Astralis out as upsets continue at BLAST Premier Spring

The upsets keep coming at London's BLAST Premier Spring. Last week we saw FaZe destroy their group, including a very shaky looking Team Liquid, and yesterday Complexity Gaming 2-0'ed Astralis, of all teams. If anything, it made Saturday in the tournament's Group of Death all the more anticipated.

Spoiler: it delivered.

Na'Vi vs Astralis

After their loss the day before, Astralis were looking to make things right against Natus Vincere. Na'Vi, from their end, had looked less than convincing against Vitality on Friday as well, despite placing second at ICE Challenge last week.

They would not look any better on the first map of the day, with Astralis quickly taking train 6-16. But this is where things would go off the rails for the Danes. Off the back of a quad kill by Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev in Nuke's pistol round, Na'Vi would get ahead 10-5 at halftime. The second half would be more of a back-and-forth, but again it was Na'Vi who cinched it 16-9.

This left Inferno as the do-or-die moment for both teams. With their tournament life on the line, Astralis converted an excellent pistol round into a 5-1 lead. But Egor "flamie" Vasilyev was able to turn the tide with two Deagle kills, after which Na’Vi managed to pull alongside their opponents 5-5. The half would still end 6-9 in Astralis favor and in their first four rounds T-side they appeared ready to close it out.

But Na'Vi would again find it in themselves to tie up the score and, through some great plays by s1mple and Denis "electronic" Sharipov, would send world's number one team home with an 0-2 record.

Team Vitality vs Complexity Gaming

Fresh off beating the number one team in the world, Complexity was riding high for this match. Vitality had looked pretty comfortable 2-0'ing Na'Vi as well, however. In fact, on paper, they were the favorites for the meeting, but paper'd gone out of this event's window a while ago.

With both maps on which they beat Astralis banned, Complexity had to come up with something new. The new thing turned out to be some really solid play, from eco decisions to individual execution. On Mirage, they took both pistol rounds. While Vitality would eventually equalize the built lead each time, Complexity remained in control throughout the game.

After a 10-16 first defeat, Vitality's Inferno map pick followed. Although they took both pistols here, the French squad could just not breach Complexity's defenses. They would only take home five rounds total. Their opponents, meanwhile, all posted positive records for a 5-16 win.

As a result, Vitality will have to face Na'Vi a second time on Sunday. Complexity will be waiting in the Grand Final for the winner of this match, underdog no more.

Image courtesy of BLAST Premier