Wrapping up the opening day of the year’s penultimate BLAST event

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After a thrilling Major full of exciting upsets, there was a disappointing lack of surprises on the first day of BLAST Fall Finals 2022. Four matches were played, and all were won by the team most people expected to win. That being said, there were plenty of exciting individual games and lots of brilliant CSGO action, so if you missed out on the matches, here’s where you can find out what happened.

Group A

With only one team set to get eliminated from each group, going forward into the playoffs is easier than it would normally be for groups of four teams each. Group A contains FaZe Clan, Heroic, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and OG. Plenty of firepower on every team, but OG were undoubtedly the underdogs going into this, while FaZe had a lot to prove after a shambolic Major. NIP have been struggling for a while and are yet to find their groove, and Heroic, well, they’re still looking for their LAN trophy.

FaZe Clan vs OG

After the unilateral, absurd stomp that they subjected OG to, there’s no doubt that the former top-ranked team in the world is back. FaZe were absolutely scintillating as they all but toyed around with their opponents during a 16-3 evisceration on Ancient. Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, Helvijs “broky” Saukants and Håvard “rain” Nygaard were all on fire, and OG looked like they were barely even on the map.

Starting Mirage strong with five straight rounds, OG looked as though they would finally put up a fight. However, FaZe went on to take 16 of the next 17 rounds without dropping a beat to snuff out what little hope OG may have had. Once again, it was Twistzz and broky who led the way — although this time, Abdulkhalik “degster” Gasanov did very well for OG. 

Heroic vs Ninjas in Pyjamas

Heroic were clear favorites to win the Scandinavian showdown against an embattled NIP, but the first map didn’t go their way despite an exemplary 1.75-rated performance from Martin “stavn” Lund. For NIP, it was Fredrik “REZ” Sterner who led the way as the Swedes won Inferno 16-13.

Despite NIP’s promising start to the series, this was where Heroic completely took over. The exploits of Casper “cadiaN” Møller and René “TeSeS” Madsen rocked the Swedes as the Danes won Ancient in style. They took a ridiculous 12 rounds on the T-side of the CT-sided map, and quickly shut down any chances of a similar comeback from NIP to close out the match 16-6. 

Things went from bad to worse for NIP as Heroic once again subjected them to a 12-3 half while on the T-side. Jakob “Jabbi” Nygaard and cadiaN performed at godlike levels with ratings of 1.89 and 1.85 respectively, absolutely murdering NIP’s defense and proceeding to finish the game off at an unceremonious, insulting 16-4. 

Group B

It’s no secret that Brazilian team Fluxo, whom many of you might only have heard of in passing, is the underdog in this group. They may have dealt with stiff local opposition to make it this far, but this is the big league. That being said, they did pretty well in their first match all things considered, and might be able to surprise G2 in their Elimination Match. Both Liquid and Natus Vincere, meanwhile, will be looking to grab that hallowed direct Semifinals spot — and the extra cash that comes with it — after winning their Day 1 matches.

Fluxo vs Na’ Vi 

It’s hard enough to play Na’ Vi on any given day, and while Fluxo did have the small advantage of being the unknown quantity in the matchup, they were well beaten. The first map, Dust 2, was extremely close with the Ukrainians winning 16-14 after a tense war of attrition. For the winners, it was — of course — Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev who led the charts, but Adriano “WOOD7” Cerato deserves a shoutout for his performance on the other side. 

Mirage, However, was much more one-sided as Na’ Vi steamrolled their opponents 16-7 after picking up a whopping 10 rounds on the T-side. Both Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi and s1mple were in excellent form, but despite his team’s underperformance, João “felps” Vasconcellos stood out with an excellent turn. 

G2 vs Team Liquid

Arguably the most eagerly-anticipated match of the day, Liquid began the series with a 16-10 triumph on Vertigo. This was a game with nine players and one demigod, because Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski was on a whole other level as he put up a performance with an HLTV rating of 1.99. In contrast, the next-best player on the map was his teammate Keith “NAF” Markovic with a rating of 1.17. A scintillating from one of CSGO’s greatest.

Mirage was a much closer affair, and this time it was Mareks “YEKINDAR” Gaļinskis who came to Liquid’s rescue at the worst of times to give them a 16-14 win which included 4 consecutive retakes from 14-12 down. On the G2 side, Nikola “NiKo” Kovač was brilliant, but not quite classic NiKo, who would undoubtedly have won the game for his team.