With BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024 set to kick off in a week's time, the big news is that former MOUZ and Apeks player STYKO will be making his analyst debut at the event.
That said, we thought there was no better man to ask to give his favourites and underdogs for the event, which is set to kick off on September 25th.
We've got eight of the best teams in the world in attendance, so who does the Slovakian think will be most likely to do damage during their time in Copenhagen?
First up, let's take a look at STYKO's favourites.
The first time he identified as a favourite is Vitality, which is no surprise given that they find themselves as the world's number one team after their win at IEM Cologne.
The second team is the team Vitality defeated in the grand final in Cologne, NAVI. NAVI have been one of the best and most consistent teams across 2024, and they'll be determined to pick up a BLAST trophy this year after falling just short in London when they lost 3-1 to Spirit in the grand final.
"For me, two favorite teams in Fall Final are NAVI and Vitality. They are nicely separated in two groups, so I expect both of these teams to top their group.
Even when Vitality showed a bit of shakiness during EPL I am going to attribute it to the three week long break they had after they won IEM Cologne, so the rustiness is definitely there.
NAVI should in my opinion have no trouble getting to a good start considering they are playing Falcons in their opening match, and it hasn't been looking good for some time in Saudi camp.
Overall, I would give both of these teams around 30% chance to win the event, depending on the form of individuals on given days." - STYKO
Next, we'll take a look at the teams STYKO has highlighted as the biggest underdogs for the event, with one surprising inclusion.
The first team STYKO mentioned is Liquid, who have looked incredibly dangerous since the arrivals of jks and ultimate. They narrowly missed out on playoffs at IEM Cologne, so they'll want to avoid missing out again in Copenhagen.
The second and far more surprising team named by STYKO is Spirit, the winners of BLAST Premier Spring Final. Spirit haven't looked as strong recently given their early elimination in Cologne and not-so-convincing performances thus far at Pro League, but they'll still be a threat at Fall Final.
"The two underdogs are a bit harder to pick, but I want to give it to Liquid and Team Spirit.
Sadly, they face each other in the first round, but Liquid are surprising me for how well they are playing despite having a pretty recent rebuild in the lineup, giving IGL role to Twistzz, and I was also impressed by improvement rate of ultimate, especially on LAN.
Spirit for me are always there to deliver, they have a strategy to not attend every single big event, so when they attend one, they are more prepared and that usually turns into very solid performance across the board.
The only exception that really occurred was IEM Cologne, but so far, that was an anomaly, and I am positive that it only fueled the team to work harder and make sure those things don't happen.
For me, this matchup of a first round is for these reasons the spiciest one." - STYKO
If you want to see how STYKO's predictions pan out, the best place to do so is right here on BLAST.tv, make sure you're right here when Fall Final kicks off on September 25th.
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