The first S-Tier event of the 2020 CS:GO season is nearly upon us. BLAST returns with a new format for the upcoming year, introducing a three-part event that is set to give out $1,325,000 in total prize pool. The first part of their new tournament is the Regular Season, where 12 teams will fight it out for spaces in the Finals or the Showdown.

What is the BLAST Premier Spring 2020 Regular Season

The first stage of the BLAST Premier Spring 2020 is the Regular Season. Over three weeks, twelve invited teams will head to London, UK, to take part in three GSL-style groups. The top two teams from each group will head straight to the BLAST Premier Spring 2020 Finals, with the bottom two teams heading to the BLAST Premier Showdown, where they’ll be joined by another four invited teams.

The groups were drawn by the competing teams ranking their opponents. Those rankings were then placed into “seeding pots” from which the teams drew against one another until the three groups were filled. The Regular Season will offer $300,000 in prizing, with the Showdown offering another $325,000 and the Finals will hand out $750,000. The breakdown of the prize pool for each stage has not yet been released.

BLAST Premier Spring 2020 Regular Season odds

The odds below represent the outright winner for the BLAST Premier Spring 2020 Regular Season. For a complete list of odds, head over to our dedicated section for BLAST Premier Spring 2020 Regular Season odds.

BLAST Premier Spring 2020 Regular Season Teams Odds* Group A Liquid 1.751* FaZe 3.740* MIBR 7.390* NiP 7.890* Group B Astralis 1.400* Vitality 5.750* Natus Vincere 6.540* Complexity 16.990* Group C Evil Geniuses 2.230* 100 Thieves 2.930* G2 5.060* OG 8.470*

Group A: Liquid enter as strong favourites

The first of the three groups to be played sees Team Liquid act as the headline team. The North Americans ended 2019 like how they ended 2018 – with second place finishes. Liquid spent a large portion of the year on the top spot of HLTV.org’s rankings, until the second Major of the year where they were eliminated at the start of playoffs. For this, they also saw Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski, Keith “NAF” Markovic and Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken inducted into HLTV.org’s Top 20 players of 2019 list.

While not as prolific as their four S-Tier wins in a row, taking two second place finishes in three S-Tier events is not a bad record either. It’s one their opponents, MIBR, cannot claim to have. The Brazilians struggled throughout 2019, failing to reach the final of any LAN event they attended, let alone those in the S-Tier. Their highest finish was 3rd-4th, a placing they achieved four times in top level competition.

Group B features ZywOo, s1mple and device, who all at one point or another over the past year, laid a claim to be the best CS:GO player in the world

While Liquid’s roster has remained stable over the past year, MIBR has made many changes. Their most recent saw Lucas “LUCAS1” Teles head out, and in came Argentine youngster Ignacio “meyern” Meyer. So far, MIBR have played one offline event with this new roster, and it appears to be a continuation of the current form with a sixth place finish at the cs_summit.

FaZe are the third seeded team in Group A. The European mixture had an exceptionally tumultuous year, making five roster changes between May and September and constant rumour and speculation on further changes. Since September, however, the team has remained constant and an air of stability seems to have taken hold. In that time, they only managed to lift a title at the alternative format event BLAST Copenhagen, with their highest S-Tier finish being a 3rd-4th place at IEM Beijing. In the brief weeks of competition of 2020, FaZe have competed in online competition, taking a top spot in the IEM Katowice qualifier to book themselves a place in Poland.

FaZe’s opponents in the first round of the BLAST Premier are NiP, with their last competition meeting being a victorious best-of-three win for the Swedes. Similarly to FaZe, NiP did not have the smoothest of years, seeing a number of players come and go, including legend Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund who had been with the organisation since 2012. NiP's roster for 2020 has only just been finalised, with the final veteran player Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg leaving to be replaced by Tim "nawwk" Jonasson.

The Swedes failed to win any offline events in 2019, which is the first time that has happened since they started hosting a CS:GO lineup. They were also knocked out of the Major circuit, having finished 15-16th in Berlin. Their end of year performance was also nothing to shout about, having failed to qualify for the ESL Pro League finals and being eliminated from ECS in the Group Stage. A mild solace was found from their second place finish at BLAST Copenhagen, a result that marked their best for the entire year.

