The Group Stage of the BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024 is over already – can you believe it? After just two days of non-stop CS2 action, we have our Playoffs teams, with two already being eliminated from the tournament. Curious about the last few days of Counter-Strike? We’ve got all the highlights here.
Astralis and Falcons take yet another L
Credit: BLAST
No matter the event, Astralis and Falcons just can’t stop taking Ls right now. When you look around at any Tier 1 CS2 tournament, it’s been these two teams near last place, neither proving their worth a spot at the table right now. The BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024 has seen the same result, with both teams crashing out early after losing their opening matches.
The individuals on Astralis were clearly affected by the ongoing cadiaN drama, with IGLs from all other teams protesting the new signing’s ability to play after the organization brought in as an “emergency substitute” from BLAST. It showed on the server. Badly. Against Vitality and Spirit, Astralis could only muster a single map win, with no one player managing to step up as this new roster flopped on their debut.
For Falcons, it was the same old story. Just not good enough from anyone. This is a dead roster walking. The players know it. We know it. Even zonic commented post-match about the clear need to make changes. Now, matches against NAVI and FaZe will never prove easy, but this was a rough watch by any standard. Realistically, we all know that NiKo is waiting in the wings for a 2025 transfer to Falcons, and there’s no one on this roster who showed during the BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024 that they should stay to play alongside the star next year.
Vitality and NAVI lock down the Semi-Finals
Credit: BLAST
NAVI and Vitality, the two teams that sat at the top of our BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024 power rankings, are in the Semi-Finals already. They’re the two in-form teams right now, and have shown no signs of slowing down in Copenhagen. Impressively, neither team has dropped a map yet as we move into the Playoffs. Considering these two teams are on the opposite side of the bracket, we’ve got a hunch that we’re already looking at our two Grand Finalists.
NAVI’s run started off against Team Falcons, and yes, you’d expect them to win that every time. They got the job done with ease, before facing G2 in the winner’s bracket. G2 played well, but huge performances from iM, b1t, and w0nderful made it impossible for the end result to be anything but a NAVI victory. It’s impressive that NAVI are showing no signs of fatigue, despite coming to Copenhagen right off the back of their ESL Pro League S20 victory.
Meanwhile, Vitality’s opener was Astralis. You can guess how that went, with Vitality even managing to deliver a 13:0 map to kick off the tournament. Considering the noise around Astralis, it was the sweetest type of schadenfreude. Vitality were able to follow this up with an impressive clean sweep against Team Liquid, with ZywOo sitting pretty at the top of the leaderboard, as you might expect. It was a great Group Stage performance from Vitality.
