Astralis vs FaZe – BLAST Pro Series São Paulo

This weekend, São Paulo receives one of the main events of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive calendar year, the Blast Pro Series.

Less than a month after the finale in Katowice (Poland), six of the eight best teams in the world will for Supremacy at the Ibirapuera Gymnasium for a total prize of $ 250,000. Apart from the undisputed kings of CS: GO, Astralis, we have Brazil’s very own MIBR, Team Liquid (second best team in the world), ENCE (current runner-up of the major), FaZe Clan (fifth best team in the world) and Ninjas in Pajamas (eighth best team in the world).

As we can see, these are very strong formations. Each of them is in the top 8 HLTV! For this reason, we will be witnessing interesting meetings, where it will not always be easy to point out the favorite. The prize pool of this edition is $ 250,000, and the winner will win half of that amount!

Unfortunately, as with previous editions, all the first phase matches will be held at the same time. It will not be possible to see each of them separately. The winner of the last edition of the BLAST Pro Series turned out to be Astralis in the final defeating Natus Vincere. This year’s winner will be announced on March 23.

The six teams face each other within a group – two games on Friday and three on Saturday – and the two best teams advance to the final in the best of three maps. Before the big final on Saturday, a showmatch will also be held for the audience where the team that finishes in third place will who it will face in the fight for a bonus of 20 thousand dollars.

We selected this game you since it is between two level teams in the competition, Astralis against FaZe. It will be an exciting opportunity to catch one of the best teams, Astralis back in action after their triumph in Katowice. While Faze has shown signs of resurgence but do they what it takes to beat Astralis? Let’s have a look.

Astralis vs FaZe Clan (BLAST Pro Series: São Paulo 2019, Best of 1 match, MAR 23, 2019, 6:30 PM CET)

The 3x time major winner, Astralis is all set to compete in Brazil and will be aiming to add another title to their cabinet. The Danish side was absolutely brutal in 2018, while they started their 2019 on a high note by winning the IEM Katowice.

Astralis will be eyeing to win the BLAST Pro Series, again as they have done so twice in the past. The have been attributed as the best team in the competitive world of CS: GO. The bookmakers rate them as hot favorites for the title.

The team arrives in Sao Paulo to seek revenge against the home team MIBR. Since, one of the oldest and most successful names in Brazil defeated Astralis, in the final of the BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen 2017. So far in 2019, Astralis has competed in two major competitions. The first one was the iBUYPOWER Masters where they were surprising, defeated in the final by Team Liquid. The other competition is the Katowice Major where they reigned supreme against ENCE and won their first title of the year.

It goes without saying that Astralis is the strongest team in modern day CS: GO. The team does not revolve around moments of brilliance from a single player but through the success in the game by exceptional teamwork. The synergy between the players is just unbelievable.

No room for weaknesses

Astralis’ map pool is quite strong and deep. On Nuke, they are proclaimed as the “Kings”. The side has established an attractive 32-game winning streak. The other map they love to play on is Inferno where they are unbeaten in the last 15 games. Statistically, the worst maps of the teams are Train and Overpass. Even on these “worst” maps, the team holds an outstanding 70%-win rate.

Astralis never seems to make any mistake. In the past years, the team had made a terrible habit to fall short on big occasions. While dev1ce had major problems owing to which he had to sit on the sidelines.

Dev1ce all the way

We have previously said that the strength of Astralis lies in their incredible teamwork. However, one man continues to shine and he is Dev1ce. The stats simply love the Danish star as he has led his team to 10 titles last year and has started 2019 with a bang by winning the IEM Katowice title.

Owing to these reasons and many more, in 2018, Dev1ce finished at 2nd place in the HLTV’s ranking where he was beaten by the star of Natus Vincere Oleksandr “s1mple”. Nonetheless, Dev1ce is still the best in-game leader in the world.

Brazil Welcomes Astralis

Surprisingly, this is the first time that Astralis will be competing on the Brazilian soil. They missed out on the previous premier competitions: ESL One Belo Horizonte 2018 and ESL Pro League Finals 2016. In fact, only one player of the team competed in Brazil previously is Emil “Magisk”. He participated in the ESL 2016 finals where his team, Dignitas was eliminated in the group stage. This time he will be aiming to seek redemption in the colors of the Danes.

Final Verdict

We are knocking FaZe out of the equation, as they are simply not in the league of Astralis. Even though FaZe has been impressive in the past months, climbing to the top 5. However, problems still persist in the team coordination which could prove to be fatal against the kings of the competitive landscape of CS: GO.

Astralis Win

Odds on bookmakers