Elite Counter-Strike is back with BLAST Bounty Season 2, bringing the world's top teams back to action after the summer player break.
BLAST Bounty's unique format, where the lower-ranked teams choose their opponents, leads to a few close matchups sprinkled amongst many David vs. Goliath games, and the favorites largely prevailed on the opening day of the event.
Astralis and MOUZ delivered on their status as comfortable favorites, Ninjas in Pyjamas triumphed in a 50/50 matchup with M80, whilst Wildcard grabbed what was perhaps the only upset of the day as they brushed aside Alliance.
Ninjas in Pyjamas haven't enjoyed the best form since returning from the player break early in July, suffering an early exit from XSE Pro League Guangzhou and a defeat at the hands of Virtus.pro in a BLAST Premier Rising event, but they kicked off their Bounty campaign with a relatively comfortable win over M80.
Martin "stavn" Lund was the best performer on the server as Ninjas in Pyjamas swept M80 2-0, a strong T side getting the job done on Inferno before some stellar play by Kacper "xKacpersky" Gabara sealed the deal on the CT side of Ancient.
Astralis needed to reverse sweep Nemesis to get their account for the season opened with a victory, a strugglesome defense on Nuke allowing Nemesis to threaten an early upset in the event.
Astralis righted the ship on Ancient and Cache, stellar performances from Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard and Love "phzy" Smidebrant respectively providing the firepower needed to put the underdogs of Nemesis to bed.
MOUZ bagged an expected 2-0 win over Nuclear TigeRES to ensure a winning debut for Oldřich "PR" Nový, but it was not without it's shaky moments.
The favorites picked up a comfortable victory on Ancient thanks to a stellar offense, but were heading towards a decider on Nuke as they were struggling to get a read on Nuclear TigeRES' attack.
Fortunately for MOUZ, a miracle round by Lotan "Spinx" Giladi on the Deagle allowed them to come back from a tough spot economically and secure the series in 2-0 fashion.
The only upset of the day, at least by VRS rank, saw Wildcard crush Alliance in comfortable fashion across two one-sided maps.
Alliance recently picked up a top-four finish at XSE Pro League Guangzhou and many would have backed them to build upon that result in BLAST Bounty, but instead they found themselves completely outmatched against Wildcard.
Wildcard kicked things off by dominating Alliance on Inferno, despite the Swedes sporting a 13-strong winstreak on the map, and then cruised to a win on Dust2, even though Alliance won a string of clutches in the first half and benefitted from a pistol ace by Jonatan "bobeksde" Persson in the second.
Play continues in BLAST Bounty tomorrow with another set of exciting matchups, none more tantalizing than Major winners Falcons taking on 100 Thieves, with Finn "karrigan" Andersen set to go up against his former long-time FaZe teammate Håvard "rain" Nygaard.
Jakob 'jabbi' Nygaard
100 Thieves
Nicolai 'device' Reedtz
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Jack 'Gizmy' von Spreckelsen
William 'sirah' Kjærsgaard
Alex 'poiii' Nyholm Sundgren
Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander
Falcons
Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač
René 'TeSeS' Madsen
Ilya 'm0NESY' Osipov
Maksim 'kyousuke' Lukin
Danny 'zonic' Sørensen
Jonatan 'bobeksde' Persson
Oldřich 'PR' Nový
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer
Martin 'stavn' Lund
Rasmus 'sjuush' Beck
Roman 'n0te' Hamze
Kacper 'xKacpersky' Gabara
Richard 'Xizt' Landström
Virtus.pro
Nikolay 'mir' Bityukov
Vladimir 'b1st' Krasikov
Dias 'F0R3VER' Kutubay
Alexander 'AquaRS' Kovalev
Vadim 'tO0RO' Arkov
Dmitriy 'ProbLeM' Martinov
Alliance
Simon 'twist' Eliasson
Sean 'eraa' Knutsson
Jonatan 'bobeksde' Persson
Markus 'upE' Johansson
Arvid 'avid' Åberg
Simon 'Hawk' Vävinggren
Kacper 'xKacpersky' Gabara
Finn 'karrigan' Andersen
Lotan 'Spinx' Giladi
M80
Fritz 'slaxz-' Dietrich
Michael 'Swisher' Schmid
Elias 's1n' Stein
Josh 'JBa' Barutt
Mason 'Lake' Sanderson
Rory 'dephh' Jackson
Wildcard
Nemanja 'nEMANHA' Đukić
Miłosz 'mhL' Knasiak
Danny 'Cxzi' Strzelczyk
Ethan 'reck' Serrano
Jadan 'HexT' Postma
Łukasz 'splawik' Jahns
Martin 'stavn' Lund
MOUZ
Ádám 'torzsi' Torzsás
Lotan 'Spinx' Giladi
Dorian 'xertioN' Berman
Oldřich 'PR' Nový
Adrian 'xelex' Vincze
Dennis 'sycrone' Nielsen
Love 'phzy' Smidebrant
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Astralis
Rasmus 'HooXi' Nielsen
Love 'phzy' Smidebrant
Jakob 'jabbi' Nygaard
Victor 'Staehr' Staehr
Gytis 'ryu' Glušauskas
Filip 'NEO' Kubski
Nuclear TigeRES
Arseniy 'senka' Kozlovsky
Denis 'm1QUSE' Karpovich
Timur 'z1k4' Askhadulin
Ilya 'flouzer' Selifonov
Egor 'ayuki' Ershov
Vadim 'Polt' Tsyrov
Nemesis
Ivan 'SELLTER' Miroshnikov
Evgeny 'r3salt' Frolov
Alemkhan 'mag1k3Y' Moldakamalov
Philipp 'tex1y' Moskvitin
Daniil 'Sdaim' Tupov
Maksim 'NMV' Naumov