BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown is about to enter the Round of 8. The matches for this round are scheduled to take place on April 16th – 17th. In this article, I will take a brief look at the teams and their odds of success.
OG versus G2 Esports
OG made two important roster changes in the last few months, benching ISSAA and NBK- and bringing in niko and flameZ. It is not yet clear how these changes will impact their performance, but since they occurred OG had one match against Astralis. And they beat them without losing a single map.
Under normal conditions, this victory would be regarded as a clear indicator of OG’s strength. But unfortunately, given the fact that Astralis competed with a stand-in (Bubzkji replaced Xyp9x) and that gla1ve has been out of shape for quite some time, I don’t think it matters much.
G2 is far stronger than the Astralis defeated by OG. And since Ceb’s team has been recently put together (in its current format) while G2 has been competing as a unit for more than 6 months, I think it’s obvious that the French have a big advantage. Apart from that, G2 is ranked 13th while OG is only ranked 19th globally, which is another aspect to take into consideration.
Overall, my prediction for this match is a victory in favor of G2. The most likely score is 2 – 1.
Team Spirit versus Dignitas
The second match of the Round of 8 of BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown will be between one of the two CIS dark horses of the last few months and f0rest’s team. Normally, I would say that Team Spirit will almost certainly win. But the fact that Dignitas got to this point by defeating Team Liquid with a score of 2 – 0 really makes me wonder: are the Scandinavians much stronger than they appear to be or is Liquid simply awful these days?
Based on the results obtained by Dignitas in recent months, it’s quite obvious that they are now a tier 1 competitor. Because almost every time they play against a tier 2 team, they win with ease. But so far, this squad has not proved that it can defeat world-class opponents. And Team Spirit is definitely in that category. Just look at their results in 2021: 1st place at DreamHack Open January 2021 (Europe), 3rd – 4th place at IEM XV World Championship, and so on.
At the moment, Dignitas is ranked 28th globally while Team Spirit is ranked 9th. That’s a staggering difference. So even though I do have some concerns that Dignitas might produce an upset in this match, the statistics are strong enough to predict a victory in favor of Team Spirit.
FURIA Esports versus Gambit Esports
This is going to be a great rematch. These two teams met in the Group Stage of ESL Pro League Season 13. FURIA lost that battle but still finished the tournament in 3rd – 4th place, while Gambit finished 2nd. Both of these competitors are very strong right now but there’s a reason why Gambit is ranked as the number 1 team in the world.
The most likely outcome here is a 2 – 1 score in favor of Gambit.
? versus ?
The 4th match of the Round of 8 of BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown will most likely be between Team Vitality and Heroic. And that’s because both teams have easy Round of 16 matches, at least relative to their skill. Vitality is currently ranked 8th while Heroic is the winner of the recent ESL Pro League Season 13.
If everything goes according to plan and these two competitors will meet in the Round of 8, I think that Heroic has a big advantage.
