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Hello there all of you Counter Strike fanatics! I have some good news for you. I am sure that all of you are still reeling in from the results of the StarLadder Major in Berlin. Liquid has been dethroned by Astralis in there! However, I will not be talking about the Star Ladder Major here. What I am about to announce is that the other beloved CS:GO series is back!
That’s right! Blast Pro is back baby! This time around, the event will be in Moscow in the VTB Arena. Blast Pro Moscow will be a 2-day event, starting on the 13th of September and ending the next day. This event will have a total prize pool of a quarter-million dollars, with half of it going to the eventual tournament winner. Aside from the cash prize, this edition of Blast Pro will also be distributing BPS Points to the participating teams.
Today we shall check the teams participating in this event and also try to come up with our betting predictions for the Moscow Blast Pro 2019!
Teams
There will be a total of 6 teams that will be battling it out for the chance to earn $125,000. These teams are MiBR, Natus Vincere, Ninjas in Pyjamas, ENCE Esports and Team Vitality. The last spot for the event will be the CIS Play-in which will be between Avangar and Forze. The CIS Play In will be played on the 13th, the same day as the start of the tourney. The winner of that event gets the spot to be able to play in the Blast Pro Series.
Roster Changes
It is that time again. Usually, after a Valve sanctioned Major, that’s when a lot of the roster changes happen. This time is no different. First off, MiBR acquired KngV from Intz to replace the spot that ColdZera vacated on the roster.
Dennis is going to be benched from NiP. Plopski will be signed from Team Ancient as the replacement for Dennis. As of right now, the NiP management is also looking for a long time replacement for another CS:GO Legend, Get Right. Good news for Get Right fans though as he will still be playing in this event. This might be his last hurrah.
AleksiB from ENCE is going to get benched. The Finnish roster, however, will sign Sunny, who used to play for Mouz as his replacement.
Last but not least, NBK is also going inactive in the Vitality roster. As of right now, the French squad is still looking for a viable replacement who can play the positions that NBK used to play.
Moscow Blast Pro Predictions
Now, this is my favorite part of the article – the predictions. This Blast Pro tourney is kinda hard to predict the winner though. This is due to the fact that there are no heavyweight teams that are participating in this tourney. There is no Team Liquid and there is no Astralis.
Aside from that, almost all of the squads that will be participating here in this tourney has had a recent roster change in the last few days. The only squad here that has no roster change recently was Na’Vi, but they replaced Edward with Boombl4 prior to the Major, so that is still recent news. As an additional hit, Zeus announced that he is leaving the team soon, which can also destroy the moral. So trust me when I say that this prediction section will be awesome!
Now for my first prediction. I think this will be the team that will win the whole event. It will be none other than ENCE Esports. The Finns have been dominating the CS:GO scene lately, which was a far cry from them being an unknown just 6 months ago.
If all of you guys remember, the Finns dominated the New Legends Stage during the Star Ladder tourney. They were the first squad along with NRG to secure a spot in the quarter-finals. If you look at their most recent wins, they have wins against the majority of the teams that will be participating in this event.
The second squad that I think will make it to the grand finals will be the French squad, Team Vitality. Out of all the others that will be participating in this event, I think Vitality has the next most stable roster aside from ENCE. Like I said, almost all of the participants here have had a major restructuring of their teams prior to this tourney, and while NBK has not been replaced yet, there is still a chance that he can come back and play for Vitality.
Aside from that, we all remember the Dust 2 pistol round that Zywoo aced during Berlin. That is still fresh in my mind. If the French guys can pull off another performance just like that, they will most likely steamroll the competition here and secure a spot in the grand finals with ENCE.
Now for my dark horse pick, I will be picking Avangar. Not taking away anything from Forze, who will be Avangar’s competitor during the play-in, but Avangar is actually leagued better and much more experienced than them. Avangar is actually in the same spot that ENCE was during Katowice, being an “on the fringe” team that made their way to the Grand Finals of a Valve Major against one of the heavyweights. Sure they got spanked by Astralis during the finals, but they gained experience of playing in a Grand Finals of a Major such as that.
Aside from that, Jame has been making highlight plays during the Major with his AWP. We still cannot compare him to the likes of KennyS, GuardiaN, Dupreeh or Device, but he is starting to get there. He is getting recognized as an AWPer to be reckoned with in his own way. Aside from that, they have also signed AdreN, who has experience in winning a Major way back when he was still playing for Gambit.
I hope to see a great CS:GO battle here and make some extra bucks on betting on the Moscow Blast Pro 2019 event.
Good luck!
