We’re back with another big event as BLAST Open Spring 2026 kicks off, and Group A looks fairly predictable at first glance, but there are a few games where things could get a bit weird if things don’t go as expected.

NRG vs Falcons

NRG come after a nightmare run at the ESL Pro League Season 23, being the first team to get eliminated after three straight series losses, winning only one map. Falcons had some more time to reset and prepare, buy they’re also arriving at Rotterdram with a limp too. They’ll play without kyousuke for at least this match (visa issues), and NucleonZ will stand-in again – the Falcons’ academy guy that helped them reach the BLAST Bounty Winter 2026 final two months ago.

Even with that situation, Falcons are the team with much more firepower, and overall are looking like the better team. There’s not a huge amount of head-to-head history, just the recent meeting at IEM Kraków 2026 that Falcons won 2-1. Add the bad showings of NRG and the overall gap in quality, it’s very hard to think anything else than a sweep.

Prediction: Falcons 2-0.

NAVI vs B8

NAVI are coming to Rotterdam with confidence after winning the ESL Pro League trophy a few days ago. They defeated Aurora 3-1 in the final, with makazze and w0nderful looking sharp throughout the tournament, and if NAVI continue their form here, they might be a real contender.

B8 were also at that event, and they opened with an upset against FURIA, but got three straight losses after, and didn’t even reach the playoffs. Their recent form does not help their case either – two wins in their last ten matches, compared to NAVI’s seven, tells us everything we need to know about this matchup.

The head-to-head between these two is even more brutal: NAVI lead 3-0 in series, all sweeps – including a very one-sided series at the ESL Pro League S23 Online Stage. Even the map stats point to zero hope for B8. NAVI have the better win rates across all the maps, so there’s no real reason not to call this for another sweep.

Prediction: NAVI 2-0.

Aurora vs FaZe

Aurora are coming off a strong ESL Pro League S23 run, making it to the Grand Final – even if the ending looked pretty bad for them. Losing to NAVI is not the bad part, what’s concerning was how bad XANTARES and Wicadia tilted – their main firepower. But their overall form lately have been trending upward for a while.

FaZe? Not so much. They arrive in Rotterdam in pretty rough shape, and benching NEO to add GruBy as the new coach is a bit ill-timed and does not scream stability.

FaZe have the slight upper hand in their head-to-head, but it doesn’t say much about today’s form of these teams. The last time these teams met was back at the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025’s groups stage in a BO1 that FaZe won, but their trajectories went in different ways since then.

Map-wise the clash leans toward Aurora. They’ve got better win rates across most of the map pool, while FaZe are on a five-map loss streak on both Inferno and Ancient. If we get something like Dust2, Mirage, and Nuke – which seems very likely based on these teams’ recent picks – FaZe might take a map. But, unless the new coach magically makes them play better immediately, Aurora should take this.

Prediction: Aurora 2-1.

FURIA vs TYLOO

FURIA come into Rotterdam after two failed events, with the last one at ESL Pro League being an embarrassment. With Vitality not participating they needed that win, or at least make it to the final to prove they’re worth of their #2 world ranking. Instead it turned into an uno-reverse, and didn’t even make it out of the groups. But I guess every team gets in a rough spot from time to time, and BLAST Open Rotterdam feels like a good reset spot for them.

On the other end, TYLOO are riding clean 7-matches win streak, but it actually sounds a lot better than it is – all of those games are against lower-tier teams. They haven’t played S-tier Counter-Strike since the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025, where they bowed out in the first stage they played in, with only 1 map win.

There’s no real head-to-head context to lean on here, but the teams’ dynamic and skill gap is pretty obvious. The veto and map pool don’t really change much here either, given TYLOO’s most recent opponents. Even with FURIA being a bit off lately, they’re just operating on a different level.

Prediction: FURIA 2-0.