Team Vitality scored a sweep while Evil Geniuses had to battle back from a 0-1 deficit, but both squads emerged victorious on the first day of the Blast Premier Spring Groups Thursday.
The two teams will face off in the Group A Upper Bracket Final on Saturday.
Winning 16-12 on Overpass to start, Vitality followed up with a 19-15 victory against Astralis on Vertigo to earn the sweep.
Lotan “Spinx” Giladi of Israel paced Vitality with 53 kills, finishing plus-13 in kills-to-deaths ratio. Astralis was led by Benjamin “blameF” Bremer of Denmark, who finished plus-8 with 51 kills.
Heroic grabbed the early lead against EG, sprinting out to a 16-7 win on Inferno. Evil Geniuses fought back to win two tight contests, 16-14 on Ancient and 16-14 on Overpass.
Four players finished with a positive kills-to-deaths ratio for Heroic in spite of the loss, with Casper “cadiaN” Moller and Martin “stavn” Lund, both of Denmark, each grabbing more than 60 kills. Geniuses were paced by the United States’ Timothy “autimatic” Ta and his 58 kills.
A prize pool of $177,498 will be distributed to the 12 participants in the Spring event, with $27,500 going to the top three finishers at the Spring Final later this season.
Winners in Group play are determined by a bracket head-to-head format, all matches being best of three.
Action continues Friday with three more semifinal games: FaZe Clan vs. Complexity Gaming and Team Liquid vs. OG in Group B, and G2 Esports vs. BIG in Group C.
–Field Level Media