by the fact C9 or FURIA was ranked so low on their leaderboards deeming them unqualified for Finals.

Leaderboard: https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/BLAST/Premier/2022/Leaderboard

This is a major issue because it’s supposed to produce teams who performed the best this year without winning any major tournaments. Same cannot be said for these 3 teams, LIQUID, OG, and G2.

[PupperChan]

Basically, the point awarding system is so shit, 84% of what made OG qualifiable is them from group plays.

BLAST Leaderboard (top 15)

* Excluding teams who qualified for the World Final directly by winning at least one of the Majors, ESL Pro League seasons, or BLAST Premier Finals

1.  G2 - 6,625 points - Qualified (Partner)
2.  OG - 6,300 points - Qualified (Partner)
3.  Liquid - 6,212.5 points - Qualified (Partner)
---
4.  ENCE - 5,950 points
5.  Ninjas in Pyjamas - 5,100 points (Partner)
6.  Astralis - 4,700 points (Partner)
7.  FURIA - 4,350 points
8.  Cloud9 - 3,950 points
9.  BIG - 2,950 points (Partner)
10.  MIBR - 2,200 points (ex-Partner)
11.  paiN - 1,850 points
11.  Fluxo - 1,850 points
13.  MOUZ - 1,812.5 points
14.  Spirit - 1,625 points
15.  Complexity - 1,500 points (Partner)
15.  Evil Geniuses - 1,500 points (Partner)

It’s disappointing because OG is all in all, not a good team at ALL. They failed to qualify for many of the most competitive and prestigious tournaments of the year, PGL Major Antwerp, IEM Cologne, and IEM Dallas.

OG flopped out of IEM Katowice at 13th-16th place, left the IEM Rio Major in the Challengers Stage (17th-19th), and finishing last at the BLAST Premier Fall Final. The ONLY decent performance by them was at BLAST Premier Spring Final, where they made it to the semi-finals.

This event is made to crown the best team of the year but because its so flawed, BLAST fails to give great teams any chance to prove themselves and ultimately wasted a spot on OG.

[PupperChan]

 

WHO ARE THE FAVOURITES?

Outsiders will be entering the tournament as one of the heavy favorites after taking the win at the IEM Rio Major, though, the path they took was quite underwhelming. This time OUTSIDERS will face tough competition so expect a more entertaining match!

2nd placement at Rio, Blast Fall champions and ranked 1st HLTV is Heroic as the 2nd favorites.

However, there are still speculations and doubts of a unknown variable coming into the tournament with Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke as a stand-in for their star rifler Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund. This makes many doubt HEROIC will ever make it past 1st match.

[PupperChan]

Payout on Outsiders will be surprisingly low. It wasn't like this last time but they've grown so much now 😄

GL, I wont be betting on them tho

[Sumit]

25 minutes ago, PupperChan said:

 

WHO ARE THE FAVOURITES?

Outsiders will be entering the tournament as one of the heavy favorites after taking the win at the IEM Rio Major, though, the path they took was quite underwhelming. This time OUTSIDERS will face tough competition so expect a more entertaining match!

2nd placement at Rio, Blast Fall champions and ranked 1st HLTV is Heroic as the 2nd favorites.

However, there are still speculations and doubts of a unknown variable coming into the tournament with Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke as a stand-in for their star rifler Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund. This makes many doubt HEROIC will ever make it past 1st match.

Liquid also good..

[PupperChan]

1 minute ago, Sumit said:

Liquid also good..

This is based off bookmakers/officials opinion. I like NaVi and Liquid as the dark horse🙂 

I know Liquid is great but basing off individual form, there are many players that are better out there which puts Liquid pretty low in my ranking. I'm very worried for oSee and nitro since their performance hasn't been very good last month. oSee can pop off but nitro is eh.

[PupperChan]

My ranking for this tournament:

1. NaVi

2. Vitality

3. FaZe

4. Outsiders

5. Liquid

6. HEROIC (sorry, Idk about k0nfig yet)

7. G2

8. OG

[serjua8]

Ok, I don't know the subject but congratulations 

[PupperChan]

1 hour ago, serjua8 said:

Ok, I don't know the subject but congratulations 

what are you congratulating 😂 

[PupperChan]

(Day 1)  December 14

Matches

Group A: Outsiders vs Liquid 6 AM GMT

Group A: FaZe vs G2 9 AM GMT

Group B: Heroic vs OG 12 PM GMT

Group B: NAVI vs Vitality 3 PM GMT

[PupperChan]

30 minutes until OUTSIDERS vs LIQUID starts!

Will outsiders keep their 6 win streak or will it all end here? Can't wait to find out 🐒

[PupperChan]

Ok... Liquid is getting stomped on their own pick unexpectedly 

[PupperChan]

This is so sad for a first game of the tourney!

fame is going god mode!

[PupperChan]

I wouldn't say liquid isn't doing bad but because OUTSIDERS is doing so much better barely giving liquid any chance to take control. The utility usage and first picks by outsiders is so effective... this is a team that looks like its going to win another major.

[PupperChan]

GGs first map. Almost got to see one of the greatest comeback ever. WP to both. Unfortunate that Outsiders was at the top of their game this map

[PupperChan]

SURPRISE SURPRISE, GOING TO 3RD MAP and my prediction passed!

It was odd seeing outsiders make so many mistake but still, LIQUID was tapping heads like crazy. The confidence they displayed on their interview for Anubis was no joke and this is proof of the hard work they've done over the past months practicing!