First round of BLAST Premier World Final 2023 games out as Indian team still in limbo
The opening round of games for the final major Counter-Strike event of the 2023 season has been released, as we have the details for the BLAST Premier World Final 2023 first round matches, which get underway way from 13th December, 2023.
The first game of the tournament will be the Group A game between Cloud9 and ENCE, both of whom are playing with new in-game leaders, in BoombI4 and gla1ve. The other Group A game has Vitality taking on Natus Vincere (NAVI).
Cloud9ENCE| Cloud9 |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Denis 'electroNic' Sharipov |
48 - 29 | +19 | 115.3 | 87.0% | 1.65 |
| Sergey 'Ax1Le' Rykhtorov |
37 - 28 | +9 | 82.7 | 82.6% | 1.33 |
| Kirill 'Boombl4' Mikhailov |
30 - 28 | +2 | 67.1 | 78.3% | 1.10 |
 Abay 'HObbit' Khassenov |
31 - 27 | +4 | 66.5 | 76.1% | 1.10 |
| Ilya 'Perfecto' Zalutskiy |
26 - 26 | +0 | 65.4 | 82.6% | 1.02 |
| ENCE |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Álvaro 'SunPayus' García |
34 - 32 | +2 | 88.0 | 67.4% | 1.13 |
 Guy 'NertZ' Iluz |
28 - 31 | -3 | 66.7 | 67.4% | 1.00 |
 Pavle 'Maden' Bošković |
31 - 37 | -6 | 72.9 | 56.5% | 0.84 |
 Paweł 'dycha' Dycha |
22 - 36 | -14 | 58.6 | 67.4% | 0.76 |
 Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander |
21 - 36 | -15 | 55.0 | 67.4% | 0.68 |
The Group B opener will be Heroic facing FaZe with FaZe reported to field frozen in place of Twistzz. While frozen moves to FaZe to replace Twistzz, MOUZ is set to play the World Final with Brollan stepping in and they will starting their campaign against G2.
While the group stage matches are all set to get underway from December 13, details are still awaited on True Rippers' (ex-Marcos Gaming) participation in the tournament. Following their win at the DreamHack Hyderabad 2023, the then-Marcos Gaming team was told by NODWIN Gaming that they will be heading to represent the country at the World Final 2023.
NODWIN Gaming had stated that 'it is a part of something bigger we have planned with BLAST next year'.
Since then, the Marcos Gaming squad moved on from the organisation and have been signed by True Rippers and upon reaching out to a representative from the team, Dust2 India were told that NODWIN Gaming have confirmed the event details via mail although when Dust2 India reached out to NODWIN for a comment on the event and True Rippers' participation, we did not get one at the time of publication.
Dust2 India also reached out to BLAST regarding the same but there was no official confirmation from BLAST.
Another reason for the Indian Counter-Strike fans to keep an eye on the BLAST Premier World Final 2023 is because Skyesports' CEO Shiva Nandy revealed that Skyesports will be revealing their 'Skyesports Counter-Strike 2024 Global Road Map' after the conclusion of the World Final 2023.
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