Five things we learned from BLAST Open Porto Playoffs

As the confetti rained down on our heads in Portugal, Team Spirit stood victorious.

But you don’t need to be standing on that stage, trophy in hand, to consider this event a success. For some, success was playing good Counter-Strike; for others, it was simply being on stage.

For us, success is learning more about these teams, where they stand, and what to expect. So, here are five things that we’ve successfully learned from BLAST Open Porto’s playoffs:

#1: sh1ro might have figured it out

Let’s not sugarcoat it: sh1ro has historically been a dropper in big games, but not in Porto.

Spirit’s AWPer was their highest-rated player throughout their two playoff games. In game one against Falcons, he was the star. donk struggled facing m0nesy, who did an incredible job stifling his map progression. Normally this spells doom for Spirit, but this time sh1ro stepped up completely. On their dominant Nuke win, he found four unpunished openers, paving the path for the dominance Spirit displayed.

This is a scary prospect for the entire scene.

If sh1ro sustains the playoff-level play we saw here, expect to see group-stage Spirit scorelines on stages soon. Falcons are the only team capable of dealing with the firepower on that roster, and they were powerless to stop them here. We might be sleepwalking into another era right after Vitality’s ended.

Is that a lot to read into one playoff? Yeah, but Counter-Strike is a confidence game, and sh1ro now has the confidence to do it, which might have unlocked another level.

It’s scary times to be a CS team.

#2: The more G2 change, the more they stay the same

As much as this sounds negative, this will be a semi-positive review.

For the longest time, we’ve been highly critical of HuNter’s resource allocation on the CT side. He often puts himself into high-fragging positions, like short on Mirage. Well, at this event, there finally seemed to be a shift in that.

HuNter has moved to B-anchor on Mirage, with MATYS now in the short position, which is a big improvement, as MATYS is a phenomenal rifler who’s been underutilized on this G2 team. Similarly, MATYS is now the connector player on Anubis, with NertZ anchoring A and heavygod on B. These are largely positive changes and makeG2'se structure significantly more interesting.

Unfortunately, though, they still got the same result: a quarter-final exit.

In my interview with NertZ, he joked that they might be cursed, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised. No one on G2’s side showed up properly in the playoffs, ironically, except HuNter, who had a positive rating. But aside from that, this team clearly needs more time to practice with this configuration, and r1nkle is still new to this environment.

At this point though, we’re super sure there’s a good roster in there somewhere; they just need to find the right way to get it out of them.

#3: MOUZ have matured

Having spent a good amount of time around MOUZ, and interviewing xertioN twice and sycrone once, the impression they’ve given is positive.

This isn’t the same team we all saw choke big game after big game; there seems to be an air of poise appearing. This isn’t just PR, even though he's been very good for them so far. No, instead, it seems like a concentrated effort to manage their emotions better. In my chat with xertioN on media day, he said he's now in control of the team's emotions in a game, rather than someone else in the past.

Now, there still seems to be a bit of the old MOUZ behavior.

PR’s “I am tilted, I hate this map” during Dust II was reminiscent of lines we heard from struggling MOUZ teams, but in fairness, we can relate to hating Dust II. Especially when playing it against cracked Russians.

At this point, they’re the clear #2 to Spirit right now, and if they keep this form up, they will have plenty of opportunities to lift trophies.

At this point, they’re the clear #2 to Spirit right now, and if they keep this form up, they will have plenty of opportunities to lift trophies.

#4: FURIA’s stagnation

FalleN’s retirement tour is becoming a little sad.

This FURIA side was a real challenger only a few months ago, but since FalleN announced his retirement, they seem to have gone down a level. BLAST Porto was the most recent installment of this. They lost their only group game against a good team, and when they faced Vitality in the quarter-finals, they started strong on Nuke but slowly collapsed. By map three, there was no fight left in them, a stark contrast to the confident Counter-Strike they started the series with.

At some point, you wonder if the pressure of FalleN’s legacy is too much for them.

Maybe it’s a silly question, especially considering molodoy has an eye condition that’s impacting him. But until he tells us just how bad that’s affected his gameplay, all we can do as analysts is look at the games in front of us. Those games tell us that, unfortunately, FURIA are back to being second fiddle to the three best teams. If they can’t beat this iteration of Vitality, with jL standing in, then what iteration can they still beat?

Right now the Brazilians are attending FISSURE Playground 3 in China, where they are the only top-5 team. Their only competition really should be G2, and at a push, Legacy.

The only reason we can imagine them attending is to give FalleN one more trophy, so if they fail in Suzhou, that dream might be over.

#5: Vitality’s new dynamic

jL is not mezii; Vitality made that abundantly clear.

Every time me or any of the colleagues in the press spoke to Vitality during Porto, jL came up. It’s only natural, given his temporary stay in the team, that we’d be curious how that dynamic works out. Well, it… It’s different, that’s for sure.

One of the main things that seems to have changed is that jL is a bit crazy.

Anyone who has watched his streams can attest to this, but the guy’s got energy. When we talked to XTQZZZ, he made it pretty clear that he’s adding more of the same energy that flameZ and apEX do, which is the intense kind. That’s not inherently a problem, but when replacing mezii, who is always cool, calm, and collected, that does cause a bit of a shift. A shift you could kind of see throughout their series, especially against MOUZ, when they failed to recover once MOUZ got a foothold- very un-Vitality-like behavior.

It doesn’t help that jL also seems uncomfortable in some of his new spots.

Holding long on Dust II was the prime example; MOUZ kept abusing him over and over whenever they got the chance. They were uniquely positioned to do that, as they noted his long struggles during his stint with them.

This Vitality roster isn’t doomed by default, but with the instability of which roster is playing which event, it’s clear they’re going to have to work a lot harder for these trophies.

That’s five things we’ve learned from BLAST Open Porto’s playoffs. We’ll be back after FISSURE Playground 3’s group stage is over to discuss what we learned there.

Spoiler: FaZe weren’t good.