Complexity beat OG to join NAVI in BLAST Premier upper semis

A first-ever meeting between Complexity and OG saw the former team come out victorious from a three-map battle to join Natus Vincere in the upper bracket semi-finals of BLAST Premier Spring Finals.

Late last year the two teams were still in their infancy as they were locked in a battle for talent, with many of the players in consideration for both projects when Complexity looked into a complete overhaul while OG were putting together a brand new lineup under the Dota giant.

Having enjoyed moments of brilliance but also suffered through periods of mixed results, the two new international teams found themselves locking horns for the very first time a little over half a year into their existence, with nothing but one place in the rankings separating them.

Despite that, Complexity were the overwhelming favorites according to the pundits as the team with vastly more exposure as of late. It turned out that the on-air talent had been right to place their faith in the Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer-led side, but OG didn't go down without a fight, trading map picks to take the game to the deciding Nuke, where Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen's men made Complexity sweat for the win in spite of a lopsided start.

Complexity got off on the right foot on their opponents' pick, Train, as they put together a solid defense on the B bombsite and Owen "⁠oBo⁠" Schlatter complemented it with a 1v2 clutch in a dangerous anti-forcebuy. It wasn't until the seventh round that OG got on the board on the back of a triple from Issa "⁠ISSAA⁠" Murad on the outer bombsite and Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså's double entry into B.

Shortly after, OG destroyed Complexity's economy when a few rounds went back and forth, and the Aleksib-led squad clawed back to a 6-9 half. The effort was fruitless, however, with blameF's team turning around a 3v5 in a second-round forcebuy, seizing control of the rest of the map as they cruised to a 16-7 win on the opener.

Mirage followed with the roles reversed as Complexity won the pistol off a spectacular quad-kill from oBo but conceded the second round to Deagles, allowing OG to rack up an early lead on the defense. Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt & company kept the pressure up as the half progressed, not letting their adversaries win consecutive rounds as they rallied to a dominant 11-4 scoreline.

The comeback was on when Complexity found early success in the second half, with OG unable to find gaps in the defense until just one round separated the two teams. But then a couple of openings on A finally broke through, and Aleksib's side went on to capitalize on two more A splits to force the decider.

It looked like the series would come to an abrupt end when Complexity began to dominate on the offense of Nuke with nine consecutive rounds, in part thanks to two 2v5 turnarounds starring blameF and Valentin "⁠poizon⁠" Vasilev. However, with a bit of luck on their side, courtesy of a fumbled bomb plant from the Bulgarian AWPer, OG managed to salvage the odds with five rounds to their name at halftime. After conceding the second pistol, the underdogs went on to close the gap further, but the North America-based squad scraped by with the three rounds necessary to close the series at 16-12, 2-1.