The third day of the BLAST Premier Fall Final saw Heroic take on G2 Esports and Natus Vincere go against Ninjas in Pyjamas. It was do-or-die for all of these squads, with the Danish favorites, the CIS squad, and G2 on a possible redemption arch. Meanwhile, NiP were aiming to prove they can blossom under Aleksib.
The quarterfinals kicked off with the local heroes powered on wanting to play in front of the home crowd really badly. And they did not disappoint. Heroic won the first map convincingly 16:8, but G2 weren’t done yet, and the explosive start on Mirage turned the second map Nuke into another bang. Here, G2 managed to turn the series in their favour by one-upping their opponents with an even more one-sided score of 16:6.
NiKo and the guys had four pistol rounds in the bag, and on the third Vertigo, they won another one. The second half, and guess what? G2 won another pistol round! What did they do with it? Not much, as Heroic rallied and pulled it back with 10 out of 11 rounds to claim the desired spot in Copenhagen’s Royal Arena at 16:12.
Undoubtedly a lot of frustration for G2, losing the series with six pistol rounds won. On the other side, Heroic blew up with joy after closing the game, moving cadiaN to tears.
Following the match, Jabbi talked to BLAST.tv about the game and his excitement from playing in the arena: “I think we played some good CT rounds, we got information on B if they were on B, and then we all rotated. And I'm excited about playing in the Royal Arena because the other guys hyped it a lot, but I've never tried to play there. It’s in Denmark, so I hope we have a lot of people coming to watch. My family's coming, it's going to be a good experience.”
The next match should have been a one-sided affair, with NiP as the underdog and Na’Vi as the team to possibly win the whole event. However, the Scandinavian crew had other ideas. Looking like they are starting to click with Aleksib, they pulled out an exceptional T-side on Inferno. Everyone expected Na’Vi to mount a comeback, but they were quickly kicked off their horse as REZ led the charge to a convincing 16:10 win.
Mirage started with a BLAST as if Na’Vi remembered what they were favoured for. Starting with a seven-round advantage heading into round 10, it looked like a smooth cruise for them, but the CIS ship hit rocky seas, as NiP suddenly clawed their way back with their own streak. At 13:8, NiP ran out of momentum and let Na’Vi back into the map, who then clinched to matchpoint before the swedes managed to take it to overtime. Carried by s1mple, the CIS powerhouse made it across the finish line in the second overtime to win 22:19.
Overpass turned out to show that the Ninjas were up for a fight, while Natus Vincere looked baffled by their enemy’s performance. Halfway through the T-Side, the Scandinavian mix was already up 6:2, while the guys from the east couldn't resist Brollan and es3tag’s force.
Although s1mple gave his everything to keep Na’Vi’s hopes of Royal Arena alive, he couldn’t prevent the Ninjas from closing the thriller 16:10.
Hampus revealed what the atmosphere in the NiP camp was like during the match: “We had everything in our hands, and we knew we had it in our hands. We felt good and we knew that even though we lost Mirage, if we just play the same game on Overpass, we will get to win. And we just believed in each other, believed in ourselves. And here we are.”
●TEAM LIQUID
●HEROIC
●FAZE
●NINJAS IN PYJAMAS
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