BLAST Premier Spring Groups viewers' guide

The opening BLAST Premier Spring event of the year will mark the start of the season for many of the top teams in the world.

BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2023 will kickstart the new Counter-Strike season after a month without LAN action. The Danish event will be live between January 19-29 and will host the 12 teams partnered with BLAST as they compete for six available spots in the seasonal Finals and the bulk of a $177,500 prize pool.

The latest edition of the tournament brings with it a new format entirely based on best-of-three matches and only two tournament phases. The 12 teams will be divided into three groups of four, where they will fight it out in a double-elimination bracket from which only the top-placed squad will guarantee their advancement. The remaining nine teams will be thrown into three single-elimination brackets from which the winners will qualify for Spring Finals while the remaining six squads will be relegated to the Spring Showdown.

HEROIC and G2 headline the Danish LAN as the top-two ranked teams in the world. Both squads will be looking to kickstart the new year in good form after a great end to 2022 in which the Danish squad lifted the trophy from Fall Finals while Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen's men brought home the trophy home from the World Final in Abu Dhabi.

Astralis are one of three attending teams that experienced roster changes since their last appearance at a tier-one event. Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander and Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth were reunited with Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz late last year with the aim of bringing back the core that conquered the CS:GO scene between 2018-2019. The lineup was also injected with some new blood as 19-year-old rifler Christian "⁠Buzz⁠" Andersen was signed from MASONIC to round out the squad.

Spring Groups will also host Daniil "⁠headtr1ck⁠" Valitov's debut with Ninjas in Pyjamas after the AWPer's move to the Swedish organization earlier in January to replace Patrick "⁠es3tag⁠" Hansen. The Ukrainian youngster is another product of the NAVI Junior project and follows in the steps of other graduates such as Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov and Andrii "⁠npl⁠" Kukharskyi into tier-one teams after their stint in the academy circuit.

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Jerric "⁠wiz⁠" Jiang will be another AWPer set to experience his debut with a new squad as Evil Geniuses decided to part ways with Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov and promote the 21-year-old American from EG Black. This will be wiz's first shot at a LAN tournament outside of Fragadelphia events, a difficult debut in a group with HEROIC, Astralis, and Vitality.

The team list for BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2023 is as follows:

The schedule will be:

Group Stage

Group A

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2023
19/01/2023	HEROIC 15:00 Evil Geniuses	Match
19/01/2023	Vitality 19:05 Astralis	Match
21/01/2023	Evil Geniuses 16:40 Vitality	Match
21/01/2023	HEROIC 19:10 Astralis	Match
24/01/2023	Evil Geniuses 15:00 HEROIC	Match
25/01/2023	Vitality 18:50 HEROIC	Match

Group B

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2023
20/01/2023	FaZe 12:00 Complexity	Match
20/01/2023	Liquid 14:25 OG	Match
22/01/2023	FaZe 15:00 OG	Match
22/01/2023	Complexity 18:25 Liquid	Match
24/01/2023	OG 18:20 Liquid	Match
26/01/2023	FaZe 15:00 OG	Match

Group C

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2023
20/01/2023	G2 18:00 BIG	Match
21/01/2023	Natus Vincere 12:15 Ninjas in Pyjamas	Match
23/01/2023	G2 15:00 Natus Vincere	Match
23/01/2023	BIG 18:20 Ninjas in Pyjamas	Match
25/01/2023	Natus Vincere 15:00 Ninjas in Pyjamas	Match
26/01/2023	G2 17:35 Natus Vincere	Match

Knockout stage

Date	Matches
BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2023
27/01/2023	Complexity 15:00 Evil Geniuses	Match
27/01/2023	BIG 19:10 Liquid	Match
28/01/2023	Astralis 15:00 Ninjas in Pyjamas	Match
28/01/2023	Natus Vincere 18:50 Complexity	Match
29/01/2023	HEROIC 15:00 BIG	Match
29/01/2023	OG 18:45 Astralis	Match

The talent list that will accompany the broadcast for the event has not been announced, however, BLAST has historically been very consistent with their crews. It is more than likely that fan favorites such as Freya "⁠Freya⁠" Spiers and James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks will be present on stage while commentating duos such as Mohan "⁠launders⁠" Govindasamy and Conner "⁠Scrawny⁠" Girvan bring the action from the server. Mathieu "⁠Maniac⁠" Quiquerez and Jacob "⁠Pimp⁠" Winneche have also been familiar sights on the analysts' desk at BLAST events and steady presences at top-tier tournaments.

The prize pool for BLAST Spring Groups will be $177,500 and it will be proportionally split among all 12 competing teams based on their final results. The top-six placed squads will also be rewarded with automatic qualification to the Spring Final while the remaining six will be sent to the North American and European Showdowns set to take place in April.

The prize breakdown is as follows:

1st-3rd - $27,500
4-6th - $17,500
7-9th - $8,500
10-12th - $5,666