Day 2 of BLAST Open Spring 2026 kicks off with Group B’s opening matches, and they look even more one-sided than Group A. Some of the matches look competitive, but most of them should go the way we expect – at least if the favorites show up.

Vitality vs 9z

This is probably the biggest mismatch of this batch of games. Vitality enter this event fully rested after skipping ESL Pro League S23, and given ­their recent form, the break might make them even more dangerous.

9z are on a nine-wins streak right now, but not a single tier-one team in that run – which can be a bit misleading when talking about teams’ form at S-tier tournaments. Vitality on the other hand, sit comfortably at #1 at the world rankings for quite some time, and are currently on an 11 match win streak, and it’s not misleading either – every single win came against top-tier opposition. That’s the key difference here.

There are no recent head-to-head matches between these two teams to lean on, but honestly I don’t think it matters much. Even in the map stats – which are already misleading due to opposition strength – Vitality still come out ahead, having 100% win rate records on most of the map pool.

Everything about this matchup points one way.

Prediction: Vitality 2-0.

The MongolZ vs MOUZ

This one looks like a close matchup on paper, but if you dig a little bit deeper it starts leaning clearly in one direction.

Both teams got eliminated in the quarterfinals of the ESL Pro League Season 23 a couple of days ago, and both are somewhat consistent in the last 10 games against tier-1 teams, so form-wise they’re not too far apart. But besides the most recent defeat to FUT, MOUZ have consistently looked like a more stable team. And more importantly, are a bad matchup for The MongolZ for quite a while now.

The head-to-head stats are brutal – MOUZ are on a five series win streak against MongolZ. And to make it look even worse for the Mongolians, they haven’t won a single map in those series, which is looking more like a pattern rather than having a slight edge. Two of those matchups are very recent – one at PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025 (13-10, 13-6), and the last ten days ago at the ESL Pro League S23 Online Stage (13-1, 13-11).

Map-wise, MongolZ might have a small advantage on Dust2 where MOUZ are on a 7-map loss streak, and maybe Nuke, which MOUZ barely plays. But outside of that, from analytics perspective, it’s hard to find a positive outcome for The MongolZ.

Prediction: MOUZ 2-1.

Team Spirit vs Team Liquid

Spirit had a slightly underwhelming performance at ESL, getting knocked out in the quarterfinals by Astralis, which is not what we expected in our ESL Pro League S23 quarterfinals analysis. But even with that stumble, they’re a whole tier above from where Liquid are right now. Spirit might still look a bit shaky from time to time, but they have one of the highest, if not the highest baseline level at the moment.

Liquid are in a rough spot, and that’s putting it mildly. They didn’t even make it out of Stage 1 at EPL, and losing to teams like Gaimin Gladiators do say a lot about their current level. They’ve now made a roster move as well, swapping NertZ for malbsMd, but it’s way too early to expect any result from that. But to be honest, with how hard their games were to watch, they might need a full revamp rather than just changing one player in order to stay relevant in the tier-one scene.

Head-to-head stats also favors Spirit, and combining it with better win rates across every map in the past three months, this won’t be pretty for Liquid.

Prediction: Team Spirit 2-0.

NiP vs PARIVISION

This one will be tricky. NiP are on a five-match win streak – which sounds solid until you look at who they played – mostly tier-two teams, so it’s hard to take that into consideration. PARIVISION, on the other hand, didn’t look convincing at all at EPL, getting eliminated in the first stage, dropping series to teams like Monte, Legacy and HEROIC. Not exactly inspiring for the #5 ranked team.

Still, even with that fumble, PARIVISION looks like the more complete team in this matchup. It’s not like NiP don’t have the firepower to handle PARIVISION, but the gap in team cohesion and discipline between these two is hard to ignore.

The head-to-head also leans PARIVISION’s way, and the most recent clash at the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 ended in a 2-0 win for them, even if both maps went to overtime. PARIVISION also have the better map stats, except on Overpass where NiP have the better win rate. If PARIVISION manages to slow the game down to their liking, which is exactly where NiP struggles, they should easily take this.

Prediction: PARIVISION 2-1.