Review of BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019

Surprising team

forZe

We cannot say that forZe has approached the championship, being one of the favourites. After completing their way at StarLadder Major 2019 at Challengers Stage, the audience treated forZe likelihood of success at the championship skeptically. Nevertheless, this team managed to beat ENCE, AVANGAR and play with a draw with NiP. Thanks to that at the third round, the Russians provided themselves with passing to the grand final. At the fourth round, the Finnish did their best to show good results at the match against Natus Vincere and successfully won over “Born to Win”. At the last battle against MIBR, they lost but it was useless as forZe were at the final.

At the final battle with AVANGAR, they made a battle for the Kazakh and took their pick, however, at the end forZe lost by the score of 1-2. The second place brought the team $50,000 as a prize, and this result could attract a lot of fans.

Participants that disappointed fans

Natus Vincere

NAVI became the main disappointment of the championship. In our opinion and according to other spectators, “Born to Win” were the main favourites of winning and they had to defend their status. This was also supported by the fact that this championship was the last for NAVI's captain — Zeus terminated his career after the match against NiP. It was a secret for everybody that all the players were relaxed and they could not show any good result. According to Zeus, he was just “sitting, taking pleasure in playing and trying”, while the other players “were not in a good mood”. They “seemed to want [to win], but they failed”.

Natus Vincere lost all matches except for one: at the second round, they were playing a draw with ENCE. Therefore, “Born to Win” got the last place and became the only team that did not get any win at BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019 instead of defending their status of the favourite. Moreover, NAVI was not able to win even BLAST Pro Standoffs, and Zeus lost 0-7 at the duel. At the last round of his career, he was cut dead by the Swedish GeT_RiGhT and this became a symbolic end of the career of the Ukrainian esportsman.

The majority of fans of Natus Vincere are indignant about the state of affairs in the team and they think that the managers should not limit themselves with the replacement of only one player.

ENCE

The Finnish team debuted at this tournament with a new player. Instead of Aleksib, suNny joined the team. Their performance cannot be called successful. The team took fifth place in the table of the group stage, having beaten only NiP, the Swedish team that is not in their best shape. Battles against MIBR and Natus Vincere resulted in draws and at the battles with other CIS teams, the Finnish faced some difficulties which led them to failure. To participate in BLAST Pro Standoffs, the fans chose NiP and Natus Vincere. The Finnish played five Bo1 battles and left the competition, having taken the 5 position. Their hard work brought them $10,000 as a reward and 2 BLAST Pro Circuit points.

In total, ENCE's performance can be characterized as “unsuccessful debut of the renewed roster”.

Teams performing according to their level

NiP

The Swedish team performed as it had been expected. The players could not make it to the grand final but they did not lose face either as it was done by NAVI. NiP beat Natus Vincere and AVANGAR at the group stage and lost their battle against ENCE and drew with MIBR and forZe. According to the results of Fan's voting, the Swedish team was chosen to participate in BLAST Pro Series.

It became a momentous event as GeT_RiGhT spent one of the last tournaments in his team — the managers are looking for a player who can replace Christopher Alesund over the longer term. By the way, he stood out as he was playing Zeus 7-0 and cut him dead at the last round as it has already been said.

As a result, the Swedish took the 3 place in the tournament bracket and got $25,000, bonus $20,000 for the won BLAST Pro Standoffs and 6 BLAST Pro Circuit points appointed for the bronze finalists.

MIBR

Performance of the Brazilians corresponded to the one we had been expecting. Recently the roster has got kNgV-, and it means that it was at least curious to observe MIBR's game. MIBR had draws with ENCE and NiP, beat Natus Vincere and forZe, and lost against AVANGAR. We should mark that the Brazilian team was the only one to win over forZe who surprised everybody.

Unfortunately for MIBR, the audience chose NAVI and NiP for participating in BLAST Pro Standoffs, but not the Brazilians who took the 4 place and got $15,000 and 4 BLAST Pro Circuit points. Maybe, at the next tournament they will perform in a better way, but they did not have time to get prepared for this tournament.

AVANGAR

AVANGAR became the second CIS team that made it to the grand final. The Kazakh became the only participant who players at the group stage without any draw. AVANGAR beat ENCE, MIBR, and Natus Vincere easily, but their efforts at the matches against NiP and forZe were not enough to achieve victory.

At the grand final, they had to fight with forZe, who must be the most threatening opponent of this competition. On the first map and their pick, AVANGAR got Overpass by the score of 16-13. On Inferno, they took 12 rounds, and forZe led their get to a draw. Everything got solved on Dust 2 where AVANGAR felt pretty good. The team had prepared this map and made an unpleasant surprise for their opponents. As a result, the battle there got finished 16-6, and the Kazakh became the champions of the tournament as it had been expected and got the main money prize $125,000.

Interesting fact: initially AVANGAR and forZe had to fight at the Bo3 battle defining who would make it to the main stage of the championship. Since Vitality refused to take part in BLAST Pro Series Moscow 2019, the organizers decided to send two Play-In participants to the group stage and as we can see it was not in vain.

At our preview, we said that we see two teams as our favourites: Natus Vincere and AVANGAR. If we were out of pocket with the first ones and they showed their bad side of both gaming and morale components, AVANGAR didn't disappoint us.