Group B: Battle of the top three players

Group B will see the headliners be HLTV.org’s number one team in the world and Danish powerhouse, Astralis. Despite a slow start to 2019, they finished the year off strong with three wins out of their final four events. The Danes also hold the most stable roster in the current active CS:GO scene, as by the time they play their first game they will have had their entire five man roster unchanged for two years.

Group C is one of the more competitive groups in the BLAST Premier Spring Regular Season with EG, 100 Thieves, G2 and OG all relatively evenly matched.

Astralis’ dominance in both Majors and top tier events in the second half of 2019 rewarded them with four placings in HLTV.org’s Top 20 player list, with Nicolai “device” Reedtz placing third, meaning he remains in the top five of that list for the fifth year in a row. Above him in this year are fellow group mates, Natus Vincere’s Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev and Vitality’s Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut. All three of these players have, at one point or another over the past year, laid a claim to be the best CS:GO player in the world.

As such, this group is set to be an exciting one. The opening game, Na`Vi vs. Vitality, will see those two top players in the world face off. ZywOo will be looking to cement his claim to that title, and considering his lowest LAN rating throughout 2019 was 1.14, that shouldn’t be a difficult feat for the French AWPer.

s1mple on the other hand is looking to reclaim that throne. In 2019 he’s been overshadowed by ZywOo, and hasn’t been able to pick up his favoured role as AWPer much in the second half of the year due to the return of Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács. Now the Slovakian player has been moved on, replaced by rifler Ilya Zalutskiy, s1mple could once again be back in his element. Expect fireworks as these two AWPers play for the first time this year.

The final team in this group are Complexity. They’re the fourth seed of this group, and unfortunately for them a win would look unlikely. They will need Benjamin “blameF” Bremer to perform a tactical masterclass to have a chance against any of the teams, let alone their opponent in the opening game – Astralis. Considering their recent competition results this year, two premature exits in online qualifiers, this will be a difficult task.

Group C: Competitive, evenly matched group

Group C is, arguably, one of the more competitive groups in the BLAST Premier Spring Regular Season with all teams relatively evenly matched. The opening games will see Australians 100 Thieves take on the predominantly French roster of G2, with Evil Geniuses facing OG in the other match.

Team Liquid ended 2019 like how they ended 2018 – with a number of second place finishes.

The Australians’ last outing was the ESL Pro League finals, where they were eliminated in the final Group Stage match in a 2-0 loss to eventual finalists Fnatic. This is despite strong wins over Heroic and FaZe. While 100 Thieves took the remainder of the year off after the event, G2 attended two A-tier events, cs_summit and Champions Cup, and secured two finals appearances and a trophy.

In 2019 the two teams played two best-of-three series against the other, with the matches shared at one a piece, both being 2-1 victories for either side. The notable caveat on this is that while 100 Thieves’ roster has remained the same, G2 changed two players which included a new IGL, Nemanja “nexa” Isaković. This means that, adding the significant time gap, G2 will play completely differently to how they played the last time the two teams fought.

With Evil Geniuses and OG, their match against each other at BLAST Premier will be their first meeting. Evil Geniuses are, unsurprisingly, the highest-seeded team in Group C and currently sit at fifth on the HLTV.org ratings. OG, on the other hand, have only played one offline tournament and are a brand new roster.

EG had blistering form out of the gates when they joined their new organisation, picking up three S-Tier LAN wins, before slowly levelling out towards the end of the year, with two semi-finals appearances instead. OG’s one event was a semi-final finish at cs_summit where they lost to eventual winners mousesports. OG have recently played an online qualifier, and were unceremoniously ousted by AGO in the penultimate round of the IEM Katowice open qualifier.

The BLAST Premier Spring 2020 Regular Season starts with Group A on 31 January, which will take place until 2 February. That will be followed by Group B between 7 February and 9 February, before concluding with Group C between 14 February and 16 February.

* Odds subject to change