Writes about way too many things. Has way too many opinions. Wants to tell all the interesting stories in the world.

Apr 11, 2019

The BLAST Pro series returns once more, the first time the event will take place on North American soil. Appropriately enough, one of the invite slots were promptly wasted on Cloud9. But what can the other participants do after they’ve clobbered the sky-blue outfit for the guaranteed points? We’ve gone through each team’s prospects and goals leading up to the event. Astralis – The Imperial March Nothing but total victory is acceptable to the world-conquering Danes, such is the level of dominance they’ve reached over the course of the last year. Having won three out of five BLAST Pro events to date – and a second-place finish at Copenhagen in 2017 – and taking down an astonishing eighteen out of the twenty best-of-one matches they’ve played with their current lineup in these tournaments, variance remains the only reasonable factor we can point to that could potentially line up against them.

Natus Vincere – A new beginning or a false dawn? Of course, there’s always s1mple’s X-factor, the best player in the world once again dazzling us all with an incredible clutch at StarSeries Season 7. The nagging question always remains about his supporting cast, but if Zeus and Edward can keep up the performances on display in Shanghai, the CIS side can finally give Astralis a run for their money – and it’s not like they don’t have history in this competition, denying the Danes a home-soil victory in Copenhagen. MiBR – The cracks are beginning to show Despite their impressive end result in Katowice, the reforged Brazilian roster has not managed to keep up with the standards they’ve set for themselves. Failing to make a mark in front of a home crowd at the previous BLAST Pro outing, they’ve also bombed out in the group stages in Shanghai and could clearly use a bit more firepower.