The new rosters debuting at BLAST Premier Fall Groups

11-7-2023 17:14

NAVI going international, Vitality changing a piece from their Major-winning squad and Liquid's new European core are all changes to look forward to at BLAST Premier Fall Groups.

Group A will feature Vitality, where the legendary Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen, with his five CS:GO Major titles and 19 Major appearances, gives way to young blood. Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan will make his debut with the world's No. 2 team after impressing in OG for two years.

That group will also be a first for Ninjas in Pyjamas with Hampus "⁠hampus⁠" Poser back as he returns from half a year on the bench. Complexity will show off new star player Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski to try and carry the baton for North America, while Evil Geniuses will field their former B team around Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta.

Vitality

Before

ZywOo

apEX

Magisk

Spinx

dupreeh

After

ZywOo

apEX

Magisk

Spinx

flameZ

Ninjas in Pyjamas

Before

REZ

Brollan

headtr1ck

k0nfig

Aleksib

After

REZ

Brollan

headtr1ck

k0nfig

hampus

Complexity

Before

floppy

Grim

hallzerk

FaNg

After

floppy

Grim

hallzerk

EliGE

Evil Geniuses

Before

autimatic

Brehze

wiz

neaLaN

refrezh

After

autimatic

Jeorge

junior

Walco

HexT

Natus Vincere's addition of BLAST.tv Paris Major breakouts Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan and Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius with in-game leader Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen alongside Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy and Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev will probably elicit the most curiosity. They will meet Astralis in their opening match, now led by Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer with up-and-comer Victor "⁠Staehr⁠" Staehr and Johannes "⁠b0RUP⁠" Borup.

BIG's Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz and Karim "⁠Krimbo⁠" Moussa are now flanked by academy players Elias "⁠s1n⁠" Stein and David "⁠prosus⁠" Hesse, but the entry of Polish AWPer Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski into the lineup means calls will now go out in English. Their first round rivals, Heroic, are the same players who on the BLAST Premier Spring Final before the summer break.

Natus Vincere

Before

s1mple

b1t

electroNic

Perfecto

npl

After

s1mple

b1t

Aleksib

Astralis

Before

blameF

device

Buzz

gla1ve

Altekz

After

blameF

device

Buzz

Staehr

b0RUP

BIG

Before

tabseN

Krimbo

syrsoN

k1to

faveN

After

tabseN

Krimbo

mantuu

s1n

prosus

Group C's FaZe and G2 remain the same as in the first half of 2023, but the other two teams come in with big changes. Liquid, particularly, made headlines for going with a European core in place of their North American one. Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis's addition in 2022 gave way to the organization now deciding to sign Robert "⁠Patsi⁠" Isyanov and Aleks "⁠Rainwaker⁠" Petrov.

Last but not least is OG, who see the return of Nemanja "⁠nexa⁠" Isaković. Alongside Maciej "⁠F1KU⁠" Miklas, they are the only two players to have donned the OG jersey before. Former fnatic rifler Dion "⁠FASHR⁠" Derksen joins alongside ex-BIG player Nils "⁠k1to⁠" Gruhne, while AWPing duties will fall on the exciting Romanian prospect Iulian "⁠regali⁠" Harjău.

Liquid

Before

NAF

oSee

YEKINDAR

EliGE

nitr0

After

NAF

oSee

YEKINDAR

Patsi

Rainwaker

OG

Before

F1KU

NEOFRAG

flameZ

degster

niko

After

F1KU

FASHR

k1to

regali

nexa

Hype

2023-07-11 17:17

8 replies

yeee, why syrson and not HYPED?

2023-07-11 18:25

6 replies

Good q, wasn't he just benched and hyped still officially part of academy? But still hyped was part lf yhe active roster...

2023-07-11 18:56

3 replies

he was promoted to the main team and syrson officially benched

2023-07-11 19:15

no, both on liquipedia and on the article covering the BIG changes, it says he was demoted back

2023-07-11 19:19

1 reply

Aaah, right

2023-07-11 19:25

Elige on complexity is like Messi in Miami rly sad wtf dude

2023-07-11 20:27

I mean grim is great, hallzerk is pretty good, floppy has a high ceiling even though he's inconsistent, the roster definitely has potential

2023-07-11 21:28

G2 & Faze easiest group AYAYA

2023-07-11 18:41

EZ FOR NAVI

2 replies

EZ for AlekS1mple

2023-07-11 18:01

ez last place indeed

2023-07-11 18:45

Ez 4 Vitality

2023-07-11 17:18

5 replies

I feel like Vita (Org) is just a wolf waiting behind some trees for Magisk to perform bad to instantly kick him the second he throws a match

2023-07-11 18:48

4 replies

Just like they did with Dupreeh

2023-07-11 19:53

Nah they waited for dupreeh to perform good to kick him 👍👍

But like for real Dupreeh was one of the best players on vita versus Heroic mid-game. He was top fragging on his team for most of the mid-game, esp on Vertigo

2023-07-13 19:53

watched vita in major actually Magisk still perform really good and he can help to be 2nd caller, he has been done that in Astralis and maybe in some point can replace apex and vita add more younger riffler

2023-07-12 03:18

Tbh looking at these lineups, Vitality and Heroic are gonna have a layup for the finals

2023-07-11 17:19

or g2 again finally?

