MOUZ out in round one: BLAST Bounty RO32 recap
After four days of exciting Counter-Strike action, the first round of BLAST Bounty has come to a close.
There was a lot of CS to watch and some bounties stolen, so we thought we'd look back across the week's action.
Day one
We kicked off the event with FlyQuest vs MIBR, which saw the debut of regali with the Aussie team.
The Romanian made an instant impact, he had a +15 K/D as Flyquest shut down MIBR with a comfortable 2-0 victory.
We then moved onto 3DMAX vs HEROIC, meaning that we got our first look at a completely revamped HEROIC roster after the sale of every member of their previous team.
A much closer match, it saw the first Bounty of the event stolen as HEROIC pulled off the upset to overcome the Frenchman. 2-1 when all was said and done, tN1R particularly impressed in the series as he pulled off a monster 33-17 map one.
Photo: Michal KonkolThe big focus in game three was NertZ, the former-HEROIC star made his debut against 9 Pandas and had an instant impact with a top frag performance on Nuke.
His aim looked sharp, but so did the rest of his team, they took down 9 Pandas with 13-9 victories on both Nuke and Ancient.
The final game of the day not only saw the first game of the new fnatic roster, but also the first game of Train since it returned to the map pool.
Unfortunately for fnatic, they had to make their debut against Spirit, and the Perfect World Shanghai Major winners showed them absolutely zero mercy as donk began his 2025 with a blockbuster performance.
13-10 on Train and 13-4 on Nuke, fnatic were simply outclassed by Spirit, The Dragons showing that they haven't lifted off the gas one bit since winning their first Major trophy.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenDay two
We began day two with the return of device. The Danish AWPer was absent for Astralis at the end of 2024, missing the RMR for the Shanghai Major.
He shone in Astralis' dominant win over Wildcard, going 40-20 as the Danes put the hurt on the NA roster with a 13-8 on Inferno and a 13-5 on Mirage.
We then got our second bounty snatch of the event as BIG took down SAW 2-0.
Fueled by their new sniper, hyped, BIG dominated Ancient with a 13-2 scoreline, but required an overtime in order to take the series with a 16-14 win on Nuke.
Photo: Michal KonkolArguably the game of the first round came next, as NiKo and the new Falcons squad made their debut against a young ENCE team.
ENCE deserve their flowers for pushing Falcons so far, and the Falcons of 2024 may just have bowed to them, but the surging performances of NiKo and TeSeS were enough to snatch victory with two overtime map wins.
The final game of day two saw Vitality take on Metizport, ropz's first game with his new team.
As is to be expected, ropz shone in that match, but he was outdone by his new teammate, ZywOo. The duo combined for 91 kills in the 2-0 win, a promise of what is to come for Vitality in 2025.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenDay three
We kicked off day three with yet another bounty snatch, this time Virtus.pro getting the edge over Complexity.
A tough match for Complexity in their debut with their two new players, those new players both went negative as FL4MUS and fame starred for VP in a 2-0 win.
Next up we had Eternal Fire vs Fluxo, another win for a team with a bounty upon their heads.
A confident 2-0 win for Eternal Fire, XANTARES continued his fine form from 2024 in his first match of the new year, recording a 38-28 statline.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenThe third game of day three was another banger, contested between FaZe and M80. A 2-1 win for FaZe, it saw EliGE look impressive on his debut for his new team.
The American superstar went 47-41 in his first game for FaZe, but was outdone by broky who shone with a 57-41 statline. As for M80, their young star Lake was predictably strong, but it was their stand-in k1to who ended up being their highest-rated player with a 1.15 rating.
Our final game was a historic one, it saw NAVI take on Imperial fe in their tier one debut. A match no one knew what to expect from, we were treated to a highlight filled affair with clutches galore from both teams.
Although NAVI got the win in the end, it was Imperial fe whole stole the headlines by pushing the Ukrainian organisation to their limits. Ultimately a 2-0 win for NAVI, the 13-7 on Ancient and 13-8 on Mirage showed that Imperial fe are more than ready to break out of the women's scene.
Photo: Michal KonkolDay four
The final day of the first round saw GamerLegion take on paiN in its opening match. Both teams had undergone changes in the off-season, so there was plenty of intrigue for how those new signings would fare.
A banger 2-1 win for paiN, their new man dav1deuS topped the scoreline with a 57-51 statline. And, on the side of GamerLegion, both REZ and PR looked strong in their new colours.
We then went straight into another hard fought game, contested between FURIA and Nemiga.
A 2-1 win for the Brazilians, they put up a solid team performance to overcome one of the most dangerous underdogs in the competition.
Photo: Stephanie LindgrenThe next game saw the biggest upset of Bounty Season One so far as BetBoom picked up a huge win over MOUZ.
Another incredible match, MOUZ won map one 19-17, but were pinned back after losses on Nuke and Mirage. A promising start for a BetBoom team that had just picked up Boombl4 and Ax1Le, the latter looked back to his best with a 69-52 statline.
The final game, one that went into the early hours of the next day, was fought between G2 and B8.
A 2-1 win for G2 that began with them going a map down after an overtime loss on Ancient, the BLAST Premier World Final 2024 winners needed a solid performance from their entire team in order to keep themselves in the competition.
