The final day of the Group Stage of BLAST Open Spring 2026 is here, and this is where the playoffs layout gets decided. Upper-bracket winners go straight to the playoff semifinals, while the losers start from the quarterfinals. The lower-bracket finals carry more risk – winners go to the quarterfinals – losers head home.

With seeding and survival on the line, here’s how we think this’ll play out.

Group A Finals

Natus Vincere vs Aurora (Upper-Bracket Final)

NAVI just beat Aurora 3-1 at the ESL Pro League Season 23 Grand Final a week ago, looking like the more complete team throughout the series. w0nderful and makazze were the standout players, boasting a 1.56 and 1.24 ratings, respectively, which is mostly why NAVI controlled that series as well as they did.

Aurora’s biggest issue (besides some questionable calls) in that defeat was the lack of delivery from XANTARES and Wicadia (0.76 and 0.87 ratings), two of Aurora’s main gunners, both playing a much worse series than you normally expect from them. They’re looking much healthier in Rotterdam so far, and we’re yet to see if that would make the difference this time.

The recent form looks strong for both sides, which is why this doesn’t feel like a free win for NAVI even after the EPL final. NAVI are on a 6 match win-streak, while Aurora only lost to NAVI in their last 7 matches. Aurora are looking like they’re getting right back on track in their first two games of this event against FaZe and FURIA (2-1, 2-0), but the head-to-head tells a different story. NAVI extended the lead between them with the EPL final, now 5 series wins in a row. The last time Aurora won a series against NAVI, their core was still under a different organization – Eternal Fire, and if we add the fact that NAVI even looked superior against Falcons in the upper-bracket semifinals yesterday, makes me think NAVI will continue their win streak.

The vetoes should most likely go the same way as they did in the previous clash: NAVI insta-removes Overpass, which is one of Aurora’s strongest maps, while Aurora removes Ancient – a map they tend to avoid in their overall vetoes. The other maps percentages show a very similar success rate for these teams, so the series will most likely go the distance, again.

Prediction: NAVI 2-1.

Team Falcons vs FURIA (Lower-Bracket Final)

Falcons got here by “surviving” TYLOO in three maps, dropping a tight opener before reverse-sweeping them with a statement (14-16, 13-1, 13-2). FURIA also had to work for the spot in final against NRG, also reverse sweeping them after a huge Nuke from molodoy (2.63 rating, 149.4 ADR) and KSCERATO (2.33 rating, 118.4 ADR). Recent form does not really separate them much either – both sides have won three of their last five, with FURIA’s overall performance looking slightly worse than Falcons’.

The head-to-head stats show FURIA dominating Falcons throughout whole 2025, with 4 straight series wins, before Falcons putting a stop to that loss-streak at PGL Cluj-Napoca a month ago.

On the players side, KSCERATO has been FURIA’s best performer at the event with a 1.32 rating, followed closely by molodoy’s 1.21, but Falcons still bring more top-end names, with TeSeS surprisingly being their main player at the event with 1.24, and NiKo, m0NESY and kyousuke all sitting above 1.10 rating.

The vetoes are fairly readable in this matchup too. Falcons insta-ban Overpass, while FURIA have 84% ban rate on Ancient. That leaves us with Dust2, Mirage, Inferno, and Nuke – and that setup goes slightly in Falcons’ favor, having a bit better recent win rates on those, while FURIA has a small advantage on Anubis. This looks like a leveled matchup, but if I had to choose a winner, I’d put my money on Falcons, simply because they’re the more reliable team map-to-map.

Prediction: Falcons 2-1.

Group B Finals

Team Vitality vs PARIVISION (Upper-Bracket Final)

Vitality continues with their great form after their short break, now being at 13-matches win streak after defeating 9z and The MongolZ at this event. ZywOo and flameZ were the standout players in Vitality’s first two games, especially flameZ is looking to be in an amazing form – he finished the last game against The MongolZ with 1.81 rating, along with 38 kills, 113.3 ADR, 12 multi-kill rounds, and topped it off with two nice clutches. If him and ZywOo continue with the same pace, I don’t really see a chance for a positive outcome for PARIVISION.

PARIVISION, on the other hand, put on display two versions of them: one where we saw them struggling against NiP in the quarterfinals, scraping by with a 2-1 win; and the other version in the semifinals of the upper-bracket against the favorite Team Spirit, totally outclassing them in a 2-0 sweep (13-3 Anubis, 13-8 Ancient).

Despite the fact that PARIVISION are looking much better at this event after their disappointing run at the EPL S23 earlier, this is still a rough matchup for them (for anyone too for that matter). Vitality beat them in their only recent meeting, a 3-0 convincing sweep at PGL Cluj-Napoca’s final.

The map pool doesn’t really offer much hope for PARIVISION either. Vitality have better win percentages on every map, and also have 100% win rates on 5 out of 7 maps in the map pool.

Vitality are looking unbeatable at the moment, and everything I’ve pointed out above just confirms it. Unless everything lines up perfectly for PARIVISION here, or Vitality have an off day (which is highly unlikely), I can only see Vitality going to playoffs as the 1st seed.

Prediction: Vitality 2-0.

Team Spirit vs The MongolZ (Lower-Bracket Final)

Team Spirit are still the bigger name team, but this matchup itself is not as comfortable as it looks for them.

Spirit swept 9z in the lower-bracket semifinal to stay alive, and their event numbers are still looking scary, especially with donk having 1.70 overall rating over 6 maps.

The MongolZ got dropped to the lower-bracket by Vitality, where they squeezed by Team Liquid to reach the final. They’re looking dangerous all event long, even if they’re playing without their coach. Techno, 910, and cobrazera all have ratings over 1.10, so this shouldn’t be one of those games where only one side has players showing up.

The head-to-head favors Spirit, but it isn’t a clean walkover – The MongolZ have taken maps, even a series in their most recent clashes, and the current map win rates gives MongolZ some room to fight. They most often remove Anubis, while Spirit still have no record of an Inferno game. That leaves us with a pretty even field (win-rate wise), where Spirit only have some true advantage on Overpass and Dust2. But even with MongolZ having some room to fight, Spirit feels like the steadier team to get the job done.

Prediction: Team Spirit 2-1.