Now that the major is out of the way and Astralis were once again confirmed to be the best-ever CS:GO side, the third-party tournament scene is ready to kick into the high gears once more. The fifth installation of the BLAST Pro Series will take six of the top Counter-Strike sides to São Paulo, Brazil, pitting them against each other in an explosive round-robin event where the also-rans have perhaps the best chance to dent the Danes’ credibility with a win.
What Is The BLAST Pro Series CSGO Tournament?
The BLAST Pro Series is a fairly recent addition to the Counter-Strike scene. Organized by RFRSH, a company representing and running the strategic and commercial operations for Astralis. It is a six-team invitational with a $250 000 prize pool and a unique format featuring a round-robin group stage with best-of-one games.
The matches of each round are played simultaneously in a LAN arena, providing spectators with a constant flow of action and a guaranteed chance to watch their favorite sides. Once the group stage is over, the top two teams advance to the best-of-three grand finals with the third-placed side choosing one of the remaining participants to challenge for a bonus showmatch known as the BLAST Pro Standoff.
CSGO Gameplay – Map And Role Selection
This is played on a custom aim map with five 1v1 first-to-seven duels played by the different players, each pair facing each other with a different weapon. Which player should participate in the AWP round and who would be better off with the CZ75? Correct answers to these questions will get you closer to the $20 000 bonus prize.
While this basically makes it impossible for the viewers from home to watch the entirety of the event due to the simultaneous nature of the games, it makes the BLAST Pro Series one of the few LAN tournaments where the people in the stadium are treated as a priority instead of an afterthought.
CSGO BLAST Pro Series Prize
In any case, the decent prize pool and the prestige of the invited teams make these worthwhile events to follow on the CS:GO calendar even if you do need to pick and choose which games – or teams – to pay attention to. All six participants made it to the New Legends Stage of the recently concluded Katowice major, which is likely the reason behind ENCE’s surprise appearance, guaranteeing top-tier high-stakes Counter-Strike to watch.
Most Likely Teams To Win BLAST Pro Series
While the best-of-one matches leading up to the final would seemingly imply a higher-variance event, the eventual victors were always one of the usual suspects so far. Astralis have two wins to their name in the BLAST Pro circuit while Na’Vi and SK Gaming have one each.
In fact, the same teams were also the runners-up in three of the four events to date, with NiP’s second-place finish in Copenhagen proving to be the only real outlier so far. The Ninjas are considered the least likely to make it to the finals this time around according to the bookies (+750) – interestingly enough, ENCE are considered to be more likely to get there than Faze (+275 and +300 respectively). Are Astralis so good that a -400 bet for their eventual victory is worth a value consideration? Maybe let’s not go that far.
Future BLAST Pro Series Tournaments
The BLAST Pro machine won’t be stopping anytime soon: the next two events are already confirmed for Miami and Madrid in April and May respectively, which seems to indicate that the organizers are interested in turning this into a monthly spectacle around the world.
Team Odds To Win The BLAST Pro Series Tournament In São Paulo
Several online sports betting sites favor Astralis to win during the São Paulo BLAST Pro Series tournament. The most important fact to take away from these odds is that sportsbook can also make mistakes and if you have been following the teams’ roasters and have some kind of knowledge, that gives you an advantage for a great bet!
Check the odds out and be mindful of your own expertise in order to get the most out of your betting experience. We got several strategy articles that can help you before your dip your toes into the betting world!
| CSGO BLAST Pro Series São Paulo | |
| Team | Odds To Win Tournament |
| Astralis | -150 |
| Liquid | +450 |
| MiBR | +650 |
| ENCE | +1000 |
| FaZe | +1200 |
| Ninjas In Pyjamas | +2500 |
BLAST Pro Series – Best Teams To Follow In São Paulo
Astralis – The Giant Team To Beat
Can anyone stop Astralis? – Obviously, this is the big one. It may have seemed like the Danes could be taking a step back in intensity after their stellar (pun intended) 2018, especially after they lost to perennial whipping boys Team Liquid at iBUYPOWER Masters IV, the first LAN of the calendar year. Astralis appearing at the Katowice major was perhaps the best to date, and it’s not just because of how easily they’ve dispatched ENCE in the final, but also because they’ve only dropped a single map throughout the entire event.
Astralis has continued to rack up record after record and generally seem to be out of sight for the competition. And yet, they stumbled a few times at the BLAST Pro events and cut it close even when they managed to win it. This could be one of the better chances for the competition to inflict some damage to them, the Danish juggernauts, and if the team continues to highly perform, this might be one of those chances in a long time.
Faze Clan VS MiBR – Hottest Match
In a way, both FaZe Clan and MiBR are in the middle of a transition period, and so far it seems like the two elite sides are moving in very different directions: NiKo seems to have successfully completed a takeover of FaZe by ousting karrigan and taking over the IGL mantle, but the results are still lacking. Tactically, the team has clearly regressed and even the recent, reduced set of accomplishments like the narrow top-eight finish at Katowice was achieved because of Bosnian’s stellar individual capabilities instead of team work.
Meanwhile, MiBR finally returned to their roots in more ways than one, reuniting the old world-conquering all-Brazilian lineup and adding zews as a coach last December. The Katowice major was their first official event together, and despite their shocking loss to Cloud9 in the opening round, they’ve grown into the event and ended up as worthy semi-finalists, giving Astralis a very good game on Overpass.
The FaZe-MiBR matchup also has the additional spicy subplot of YNk’s return: the star analyst’s first coaching role with the Brazilians has not worked out the way he would have wanted it, and he’ll no doubt be hungry to one-up them both in their group stage match and the overall standings.
ENCE VS NiP – Elite Match
ENCE & NiP – Two teams clearly punched above their weight at the Katowice major: ENCE with their miraculous run to the finals and NiP with their return to the New Legends Stage.
It’s tough to determine how much of an outlier these performances were by the Finns and the Swedes – BLAST Pro Series: São Paulo 2019 will give us yet another chance to gauge how well they match up against the top dogs, especially in this format where they’re guaranteed to play everyone else.
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About the Author
Alonzo Solano
Sports Analyst and Content Writer
Alonzo is a Sports Betting Analyst and casino games enthusiast who has covered Football extensively at SBS, but don’t be surprised if you read him on other sports. He's the host of the NFL Latino TV podcast.
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