Three teams to watch during BLAST Bounty

BLAST Bounty kicks off the season properly on Tuesday with a who’s who of teams participating in its first round.

With all that Counter-Strike, we understand if you get a bit of choice paralysis trying to figure out who to watch. Or worse, you have an active life and need to sacrifice other things to decide which games you can watch. If either of these applies to you, or you generally want to know who to watch, you’re in luck.

We’ve picked out the three best teams to watch at BLAST Bounty, so you can plan your week with ease.

100 Thieves

This team has our hopes up.

Like any self-respecting old-heads, we love rain and device, some of us more than others, but you can’t deny these guys are legends. So, having them together on 100 Thieves with gla1ve coaching was already step one to us being fans. Then they added poiii, a real talent from Sweden with the ability to step up. What could such a team achieve?

Well, what they achieve, as it turns out, is an “okay” tier 2 season.

Most of their time was spent proving device is still him, poiii can shoot, and that it’s time to move on from rain’s IGLing. Even though everyone loves rain, that does not make him a good IGL. Under his leadership, 100T was exclusively doing “alright,” hanging around the top 50 in rankings.

What makes these guys worth watching now is the addition of Gizmy.

Thanks to Luminosity’s haste, 100 Thieves have gotten themselves one of the highest sought-after IGLing prospects the scene has to offer. Gizmy got a plucky band of very average role players to a Major, and now he’s been put in charge of stars. Okay, yeah, the stars are past their best-by date, but if Monte worked, this should work. We really think 100T will make more of an impact this season, at a bare minimum making one premier event.

The only problem with their prospects on this list is their opening matchup.

Because they’re the second-lowest-seeded team at the event, 100T only had a choice between Falcons and Spirit. They went with Falcons, the Major winners. An entertaining matchup, no doubt: rain against his old IGL and NiKo, device facing m0NESY getting to prove he’s got it, etc. Unfortunately, though, 100T are a value-brand version of what Falcons set out to achieve.

That all being said, Falcons won’t have any way to prepare for Gizmy’s 100T, and they’ll be motivated to prove themselves. Copium? Maybe, but watch this space.

HEROIC

A team that spent some time away from the spotlight, but seems to be returning now.

The changes HEROIC have made this summer move us; Brollan is nothing if not reliable, and Martinez is an AWPer of real quality. Especially the latter has us very excited, and we're sure he will be a massive upgrade for the team. Remember yxngstxr was barely an AWPer, and in our opinion that caused HEROIC to waste some of their valuable time with nilo, who is such a baller that it seems inevitable he will move on at some point. The fact that he’s properly platformed now will make these guys a serious threat.

If you don’t believe us, trust their results.

Their first event was at Stake Ranked Episode 3, and they won the whole thing pretty comfortably. Their run had them face 3DMAX and NIP on the way to the final, and they 2:1’d both, a good sign. The final itself was only better, a casual 3:0 against K27 which sent them home with the win. We’d also argue that of the three teams we’re picking today, HEROIC have the best chance at success at BLAST.

Their opening matchup is against The MongolZ, who themselves have some questions over their heads. This was a pretty smart move from HEROIC; they had the second pick of the BLAST bounty format, and used it to target a team that’s recently been weakened. To sweeten the deal, The Mongolians are still ranked #5, meaning HEROIC get $30,000 USD if they win it.

We’re big fans of this roster’s future; if they were a stock, we’d buy.

Team Liquid

Yes, we know JT isn’t confirmed yet; let's pretend like he is. Blast, admit it on their own website anyway.

Let’s face it, Liquid have been awful for a while. It’s gotten so bad people are making jokes about them being cursed like NIP; do you know how bad it has to get to be in NIP conversations? Bad enough that we’re actually worried about putting them on this list.

Which is crazy, because when you look at the changes they’ve made, it should be night/day.

Obviously replacing siuhy with JT will be massive; getting a new IGL in who has had way more success in CS2 is a pretty safe bet. But replacing ultimate, that’s the big one. He’s been comically bad during his Liquid stint, and Jorko is probably the best player they could’ve replaced him with. That’s assuming he doesn’t get hit by the same curse everyone else has. Have you seen that ultimate clip that came out the other day? Maybe it’s real.

For the sake of intellectual discussion, we will “pretend” it’s false.

Instead, let’s focus on their matchup, Vitality. Now Liquid were the team that made sure 100T could only choose from Falcons and Spirit, so clearly they fancy their chances against Vitality for some reason. Maybe it’s just blind confidence, maybe it’s identifying a weakness, but we have to back it. Odds were, they were losing anyway, so why not pick the #1 seed and see if you can do some magic.

Yeah, maybe TL won’t last long at Blast Bounty, but we really think they’ll be good, okay.