Heroic has won the BLAST Premier Fall Finals CS: GO tournament, defeating FaZe Clan in the grand final by a 2-1 scoreline. The win saw Heroic take home $200,000 of the $425,000 total prize pool, and FaZe took home $85,000 for second place.
The BLAST Premier Fall Final, a $425,000 CS: GO tournament, ran from November 23 to November 27 at the Royal Arena in Copenhagen, Denmark. Eight of the best teams in the world, namely Heroic, Natus Vincere, Team Liquid, and FaZe Clan were in Copenhagen to attend the event, fight for a spot in the BLAST Premier World Final in December, and grab the $200,000 prize money for winning the Fall Final.
The eight BLAST Premier Fall Final teams were split into two double-elimination format groups. The top three teams from each group advanced to the playoffs, with the group stage winners going straight to the semifinals, while the runners-up and third-placed teams played in the quarterfinals. All matches at the tournament were played in a best-of-three series.
The Grand Finale was one of the most entertaining CS: GO tournament finales in recent times. In map one, Heroic fought closely to win by a 16-11 scoreline on Overpass to kick off the final.
While the score may not look close, the first half was about as even as you can get, with Heroic walking out with a small advantage of an 8-7 scoreline. However, in the second half, they showed their mettle and proved why they made it to the final of the recent IEM Rio Major, beating Faze 8-4 to take the first map.
Map two was Inferno. Yet again, things started out incredibly close, with Heroic once again taking an 8-7 lead into the second half. It became even-stevens when the game went all the way to 11-11 before FaZe Clan could carve out a decent lead. Eventually, FaZe went on to take the map 16-12, off the back of some impressive plays from Håvard “rain” Nygaard and Robin “ropz” Kool.
Map three took the battle between the finalists to Mirage, where the eventual title winner would be decided. This was finally the map where Heroic managed to convincingly take the first half, securing an 11-4 CT side.
However, FaZe fired right back, taking the lead in the first five rounds of the second half to bring it back to 11-9. Heroic took the 21st round, but again FaZe mounted a comeback to even it up at 12-12. The finalists were pretty neck-and-neck, and the game went on to take two rounds each, jumping onto a 14-14 scoreline in this incredibly close map.
Incredibly, Heroic made a smart move and took the next round on a half buy, with the newest member of the team, Jakob “Jabbi” Nygaard, who made a massive play to secure the round and put Heroic on match point. However, it was not yet sufficient. It wasn’t enough for the team to secure the win then and there, with FaZe Clan forcing the game into over time (OT).
In the first half of overtime, Team Heroic secured the next round by putting themselves up to an 18-16 scoreline, meaning they needed just one more round to win the entire competition. But FaZe would not give up so easily.
The next round was chaotic, to say the least. Eventually, after a hard-fought battle, the Danish squad, Heroic came out on top to take the win in front of the home crowd.
The quality of action the home crowd got to witness at the BLAST Premier Fall Finals was fantastic, with every single playoff stage match going all the way to three maps. To add to the fun, both finalists came through group A.
Earlier in the competition, during the group stage, FaZe Clan gained an early advantage by defeating Heroic 2-0 in the group winner’s match after defeating OG 2-0. Heroic, on the other hand, had taken down NIP 2-1 in their first match of the competition.
The initial loss against FaZe meant Heroic had a much harder path to the final. In the quarterfinals, they made it past G2 Esports, with impressive 16-8 and 16-12 wins against Mirage and Vertigo, respectively, but suffered a 16-6 loss in map two against Nuke.
This raised many questions about whether they could find the form they had shown just a few weeks ago at the major. In the semi-final against Team Liquid, they seemingly looked better, taking a 16-10 win on Overpass and a 16-9 win on Vertigo. Unfortunately, they lost game two, but this time it was in an overtime classic that Liquid took with a 19-17 scoreline.
FaZe Clan had a much easier route to the final after topping Group A. This allowed them to skip the quarter-finals and jump straight to the semi-finals, meaning they only had to beat NIP to advance to the grand finale.
This was a closer match than many expected, with NIP taking the first map on Overpass with a score of 16-11 and then almost knocking FaZe out by taking them to overtime on Nuke. However, FaZe fought back to take Nuke 19-17, and then it seemed like NIP’s momentum was done, as the final map on Mirage showed a 16-8 dominance from FaZe.
The incredibly close action and top-level production have meant that the BLAST Premier Fall Finals have been one of the best CS: GO tournaments of the last few months. It was only made better when former Arsenal forward Nicklas Bendtner showed up to play in the exhibition match alongside the best players in the world.