2023-07-11 17:28

Big vs Heroic in the finals. Mark my words, even if its just a fluke

2023-07-11 17:54

G2 and Faze are in group C. My wording was probably unclear, but when I said finals, I meant Blast Fall Finals since this is Fall Groups

2023-07-11 20:03

Ah ok, I have to take a close look at the schedule, thanks for clearing that up. Just popped into my head next to all the other roster moves. My guess was more that you didn't mention them because they did not really make any final runs recently, which would also be a fair point.

2023-07-11 23:41

couldn't have realize that without this article, thanks halflife tv!

I still can't process the Astralis roster moves.

2023-07-11 17:20

2 step forward with Glaive removal and Staehr addition 2 step backward with Blame IGL and Borup addition.

2023-07-11 17:23

I disagree a bit – in my opinion their only move should be swapping Buzz/Altekz for Staehr and then, if it doesn't work, trying to find a solution without gla1ve.

2023-07-11 17:35

What exactly cant you process? Role wise they got best players they could.

2023-07-11 17:43

b0rup?

2023-07-11 17:48

I've been watching CSGO for years and I'm almost positive that b0rup is not on the top level, even if he's solid as a support.

2023-07-11 18:36

Idk digging up b0rup over Altekz makes 0 fucking sense to me.

2023-07-11 19:12

Actually most looking forward to CoL.

Col is always interesting to watch. I would never bet anywhere near them though lmao

2023-07-11 21:26

vitality and g2 sure to make finals, other teams idk but would be nice to see NaVi do well with the international mix

Heroic ??

2023-07-11 21:29

idk i feel they will be underwhelming

2023-07-12 09:50

Nah man they were super good throughout the whole year and they made 0 changes which means no adaptation needed and their level will remain the same, maybe sightly worse because of break or slightly better because of reinforcement trainings, but they're the only team which will remain the same while all the others will have to adapt, try new things etc. Imo appart from vitality which changed just one quick role with an apparently op youngster, no one will be able to compete against heroic. Also I feel like Navi will do very great compared to what EVERYONE says, they have huge firepower, aleksib isn't that bad of an igl otherwise he wouldn't get offers from every teams, we saw it at the recent showmatches, navi has some real potential 👍 Sorry for the long comment

2023-07-12 17:08

Can’t wait

Super

Hyped was DELETED FROM HISTORY

2023-07-11 17:29

I hope OG can play relatively well, such a weird "expendables" type team. An underdog story is always great for the narrative

2023-07-11 17:33

pog champ

2023-07-11 17:41

Guys typo here in the BIG "before" lineup, it says syrson where it should say hyped.

2023-07-11 17:45

Calling in English now cuz of one players oof .

2023-07-11 17:50

If you’re talking about BIG, mantua speaks German as he came from the German tier 2/3 scene before joining OG.

2023-07-11 18:02

" The entry of Polish AWPer Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski into the lineup means calls will now go out in English. "

2023-07-11 18:04

He doesn't speak German, bet Germans generally speak adequate English

2023-07-11 18:30

But they do speak English...

hltv.org/news/36515/big-we-will-call-in-..

2023-07-12 09:38

i am curious about OG, NaVi, Liquid and BiG

2023-07-11 17:51

This year we saw the biggest shuffle ever

2023-07-11 18:08

Hyped for BIG, NaVi, MOUZ, Complexity, EG.

2023-07-11 18:23

My severe dyslexia prevents me from reading the bold titles in the ”news” tab, with this post i can finally understand the scale of this roster shuffle. Thank you halflife tv!

2023-07-11 18:24

If anything, it has made the event even more interesting.

Nobody cares random blast group matches

2023-07-11 19:21

I do care

2023-07-11 21:30

"Nobody" Otherwise, "you" don't care, and that's fine.

2023-07-11 22:30

ez for nip, rip navi

g2/faze/vitality will win

2023-07-11 18:46

Ez for EG

2023-07-11 18:58

poor dupreeh

2023-07-11 18:59

" but the entry of Polish AWPer Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski into the lineup means calls will now go out in English" What? The man came out of the tier 2 German scene, he surely speaks German

2023-07-11 19:16

Based striker with the facts.

2023-07-13 03:04

I don't understand why NIP doesn't bench brollan,or at least send him back to academy, I haven't seen 1 good match from him last season.

2023-07-11 19:48

This is the weakest “tier1” has ever been lmao Mantuu after years of afk, rainwaker and patsi LOL, borup in 2023, navi speaking English with useless aleksib and jl, and apex still hasn’t left vitality Next few months gonna be pathetic af

2023-07-11 19:57