BLAST Premier schedule released, and these are the best games

The schedule for BLAST Premier’s Global Final is here, and fans are in for two days of matches that they won’t want to miss. After its annual winter player break, professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive teams are headed back to competition.

Starting on January 19, eight teams will face off against one another to finish off the 2020 tournament year. Astralis, G2 Esports, Natus Vincere, Complexity, Vitality, FURIA, Evil Geniuses, and Team Liquid start the double-elimination finals with $1,000,000 on the line.

G2 to take on FURIA as BLAST Premier Global Finals begin

BLAST released the schedule for the Global Finals on Twitter, revealing a list of matches that all look like ones fans of competitive CSGO have to watch. The tournament starts off with Astralis versus Evil Geniuses before  G2 versus FURIA on January 19. Both matches should be competitive, but the second game is the more interesting of the two. 

While it’s possible that Astralis could run down EG, FURIA’s matchup against G2 can go either way. The Brazilian team failed to show up against Na`Vi or Team Liquid at December’s IEM Global Challenge, but they’ve shown that they can bounce back from such losses before. With more than a month since the team’s last competition, FURIA will be well prepared for the first round.

Likewise, G2 should be much more settled after the break. With new addition Nikola “NiKo” Kovač having had time to adjust to G2’s style, this matchup will tell fans all they need to know about both teams, no matter who wins.

Team Liquid, Na`Vi rematch highlight BLAST Global Finals day two

Day two brings Team Vitality into a clash with a shorthanded Complexity. The North American organization has announced that Jakob “JUGi” Hansen will fill in for the sidelined Valentin “poizon” Vasilev for the tournament, leaving another potential blowout on the table for the tournament’s early matches. 

But following Complexity’s Wednesday matchup with Vitality is Team Liquid versus Na`Vi, a rematch from the IEM Global Challenge where TL dropped to the lower bracket thanks to Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev’s efforts. TL bounced back, gaining steam with 2-0 wins against FURIA and BIG to make the tournament’s grand finals.

TL might have lost to Astralis afterward, but Na`Vi was also eliminated by Danish team on its way through the upper bracket. With Team Liquid’s addition of Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo as the team’s dedicated AWPer, it should be test of both teams to see how well they can adapt.

The BLAST Premier Global Finals begins on Tuesday, January 19, with Astralis versus Evil Geniuses at 8:30 a.m. EST.