BLAST Pro Series kicks off this weekend in São Paulo

The BLAST Pro Series kicks off 2019 in São Paulo, Brazil this weekend, where six of the world’s top eight seeds will fight for a main prize of $125,000.

With many of the competitors not having met since IEM Katowice closed it gates a few weeks back the São Paulo event is shaping up to create the benchmark for where teams stack up after the first trimester of 2019.

The lineup is as follows:

Astralis ENCE MIBR Liquid FaZe NiP

The Astralis and NiP met at the ECS Europe Season 7 Week 1 in the meantime for a best-of-two final where Astralis made quick work of the Swedes on Train (16:9) and Inferno (16:1) and secured their spot in the London finals.

ENCE played the ESEA MDL Season 30 and came out just short of playoffs last week losing to Vitality, Sprout and the Izako Bears in their last 3 matches. They are looking to regain form before this weekend and show its EZ4ENCE to everyone.

The home crew of MIBR made their way to the WESG CS:GO Global finals in China, where we predicted they would take the main prize. Unfortunately, they ran into a very motivated Windigo squad in the quarterfinals. The Bulgarians went on to win the whole thing instead.

Teams Liquid and FaZe saw the least action so far after IEM Katowice, with Liquid playing one official match as part of the ECS North America Season 7 losing to Rogue, while FaZe got two games in at the ECS Season 7 against Virtus.Pro and NiP before calling it quits.

We will have a chance to watch all six teams face one another in a round robin stage after which the two best performing teams will advance to the grand finale. The third placed team from the group stage will be given a chance to play a show match versus a squad of their choosing in a 1v1 aim duel extravaganza fashioned the “BLAST Pro Stand-Off” for an additional prize of $20,000.

In other fun news, European LEC host Eefje “Sjokz” Depoortere will be part of the caster talent crew at BLAST Pro Series for her first CS:GO event yet. This comes after colleague Frankie Ward hosted Week 8 of the European LEC for the first time a few backs.

Extremely excited and nervous to announce I will be the desk host for #BLASTProSeries São Paulo – my first CS:GO event on the desk. Very thankful to @BLASTProSeries for giving me this opportunity. See you soon BRAAASIIIIL and #SaoPaulo pic.twitter.com/AHb7cBDWLx — Eefje Depoortere (@sjokz) March 11, 2019

The first six matches hitting us Friday, March 22nd are as follows:

23:00 – FaZe vs. NiP @ Mirage

23:00 – MIBR vs. ENCE @ Train

23:00 – Astralis vs. Liquid @ Dust2

00:30 – Astralis vs. ENCE @ Dust2

00:30 – FaZe vs. MIBR @ Nuke

00:30 – NiP vs. Liquid @ Overpass

*All times are CET

Enjoy all the action at: Twitch.tv/blastproseries this weekend.