BIG rallied from a map down to win their quarterfinal match Thursday at the BLAST Premier Spring Groups event, joining MIBR and Natus Vincere in the next round of the play-in stage.
BIG beat Evil Geniuses 2-1 while MIBR swept Complexity Gaming and Natus Vincere took down Team Liquid, both by 2-0 scores. Evil Geniuses, Complexity and Liquid were eliminated as a result.
The three quarterfinal matches opened the competition’s play-in stage.
Last week, two teams were split into three double-elimination, best-of-one groups competing to determine seeding for the play-in stage, which features best-of-three matches. At stake are the top six spots earning berths in the $425,000 Spring Finals in June, with the bottom six teams falling to the Spring Showdown.
Evil Geniuses opened with a 16-8 win on Overpass before BIG dug down and pulled out two straight victories — 16-12 on Dust II and 16-10 on Vertigo.
Florian “syrsoN” Rische carried the all-German BIG squad with 62 kills and a game-best kills-to-deaths differential of plus-18. Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz added 60 kills. EG’s best player was Timothy “autimatic” Ta, who led with 67 kills and a plus-11 K-D differential.
MIBR’s all-Brazilian roster earned two narrow wins over Complexity, 16-13 on Nuke and 16-14 on Ancient, for the sweep. Raphael “exit” Lacerda led with 53 kills and a plus-21 K-D, Jhonatan “JOTA” Willian had 48 kills and a plus-17, and Matheus “Tuurtle” Anhaia contributed 44 kills with a plus-4.
Canada’s Justin “FaNg” Coakley had 43 kills for Complexity. Paytyn “junior” Johnson posted 40 kills, 10 assists and a team-best plus-4 differential.
NaVi defeated Team Liquid 16-10 on Mirage and 16-12 on Ancient behind Ukrainian Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev’s 52 kills and plus-20, both match highs. For Liquid, Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski had 45 kills and a plus-3.
The play-in stage will continue Friday with three semifinal matches:
Team Vitality vs. MIBR
Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. Natus Vincere
Astralis vs. BIG
BLAST Premier: Spring Groups 2022 prize pool
1-3. TBD — $27,500, 2,400 BLAST Premier points (Spring Finals)
4-6. TBD — $17,500, 1,200 BLAST Premier points (Spring Finals)
7-9. TBD — $8,500, 900 BLAST Premier points (Spring Showdown)
10-12. Complexity Gaming, Team Liquid, Evil Geniuses — $5,666, 600 BLAST Premier points (Spring Showdown)
–Field Level Media