OG come back to upset Evil Geniuses in London

OG have pulled off a fantastic comeback on the deciding map of a tough opening match of Group C at BLAST Premier Spring Group C against Evil Geniuses

Evil Geniuses found themselves having to come back from slow starts on each map, winning their opponents' pick, Inferno, 16-14 before dropping their Nuke with the same scoreline. It came down to Dust2, where OG put the final nail in the coffin despite an 8-14 deficit, coming back to win the decider in overtime.

The North American side step into the tournament with a tough loss in their first official match of 2020, which puts them in danger of elimination at BLAST Premier Spring as they will face 100 Thieves in a match for survival on Saturday.

The European side can rejoice, in the meantime, as the new team have taken down their biggest scalp yet in the form of the world's fifth-best squad following a top-half showing in the cs_summit debut last year, followed by a group stage exit at ICE Challenge in early February.

Evil Geniuses started out behind on Inferno, as OG capitalized on a forcebuy victory with a five-round streak on the offense, but the European team's early lead quickly dwindled away when Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte stepped up with a quad-kill followed by a 1v2 clutch.

By the end of the half, it was still Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen's men in the lead 9-6, and things began to look dire for the North American side when another second-round forcebuy win put OG in the driving seat. But this time, it was Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik who stepped up with a 1v2 clutch to swing things back in favor of Evil Geniuses, which gave them six in a row and eventually made the difference despite their opponents' efforts late in the map, as EG secured a 16-14 victory.

Nuke followed along similar lines towards the start as OG won four out of the first five rounds after retaking B successfully in the pistol round, but Evil Geniuses soon started finding gaps in the defense and went on a spree. It wasn't until 7-4 that the European squad found an answer, making it only a one-round deficit at halftime.

It turned out that that was exactly what OG needed. Their Terrorist side proved very strong early on, as they only dropped two rounds en route to map point — in part thanks to a 1v2 clutch from Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså on the lower bombsite —, and one more 1v2 from Issa "⁠ISSAA⁠" Murad helped them close out the game after Evil Geniuses threatened with overtime.

OG yet again started off the better on Dust2 on the back of individual heroics from ISSAA, valde, and Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt, but EG quickly caught up with a five-round streak as they began systematically gaining long control. The difference was just one round at the first half's close after the two sides went back and forth, with Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski picking up an ace and Ethan "⁠Ethan⁠" Arnold a quad-kill in the last two rounds.

tarik won them the second pistol round with a quad-kill in B defense, and this time EG won the following forcebuy battles, rallying to a 14-8 lead. The match was far from over, however, as OG found a way through the defense to start a fantastic comeback and the deciding map reached overtime. There, the favorites got the first two rounds on the board, but OG replied with four in a row to complete the comeback at 19-17, 2-1.