Ninjas in Pyjamas and Heroic won quarterfinal matches Friday to reach the semifinals of the BLAST Premier Fall Finals in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Ninjas outlasted Natus Vincere 2-1 and Heroic got past G2 Esports by the same score. Natus Vincere and G2 were eliminated from the tournament.
In the Fall Finals, the teams were split into two groups for the double-elimination opening round. The group-stage winners — FaZe Clan and Team Liquid — advanced to the playoff semifinals, where they are waiting to take on Ninjas and Heroic in Saturday’s semifinals. The winners of the Ninjas-Faze Clan match and Heroic vs. Team Liquid will face off in Sunday’s Grand Final.
Ninjas opened with a 16-10 victory on Inferno before Natus Vincere responded with a 22-19 overtime win on Mirage. The final map was on Overpass, with Ninjas again winning by a 16-10 score to clinch it.
Patrick “es3tag” Hansen of Denmark had 67 kills and a plus-9 kills-to-deaths differential to lead Ninjas, followed closely by Sweden’s Fredrik “REZ” Sterner (66 kills, plus-8). Russian Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy notched 71 kills on a plus-21 K-D in a losing effort for NaVi.
Heroic kicked off its match with a 16-8 win on Mirage, but G2 prevailed 16-6 on Nuke to tie it up. Heroic scored a 16-12 victory on Vertigo to advance.
Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard led the all-Danish Heroic roster with 57 kills and a plus-11 differential. G2’s Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov of Russia led all players with 62 kills and a plus-16.
G2 and Heroic have already qualified for the BLAST Premier World Final based on points rankings throughout the year.
Saturday’s semifinal schedule:
–FaZe Clan vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas
–Team Liquid vs. Heroic
BLAST Premier Fall Finals prize pool and points distribution
1. $200,000, 4,000 BLAST Premier points, berth in BLAST Premier World Final
2. $85,000, 2,000 BLAST Premier points
3-4. $40,000, 1,250 BLAST Premier points
5-6. $20,000, 500 BLAST Premier points — Natus Vincere, G2 Esports
7-8. $10,000, 250 BLAST Premier points — OG, Fluxo
–Field Level Media
