Cloud9 & Imperial Secure BLAST Spring Final Positions
The BLAST Spring Showdown has just concluded and given us all eight teams set to compete in the Spring Final. Cloud9 and Imperial will join G2, FaZe, Heroic, NaVi, Vitality and Astralis in Washington, DC on June 7th battling for a prize pool of over $400,000.
However, it wasn’t an easy road to get there. As both had to take down three other teams in the Spring Showdown first.
Cloud9 and Imperial Qualify
Cloud9 were stunned by a momentum filled BIG in map one of their final series, suffering a 16-14 loss on Inferno. However, being BIG’s map pick, the Cloud9 roster of Abay “Hobbit” Khassenov, Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov, Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov and Timur “buster” Tulepov were not worried. They bounced back on Vertigo, and while they started the map losing the first half 9-6, they dominated their CT side, taking 10 rounds and tying the series with a 16-11 victory.
Map three in this series was a no contest, with Cloud9 absolutely dominating and showing that they definitely deserve their spot in the Spring Finals. Cloud9 took a 16-3 win on Mirage, taking 13 in the first half on their T side.
Imperial surprised many with the dominance of this final matchup, as they took down paiN in a 2-0 sweep. The first map was extremely close, with the first and second halves ending 7-8 in favour of Imperial, resulting in a 16-14 win on Inferno. This also saw a nice ACE from Chelo, and a monstrous 1.42 HLTV rating for JOTA.
Map two was a lot less competitive, with a 16-9 victory on Mirage securing Imperials qualification for the Spring Final. This dominance on Mirage was not surprising given that they have only lost it two times this year, a 16-14 and a 19-16. FalleN took over on Mirage too, putting up 23k/11d and earning a 1.61 HLTV rating for that map. Jhonatan “JOTA” Willian led the line with a 1.37 HLTV rating in this series however, and his roster of Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, Vinicius “VINI” Figueiredo, Marcelo “Chelo” Cespedes and Ricardo “Boltz” Prass secured their spot in Washington for the Spring Finals.
The BLAST Spring Finals take place on June 7-13, but the Paris Major RMR’s begin this week, and could provide some incredible upsets and great CS:GO action.
