Astralis vs. Na'Vi: BLAST Premier Finals betting analysis

William Davis Published 07/12/2020

One of the last and biggest tournaments of the year is about to kick off with the BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Finals.

Not only will the best teams in the world fight for a total prize pool of $425,000, but the tournament will also start off with a banger of a match between Astralis and Natus Vincere on the first day. The two squads have been considered two of the best in the world for several years now and have both looked unstoppable at different points in 2020.

Astralis will enter the tournament after winning DreamHack Masters Winter 2020, where they once again proved that they are a force to be reckoned with. The Danes have had a tight schedule for the past few weeks, but will likely still enter the tournament with a lot of confidence and firepower.

Luckily for Astralis, they have a six-man roster, which gives them a bit of extra breathing room right before the winter break. Fans have been criticizing Astralis for not utilizing the sixth man Lucas “Bubzkji” Andersen in the previous tournament, but that criticism was finally put to rest when the 22-year-old rifler entered the server at DreamHack Masters and helped the team.

Na’Vi is coming into the tournament with a lot more rest, as they didn’t attend DreamHack Masters. The last time Na’Vi played was at IEM Beijing-Haidian, where they lost a devastating final against Vitality. The best-of-five final looked to be a secured win for NaVi, but Vitality managed to complete a miraculous reverse sweep.

The final might still affect NaVi as they once again hit the server, but hopefully, it’s out of the system so Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and co. can put up a fight. After all, Na’Vi has been performing great for a while now but with a little inconsistency. If Na’Vi manages to hit its peak level, then even Astralis will have a hard time.

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the key matchup will be the two AWPers s1mple and Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz. The two stars are pretty much rivals at this point and have been battling for years in some of the biggest finals in CSGO.

s1mple is the classic individual superstar that no one can touch when he is playing his A-game, while dev1ce is structured and very consistent in his play. Whoever hits the day of the two will likely be the deciding factor in this match. dev1ce has the advantage that the rest of his team can always show up to help him, while Na’Vi often relies heavily on s1mple’s performance.

dev1ce

Bookmakers favor Astralis against NaVi at BLAST Finals

A match between Astralis and Na’Vi is always hard to predict, but based on recent form and momentum Astralis is favored to take the win. Astralis is usually the more consistent team of the two, while Na’Vi can either blow an opponent out of the park or crash completely. The safe bet is Astralis, but there’s no question that Na’Vi can pop off and take the victory.

A win for Astralis gives an odds of 1.62 while a win for NaVi gives odds 2.12. A case can be made for either team.