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OG dominate Group A of the BLAST Premier Fall 2020

OG are the champions of the BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Group A. The team took out Na’Vi and EG in their path to Group victory, with them missing out on facing NiP. The win advances them to the BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Finals in December.

How OG won

OG took the group by surprise as the team managed to take down Natus Vincere twice in the Group, once in the Upper Backer and once again in the Finals, and beat Evil Geniuses in the opening round.

The win against Evil Geniuses was quite the surprise, this is one of the only times a North American team has faced off against a European team all year long. Evil Geniuses was looking like the best team in North America for the majority of 2020. Although they have recently fallen off their pedestal as FURIA and the now-disbanded 100 Thieves roster stepped up and entered the last two Grand Finals of North American events.

The surprise here is that EG, even with them looking like the 3rd best NA team as it stands lost to one of Europe’s more beatable teams that exist in Tier 1 European CS:GO. The series went 2-1 to OG, with EG getting reverse swept after their opening win on Mirage 16-9. OG took Inferno 16-9 and Overpass 16-14.

OG came online on the final map precisely when they needed to

Moving on, OG faced Natus Vincere in the opening bracket. Surprisingly, OG got the win as they met the not so great version of Na’Vi. Mirage was a close opener with OG creeping in the 16-14 win, but OG took the reigns on Dust II and won 16-9.

The rematch in the Group A Grand Final was something else. Na’Vi got progressively stronger the more the tournament went on, especially after their long haul series against NiP in the Lower Bracket FInal earlier in the day. The likes of Na’Vi’s Denis “electronic” Sharipov and Egor “flamie” Vasilev woke up and the three pillars of Na’Vi’s fragging sides had come online. The momentum moving on from NiP to OG was scary, but OG was able to withstand.

The Final

There was a bit of a repeat in the opening of the Group A Grand Final. OG gave us a blast from the past with another 16-9 win on Dust II. However, Na’Vi had their own game plan on Mirage, and they won that 16-10. Both teams had somehow managed to take the win on the other team’s map pick, which made the decider on Nuke even more interesting.

While the last map was close, the scales began to tip in favour of OG by the half. Nuke is notoriously a CT sided map, but recent events have shown top teams are getting better at the T-side of Nuke. After losing the first four rounds of the map, OG managed to pull off seven straight wins on the T side. This is big momentum on Nuke, especially since the T’s won more rounds overall in the first half of the map. From there, OG had the advantage and managed to claim the map 16-12.

Just one of the many reasons why OG managed such a great T side

The biggest drawback for Na’Vi this series was the disappearance of both Flamie and Electronic in the final map. Electronic only scored a 0.72 rating, while Flamie fell to 0.88 ratings. The three pillars of Na’Vi had collapsed when it mattered the most, and Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostylie was not strong enough to keep the roof from falling down.

With the Nuke win, OG become the BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Group A Champions. Because OG and Na’Vi both made it to the Group A Final, they both head to the BLAST Premier Fall Finals on the 8th December. It was great seeing OG coordinate well with each other, with the likes of Mateusz “mantuu” Wilczewski having a great series with a 1.27 average rating across the three maps. The rest of the team on average scored between 0.98 to 1.09 ratings across all three maps, showing OG’s individual consistency throughout the entire series. It will be interesting to see where they go from here.

Stay tuned to Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch. Image via the BLAST

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CS:GO

ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe – Who made it out?

ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe is now halfway through with the Group Stages concluding 26th August 2020. The event has had a long group sage, with two groups going through a losers bracket round for 16 teams. With the dust settled, only eight teams remain heading into the playoffs. Let’s take a look at the story so far.

Group A Upper Bracket

Despite ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe being online, the magic of the event still exists. In a twist of fate, Sprout was surprisingly the first team to make it out of Group A. They beat teams like BIG, and OG to make it out of the group in the Upper Bracket. In both situations, Sprout was definitely the underdog in those scenarios. They somehow manage to compete against the world number 1 in BIG really close, winning 16-12 on Mirage then 19-16 on Nuke. The OG series was much closer, beating OG 16-9 on Train, then losing 16-13 on Mirage before winning 16-3 on Nuke. This is exactly the magic events like these can bring out in teams.

Read More: BIG exit ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe in joint last place.

On the other hand, Complexity had a great showing. This is a team that has been growing ever more slowly throughout the year, and this Group is a sign of their success. They began the event with a swift 2-0 over MAD Lions winning Overpass 16-3 then going 22-20 on Nuke. Then the surprise came against Natus Vincere, were they won 16-9 on Dust II and 16-8 on Nuke.

blameF showing how good Complexity are in 2020

Group A Lower Bracket

Moving into the Lower Bracket, Ninjas in Pyjamas had a storyline to follow. They too managed to beat BIG in the first round of the Lower Bracket and Na’Vi in the second round of the Lower Bracket. The big series finished 2-1, and NiP had to play catch up for most of the series. BIG won the first map on Vertigo 16-5, so NiP gave it their all on Nuke to win 28-26. Finally, NiP won Mirage 16-7. But the real surprise came from Na’Vi. NiP beat Na’Vi on Overpass 16-9 followed by a thrashing on Train 16-3. Both of these results are quite surprising, considering the talent in Na’Vi. Either way, congrats to NiP for making it through a difficult Lower Bracket.

