BLAST Pro Series: Before the tournament

The tournament will start on November 2nd!

From November 2nd to 3rd, a rather unusual format of a tournament will be held - BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen. NAVI.GG.BET will be joining the fight on Tuesday, so let's take a look at what we can expect from it.

For this series, frequent change of venues for the tournament is a common occurrence. So, the BLAST Pro Series has already been stopped by Copenhagen and Istanbul, in December the championship will be relocated to Lisbon, and in the spring of 2019 - to Madrid, Sao Paulo and Miami.

The venue for the BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen 2018 will be the multifunctional complex "Royal Arena", which was opened in February 2017 and has already managed to host the World Ice Hockey Championship and the World Handball Championship for men. The complex accommodates from 12,500 to 16,000 spectators depending on the event. There are no qualifying stages for the BLAST Pro Series, so six teams received a direct invitation to the championship: NAVI, FaZe Clan, MIBR, Cloud9, Astralis, and NiP. The prize fund of the competition will be $ 250,000. It is worth mentioning that  SK Gaming (now  MIBR ) and  Astralis became the winners of the two previous BLAST Pro Series tournaments.

As we mentioned above, the organizers of the tournament tried to dilute the usual formats of the competitions with something new. So, Round-Robin will be the format for the group stage: each team will face each other once. The group stage will determine the top two teams to qualify for the bo3 grand final. No more group stages, and then - the playoff competition in their usual form!

Also, we'll be in for a special show match with an additional cash prize of $ 20,000. The team finishing third in the group will get to participate in it and have to choose the opponent among the three teams left. The format of the meeting will include five 1 vs 1 duels.

Now let's take a look at the group stage and at our opponents. On the first day,  NAVI has two matches scheduled - Cloud9 and FaZe Clan. Recently, the Born to Win played quite often against Europeans - and were quite successful, before the final meeting at EPICENTER: they prevailed in the regular season of ESL Pro League S8 (2: 0) and in the group stage of the same EPICENTER 2018 (2: 0). Unfortunately, in the grand final, our five failed to extend the winning streak and the champion title went to the European team. Hopefully, on Friday,  Natus Vincere players will be able to take revenge.

GROUP STAGE

Team	Wins / Losses	Rounds	Points
Astralis	0-0	0-0	0
Natus Vincere	0-0	0-0	0
FaZe Clan	0-0	0-0	0
Ninjas in Pyjamas	0-0	0-0	0
MIBR	0-0	0-0	0
Cloud9	0-0	0-0	0

But with the renewed squad of  Cloud9, our ways have not yet crossed. Recently,  fnatic members,  Golden and flusha were invited to the American organization. Furthermore, the departure was announced by a veteran of the organization Skadoodle, to whom the team is still looking for a replacement. At BLAST Pro Series,  kioShiMa will play instead. Of course, constant rotations of players could not but affect the results of  Cloud9: the team ranked eighth out of twelve in the ESL Pro League, although at ECS they're doing better and the Americans are in the playoff stage, ranking third after playing eighteen maps.

The second day promises to be more intense. Teams will move to the arena and will perform in front of the thousands of fans! In addition to the three remaining matches of the group stage, if everything goes well, NAVI will play the final match of the best of 3 on the same day. The first rival of our guys is  Astralis, which does not need a separate introduction. Besides, the Danes will play at their home turf, so the game promises to be difficult for the Born to Win.

Up next will be a match with the  MIBR, which, judging by everything, is gaining a good form and should approach the BLAST Pro Series in the optimal condition. In both online leagues (ESL PL and ECS), the Brazilian-American team performing successfully: they guaranteed themselves a place in the LAN-finals of ESL PL and almost completed a similar task in ECS. NAVI and MIBR played each other in September at the FACEIT Major, and that time our guys won the game without any problems (2: 0).

The  NAVI and  NiP encounter will complete the group stage. After the powers of the captain "Ninja" took over Lekr0, the results of the Swedish five improved: the guys finally got to the major and were a step away from the status of “Legends”, losing in the decisive match against  MIBR. However, afterwards,  NiP declined in their performance. At the moment, the Swedes are in the “basement” of the ESL Pro League standings table (twelfth place, twenty points). The situation is no better at ECS (places from the seventh to the ninth and nine points in the asset). Perhaps in Copenhagen,  NiP will transform and show a good Counter-Strike.

We hope that players of NAVI will be able to drop all the thoughts of a lost final against  FaZe Clan and focus on their successful performance on the BLAST Pro Series. We believe that Natus Vincere will fight for the champions title in Copenhagen and interrupt the series of failures of the final battles! #NAVINATION