Heroic secure spot in BLAST Premier Spring Final over BIG

The Danes are the fifth confirmed team at the Spring Final, with one more team left to make it through to the event in event in Washington, D.C. through the Spring Groups.

Heroic are through to the BLAST Premier Spring Final, which will take place in Washington, D.C., on June 7-11, after defeating BIG in 2-1 in the second round of the BLAST Premier Group Stage's knockout bracket.

BIG came into the series followin a 2-0 rout of Liquid with Karim "⁠Krimbo⁠" Moussa and Nils "⁠k1to⁠" Gruhne leading the charge in the first round of the knockout stage against the North Americans, but hit a wall this time around.

stavn came alive in the do-or-die match and led with a 1.37 rating

Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik and his men picked Vertigo instead of going with their trusty Mirage in the veto, which proved to be a costly mistake and Heroic cashed in on it to set the pace in the series.

Two hard-fought surprise rounds early on were all that BIG mustered up on the attack as Florian "⁠syrsoN⁠" Rische, who was missing against Liquid, had a lively start in the match. Heroic didn’t fret, though, and took control of the map on the CT side to put a 13-2 chasm between the two teams at the half. Swiss analyst Mathieu "⁠Maniac⁠" Quiquerez didn’t hold back between maps after the inevitable win by the Danes, 16-3, calling it "a violent loss" for BIG.

Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund, the tenth best player of 2022, took point on Ancient for his team, but his 1.29 rating and 22 kills weren’t enough to stop BIG from taking the map 16-12 despite the Germans not having played it since June 2022. The Danish youngster had gone missing in their first chance to qualify for the Spring Final against Vitality, but his Ancient revival transferred to the all-important final map of the match.

The series settled on trusty Inferno after the two wild and unexpected maps that backfired for the teams picking them, although it didn’t produce an exciting decider.BIG were put through the blender on the defense and Heroic smashed their way to a 12-3 half before scoring four out of 11 rounds in the second half to lock in a 16-10 victory.

Only one match is left in the group stage, pitting OG and Astralis. The winner will go on to the BLAST Premier Spring Final, where G2, FaZe, Natus Vincere, Vitality and Heroic are waiting. The last two teams of the eight-team event in North America will then be decided through the Showdown.

BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2023Best of 3

Heroic

Matchpage

2

1

29th January 2023

BIG

16

Vertigo

3

12

Ancient

16

16

Inferno

10

Heroic	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Martin 'stavn' Lundstavn	61 - 42	+19	92.3	1.37
René 'TeSeS' MadsenTeSeS	58 - 48	+10	72.7	1.17
Jakob 'jabbi' Nygaardjabbi	56 - 50	+6	78.3	1.16
Rasmus 'sjuush' Becksjuush	48 - 49	-1	75.4	1.09
Casper 'cadiaN' MøllercadiaN	46 - 48	-2	75.3	1.05

BIG	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Florian 'syrsoN' RischesyrsoN	59 - 48	+11	74.6	1.21
Karim 'Krimbo' MoussaKrimbo	53 - 50	+3	81.1	1.12
Johannes 'tabseN' WodarztabseN	47 - 57	-10	73.6	0.93
Josef 'faveN' BaumannfaveN	45 - 55	-10	66.8	0.86
Nils 'k1to' Gruhnek1to	29 - 63	-34	58.1	0.56