OG outlast Evil Geniuses; qualify for BLAST Spring Series Finals

After struggling on their map pick, Train, OG bounced back in the series against Evil Geniuses and took a 2-1 series victory, qualifying for the Spring Finals in Moscow and sending their opponents to the BLAST Showdown.

The two teams met in the opening match of the tournament, when OG managed an upset victory after a marathon three-map game. On the second day, Evil Geniuses bounced back with a strong win over 100 Thieves, while OG fell to G2 to set up a rematch which decided the team to go directly to the BLAST Premier Spring Series Finals. In the end it was OG who came out victorious, while Evil Geniuses will join the likes of Astralis and Vitality at the BLAST Showdown.

Starting on the CT side of their opponents map pick, Train, Evil Geniuses claimed the pistol round win and won the first buy by stacking B, anticipating OG's push perfetly. Ethan "⁠Ethan⁠" Arnold's quad kill in round 5 extended his team's streak, and the match ver looking very similar to Evil Geniuses's dominant win over 100 Thieves earlier in the tournament.

As the score was 8-0, Mateusz "⁠mantuu⁠" Wilczewski was the only OG player to have more than one kill to his name, with his team coming close to getting on board in round 11 - but Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz clutched out the 1v2. The rest of the half was equally one-sided and Evil Geniuses finished it flawlessly, 15-0, but couldn't close out the perfect map as Issa "⁠ISSAA⁠" Murad's double in the pistol helped them avoid the 16-0. The international roster managed to grab four rounds, but that is where Evil Geniuses closed out Train with a well-timed B site push.

mantuu and ISSAA combined for OG's pistol round win and the international roster were set off to a good start on Mirage. After being down 5-1, Evil Geniuses went for a fast Palace approach which worked out perfectly, but they were unable to break OG who instantly replied with three more rounds. The same pattern continued for the rest of the half and Evil Geniuses found themselves swapping to the CT side 12-3 down.

OG overran the B bombsite defense in the second-half pistol and showed no signs of stopping on Mirage, quickly tying up the game 16-3 after Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen's UMP-45 triple kill in the final round.

Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt's quad kill, holding the A site with a Deagle, earned OG a force buy victory after losing the first pistol on Inferno, but Evil Geniuses were able to instantly bounce back with their own force and take the early lead as Terrorists (4-2). Some good play from Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså helped OG pull ahead, reaching a 9-5 advantage before Evil Geniuses grabbed the last round of the half by breaking into B.

Aleksib's swift Glock hat-trick gave OG the second pistol, but they were unable to break through their opponents' force-buy and Evil Geniuses built on that success, edging into the lead at 11-10. That was short-lived, though, as OG found weakness towards B and exploited it to get to 13-11. The North American side had to edge out three close rounds to keep their head above water, with both teams having almost no money in their bank at 14-14. NBK- and valde resolved the 2v2 after plant in that round and OG capitalized in the economy advantage to claim a 16-14 win and a 2-1 for the series.