OG move on to BLAST Premier Spring Group B final over Liquid

The North American side weren't able to claim revenge against Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković's men.

OG are through to the Group B final of BLAST Premier Spring after beating Liquid in the consolidation final, coming out on top over the North American roster 2-1 (16-12 Mirage, 8-16 Ancient, 16-10 Overpass) to set up a rematch against FaZe for a spot at the Spring Final.

OG secured a repeat win over Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella and company, who they had previously beaten in their opening match of the tournament in 2-0 fashion following wins on Ancient and Nuke. This time around, the European combine upset Liquid on Mirage, but were unable to close out Ancient and needed the Overpass decider to come through to claim victory. They will need to step up even further if they hope to defeat FaZe on Thursday at 15:00 , with Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's men already having bested OG 2-1 earlier in the event.

Liquid are not out of tournament contention quite yet, but will surely be kicking themselves after letting a handful of advantageous situations slip away throughout the series, particularly on Mirage. Two best-of-three series now separate the North American side from a spot in the Spring Final, with the first being a match against BIG on Friday at 18:30 . A loss would relegate Liquid to the Showdown, while a win would set up a Spring Final-qualifying series against the loser of the Group A final between Vitality and Heroic.

degster was the most consistent performer for OG in the series

Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis got things started for Liquid with a quad kill in the opening pistol round of the series, an advantage which the North American team wasted little time in converting into a 4-0 lead. OG put a halt to the streak with a combination of pistols and a saved AWP from Abdul "⁠degster⁠" Gasanov, a momentum-changing moment that was the catalyst in a strong recovery effort from the European camp. Seven rounds straight went the way of OG on the defense, helped by a spectacular ace from degster on the B bombsite, but Liquid pieced together three more rounds towards the end of the half to keep the deficit to a minimum heading into the side swap.

OG kept themselves ahead at the start of the second half, securing a pistol win and converting that into a four-round streak of their own to pull ahead, 12-7. Two of those rounds came down to the wire, however, and inspired little confidence in their ability to keep hold of their lead. Thus, when Liquid began to chain together round wins on the defense, the tides of the match seemed to have completely turned.

nitr0 and company looked to be firmly on the march towards victory and had OG on the ropes, but Maciej "⁠F1KU⁠" Miklas stepped up massively on an eco round, helping recover a 3vs5 situation by picking up a triple kill and 1vs2 clutch to deny Liquid the chance to tie the game. OG did not waste that opportunity and closed out the game just two rounds later, putting themselves at a massive advantage heading into their own map pick of Ancient.

OG got off to a better start on map two, recovering from a pistol round loss with a force-buy thanks to a triple kill from Adam "⁠NEOFRAG⁠" Zouhar. Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan took the reins from there, leading the way in taking a 5-2 lead for his side, but heroic defenses from nitr0, Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski, and YEKINDAR allowed Liquid to prevent a blowout. A double entry kill from NEOFRAG and quad kill from flameZ helped OG add two more rounds to their tally toward the end of the half, but that was all they could garner as Liquid just narrowly managed to pull ahead after finding their footing on the defense, 8-7, heading into the break. The second half offered much less action as Liquid quickly ran away with the game, with only one round going the way of OG as the North American team dominated on the T side for a 16-8 victory.

A pistol victory to kick off the Overpass decider allowed OG to take another early lead on the T side, with an early back-and-forth between the teams seeing the lead change hands back and forth. A relatively quiet performance from Josh "⁠oSee⁠" Ohm in the earlier portions of the series fell away as the American AWPer was the difference-maker for his side, finding multi-kill after multi-kill to help Liquid barely pull ahead, 6-5. OG found consistent ways to crack through the Liquid defense as the half drew to a close, posting eight rounds, with oSee gunning down four players in round 15 to keep Liquid in close contention.

The second half ended up being all OG, however, with Liquid adding only three rounds to their tally for the remainder of the map. NEOFRAG stepped up with strong impact to take the win over the line for his side, securing a kill in all eight of the rounds that OG won in the second half, and netting two or more kills in five of those rounds to boot. Liquid just couldn't find an answer to crack into bombsites and even conceded a 5vs3 situation to lose the map, with degster grabbing three kills to bring things to an end, 16-10.

BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2023Best of 3

OG

Matchpage

2

1

24th January 2023

Liquid

16

Mirage

12

8

Ancient

16

16

Overpass

10

OG	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Abdul 'degster' Gasanovdegster	63 - 41	+22	71.8	1.22
Shahar 'flameZ' ShushanflameZ	48 - 55	-7	79.9	1.04
Maciej 'F1KU' MiklasF1KU	46 - 47	-1	67.7	1.02
Adam 'NEOFRAG' ZouharNEOFRAG	51 - 58	-7	80.6	1.02
Nemanja 'nexa' Isakovićnexa	39 - 49	-10	57.7	0.86

Liquid	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Nick 'nitr0' Cannellanitr0	53 - 52	+1	77.0	1.10
Keith 'NAF' MarkovicNAF	49 - 42	+7	68.2	1.09
Mareks 'YEKINDAR' GaļinskisYEKINDAR	54 - 53	+1	73.4	1.05
Jonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiEliGE	48 - 54	-6	77.6	1.03
Josh 'oSee' OhmoSee	46 - 48	-2	57.3	0.95