NiP had a stunning performance against Natus Vincere.

OG had a relatively short run in the Lower Bracket after only fighting through one round against MAD Lions. As expected, OG mad quick work of MAD Lions with 16-10 victory on Nuke and 16-9 on Dust II.

Group B Upper Bracket

Astralis has come into ESL Once Cologne 2020 Europe with an almost brand-new team. The roster has two stand-ins with Lucas “Bubzkji” Andersen and Patrick “es3tag” Hansen temporarily standing in for sickness and leave. Considering the previous stand-in results for Astralis, these two players have put in work so far. Astralis dismantled Fnatic 16-5 on Nuke and 19-17 on Train. Moving on, they trashed Vitality 16-8 on Nuke and 16-7 on Dust II. Astralis has new life with their upcoming stars on their roster.

In the closest Upper Bracket Round yet, G2 Esports pulled through. G2 Esports warmup was against MiBR who they put to bed instantly. G2 won Vertigo 16-2 and Inferno 16-4. Their real challenge was against Heroic, which brought them to the edge. Heroic won Nuke 16-7, with G2 Esports winning Vertigo 16-7 and Mirage 19-17. Heroic was in the lead for the most part of Mirage but G2 pulled through (we think KennyS really wanted to watch the PSG Champions League Final match).

AmaNEK with the insane clutch to get G2 the round.

Group B Lower Bracket

The Group B Lower Bracket has the same level of excitement and disappointment as Group A. Heroic popped a NiP here by taking down Fnatic 2-0. Both Vertigo and Overpass went to Heroic 16-11. This is rather disappointing, especially with Fnatic being as good as they were at the start of the year.

Meanwhile, Vitality and FaZe had yet another amazing series against each other. Vitality managed to pull through 2-0 in the series, but the results were super close. Vitality won Dust II 19-16, and won Nuke 16-14. This is exactly the high stakes action we want from ESL Once Cologne 2020 Europe

Team Vitality had some great T side Nuke rounds.

With the Group Stages done, ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe continues with the playoffs. The remaining teams are competing in the playoffs from Thursday 27th August to championship Sunday on 30th August.

Stay tuned to Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch. Image via ESL.

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CS:GO

NiP eliminate BIG from ESL One Cologne

Ninjas in Pyjamas have eliminated BIG from ESL One Cologne Online – Europe. The Swedes survive the Lower Bracker Round One, advancing further into the tournament. Meanwhile, BIG can no longer have their 2018 dream avenged as they leave the tournament losing two different matchups against Sprout and NiP.

BIG Clan are one of the biggest teams in 2020. Their journey through the online era has been great for the German side. They continuously upset some of the major teams throughout the year and even came first-place finishes by beating teams like G2 in Grand Finals. Their consistent results meant that BIG began to reign in their own era in CS:GO, becoming world number one.

Coming out of the player break, it looked like BIG was set for another great online period. BIG’s first tournament back out of the player break was in DreamHack Open Summer. BIG emerged victorious, absolutely shutting down Heroic in the finals. With that momentum, it looked like they were set to enter ESL One Cologne still on form.

However, things did not go to plan for BIG. In the first round, they were surprisingly upset 2-0 by the fellow German side, Sprout. That series was super close, with Sprout taking the first map 16:12, while the second map was only won in overtime 19:16.

How NiP eliminated BIG in the Lower Bracket

In their next series, NIP faced BIG in the Lower Bracket. BIG started off strong, winning their first map of the tournament on Vertigo 16-5. The strong BIG we expect had finally turned up. Although that was to be their last great showing of the event.

Ninjas in Pyjamas began to wake up on the second map of Nuke. The Swedes’ CT side was not a desirable showing, but their T-side began to show promise. The game became tied at 10-10, with NiP snowballing themselves to 14 before BIG caught up. With a surprise, NIP secured their 15th with an eco round. Eventually BIG settled their CT side dominance on Nuke by tying the map. The game went on for several overtimes before NiP secured the win 28-26.

syrsoN kept BIG’s dreams alive in overtime but it wasn’t enough to get the win.

Mirage was the final map for the two teams, and NiP tore through their opposition. NiP had a few weak rounds straight out of the gates, but they found themselves returning to form. By round 8, BIG needed a call out, but it was not enough to slow NiP down. NiP ended the half 11-4. Moving into the other half, BIG found some life, but NiP closed the map and series 16-7.

With that result, the world number one exists their home ground event tied for last place in Europe. ESL One Cologne is the tournament of upsets and it is only day three. The BIG upset is surely the biggest one so far, but no doubt there are more yet to come.

Stay tuned to Dartfrog for all the latest news and analysis on CS:GO and follow us on our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitch. Image via StarLadder.