MAD Lions win twice at BLAST Spring Showdown - Europe

MAD Lions cruised to two victories on Tuesday to push their record to 3-0 through two days of the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown European event. MAD Lions routed Virtus.pro and Dignitas, assuring themselves a playoff spot and taking a commanding lead atop Group B, where the only other team above .500 is mousesports (1-0).

In Tuesday's other Group B match, Fnatic eased by Virtus.pro. In Group A, Ninjas in Pyjamas handled sAw before tying with Team Vitality. The BLAST Premier Spring Showdown, a 10-team $325,000 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive event, originally was scheduled for June 2-7 at a site to be announced, but plans were altered due to the coronavirus pandemic. The tournament was split into two online competitions: a 10-team, $182,500 European division and an eight-team, $142,500 Americas division.

The Spring Showdown European event is divided into two five-team groups for round-robin play through Thursday. Each group game will consist of a single map, with three points awarded for a win and one for a tie. The winner of each group will get a double bye directly to one of the two playoff finals on Sunday, while the second-place teams will head to one of the two semifinals on Saturday. The third- and fourth-place teams will compete in the playoff quarterfinals on Friday, and the fifth-place teams will be eliminated.

The winners of the two playoff finals will each earn $37,500 and a berth in the eight-team BLAST Premier Spring European finals. The two Sunday losers will meet June 15, with the winner also earning a spot in the eight-team, $500,000 online BLAST Premier Spring European Finals, scheduled for June 15-21. Five teams already earned spots in the Spring European Finals based on their results in the Jan. 31-Feb. 16 regular season: FaZe Clan, Natus Vincere, G2 Esports, Complexity Gaming and OG.

The top two teams at the Spring European Finals will earn berths in the eight-team, $1.5 million BLAST Premier Global Final, set for Jan. 18-24, 2021, at a site to be determined. The Global Final will also include the winners of the American Spring Finals, the Fall Finals and the ESL One Rio Major as well as the top three teams from the BLAST Premier Circuit. MAD Lions jumped all over Virtus.pro in their first match, taking a 10-3 lead on Overpass and closing it out at 16-7. They were even sharper against Dignitas, opening a 12-2 edge on Train and finishing it at 16-5. All five players finished with a positive Kill-Death differential in both matches, led by Fredrik "roeJ" Jorgensen (plus-17) in the first and Rasmus "sjuush" Beck (plus-12) in the second.

Virtus.pro lost by the same margin to Fnatic, who won the final six rounds in a victory on Train. Ludvig "Brollan" Brolin paced Fnatic with a plus-15 K-D ratio. In Group A, sAw got an early step on NiP before the latter won the final 11 rounds to claim a 16-7 victory on Vertigo.

In their 15-15 draw with Vitality, NiP fell behind 5-0 but stormed back to a 13-10 lead before being unable to hold on for victory. Group play continues with five matches Wednesday:

Group A ENCE vs. sAw

Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. ENCE Astralis vs. Team Vitality

Group B Dignitas vs. Virtus.pro

Fnatic vs. mousesports BLAST Premier Spring Showdown -- Europe standings with win-loss-tie record and point differential

Group A 1. Ninjas in Pyjamas, 2-0-1, plus-18

2. Astralis, 1-1-0, plus-3 3. Team Vitality, 0-0-2, even

4. ENCE, 0-0-1, even 5. sAw, 0-2-0, minus-21

Group B 1. MAD Lions, 3-0-0, plus-26

2. mousesports, 1-0-0, plus-6 3. Fnatic, 1-1-0, plus-3

T4. Dignitas, 0-2-0, minus-17 T4. Virtus.pro, 0-2-0, minus-18

--Field Level Media

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)