BLAST Open Spring 2026 Group Stage: Day 4 Match Analysis & Predictions

We go back to Group B of the BLAST Open Spring 2026, where things also start to tighten up. The winners of upper-bracket matches secure playoffs, the losers of the lower-bracket ones are eliminated. Most of the games look pretty clear on paper, but there’s enough room for another upset if things don’t go as planned.

Group B – Upper-Bracket Semifinals

Vitality vs The MongolZ

Team Vitality @ BLAST Open Spring 2026 — Image credit: Stephanie Lindgren | BLAST

Vitality looked exactly as we expected a rested #1 team to look. They got the perfect warm-up opponent in 9z, smashing them 2-0 in their first official game after the EPL break. ZywOo opened the event with a 1.91 series rating, followed closely by flameZ with 1.57.

MongolZ deserve credit too. Beating MOUZ 2-0 in the group stage is no joke – but this is still a rough draw for them. The head-to-head heavily leans Vitality’s way, dropping only two series in their extensive match history – those back-to-back wins MongolZ snatched back in August 2025 at the BLAST Bounty 2025 Season 2, and EWC 2025. Since then, it’s not even close, with the last clash at PGL Cluj-Napoca a month ago being pretty one-sided too. Even the vetoes are fully going in Vitality’s favor, except Mirage where The MongolZ actually gave Vitality the most problems in their last two series.

Vitality have the answer on every front, so even with MongolZ’s great showing against MOUZ, I’m still voting a sweep.

Prediction: Vitality 2-0.

Team Spirit vs PARIVISION

Team Spirit - donk & tN1R @ ESL Pro League Season 23 — Image credit: Helena Kristiansson | ESL

This one is probably the hardest to call out of today’s matchups. Spirit looked OK in their opener against Liquid, winning the game 2-0 with donk doing donk things again, topping the series with a 1.79 rating. It didn’t go as convincing as I thought it would, but a sweep’s a sweep.

PARIVISION also scraped by NiP in a tougher-than-expected opener that went to the decider map, where zweih and BELCHONOKK were the ones that pushed PARIVISION through to the upper-bracket semifinal.

The tricky part here is that the head-to-head actually goes in PARIVISION’s favor – it’s only one series, back at BLAST Bounty Winter 2026 in January. But they reverse-swept Spirit making a statement that they’re not to be taken lightly. Spirit will be probably hungry for revenge, and looking at PARIVISION’s opener doesn’t give me much hope for them in this series.

Both teams are being a bit shaky lately, so it will most likely be a three-mapper, but Spirit’s top-end firepower still gives them an edge.

Prediction: Team Spirit 2-1.

Group B – Lower-Bracket Quarterfinals

9z vs MOUZ

MOUZ @ BLAST Open Spring 2026 - Day 1 — Image credit: Stephanie Lindgren | BLAST

Both teams got swept in their openers, but the context is very different.

9z got run over by Vitality, losing 13-3 on Overpass and 13-5 on Nuke, which is totally understandable given Vitality’s form, and the skill gap between them. MOUZ also lost 0-2 to MongolZ, who actually played a very good series. You don’t see MOUZ getting swept this early in tournaments very often, so chances are they’ll bounce back here with a thing to prove.

There aren’t any recent head-to-head matches between them to work with. The vetoes and map-win percentages still favors MOUZ, even if all of 9z’s games were against local tier-two and tier-three teams, pointing to MOUZ win. MOUZ are by far the better team in this matchup, and I expect nothing other than a clean sweep.

Prediction: MOUZ 2-0.

Liquid vs NiP

NiP @ BLAST Open Spring 2026 - Day 1 — Image credit: Stephanie Lindgen | BLAST

This feels like the more upset-able match of the lower-bracket, but I still lean NiP. malbsMd’s debut for Liquid did not go well – Spirit beat them 2-0, and although there were some competitive moments, Liquid mainly looked disorganized.

NiP lost to PARIVISION, but in a very closer series than the one Liquid had against Spirit, with every map of the series being competitive.

Team Liquid od have the lead in head-to-head matchups (BLAST Bounty Winter 2026, and IEM Kraków 2026), 2-0 in series, 4-1 in maps – but I don’t think that matters much with the new version of the roster, especially with malbsMd still settling in the new environment. The vetoes and win-percentages makes me trust NiP more too – NiP have better win-percentages on every map in the past three months, except Anubis where both teams have 50% win rate, and Inferno – NiP insta-bans it and haven’t even played it recently.

NiP look like the more composed team at the moment, and with Liquid still adjusting to the new pieces, I’d much rather put my money on NiP.

Prediction: NiP 2-1.