Astralis rallied past BIG 2-1 and G2 Esports swept Team Liquid 2-0 in Sunday’s two play-in matches at the BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024 event in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Astralis and G2 earned the final two available berths to the Spring Final. They also won $12,500 apiece for finishing in fifth and sixth place in the tournament.
Sixteen Counter-Strike 2 teams competed this week in four groups. The four group winners Saturday — Team Vitality, FaZe Clan, Natus Vincere and Virtus.pro — advanced to the Spring Final in London from June 12-16. All matches were best-of-three.
Sunday’s play-in stage action featured matchups of the four second-place teams in each group.
BIG opened their match with a 16-12 overtime win on Vertigo, but Astralis knotted it 1-1 with a 13-9 victory on Overpass. The final map, Ancient, also needed overtime before Astralis eked out a 16-14 triumph.
Victor “Staehr” Staehr led the all-Danish Astralis squad with 60 kills on a plus-10 kills-to-deaths differential. Martin “stavn” Lund had 58 kills (plus-3) and Benjamin “blameF” Bremer added 54 kills (plus-10) for Astralis.
G2 defeated Liquid 13-10 on Overpass and 13-7 on Anubis. Nemanja “huNter-” Kovac of Bosnia and Herzegovina guided G2 with 36 kills and a plus-11 K-D, and his cousin, Nikola “NiKo” Kovac, put up 31 kills on a plus-7.
BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2024 results, prize pool
1-4. Team Vitality, FaZe Clan, Natus Vincere, Virtus.pro — $22,500, qualifies for Spring Final
5-6. Astralis, G2 Esports — $12,500, qualifies for Spring Final
7-8. BIG, Team Liquid — $10,500, qualifies for Spring Showdown
9-12. Team Falcons, GamerLegion, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Cloud9 — $8,500, qualifies for Spring Showdown
13-16. OG, Team Spirit, Complexity Gaming, Heroic — $5,000, qualifies for Spring Showdown
–Field Level Media
