NA talent set to clash in BLAST World Final opener
The opening matchups for the BLAST Premier World Final have officially been revealed, and the group stage will kick off with a showdown between North American players. Team Liquid has drawn G2 Esports in the first round of Group B, meaning the NA roster will face the former M80 product Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa.
G2 won the previous matchup from ESL Pro League last month, winning 13-3 on Inferno and Nuke while dropping Mirage.
malbsMd has been thriving since joining the decorated G2 squad this past June, and won his first major trophy with the team at the BLAST Fall Final this past month. Outside of G2's shockingly poor showing at IEM Rio, where everyone but Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov played poorly, malbsMd has been putting up excellent numbers on the international roster.
Liquid didn't fare too much better at IEM Rio, though they did win a best-of-one against Complexity and were just a couple rounds away from upsetting the eventual champions in Natus Vincere. The team still managed to qualify for the BLAST World Final despite not playing their best Counter-Strike, but the number two ranked team in the world will require Liquid to play their best in Singapore.
Here's the full opening slate of opening matches at the BLAST Premier World Final:
NAVI v. Astralis 
on Oct. 31 at 02:00AM FaZe v. MOUZ on Oct. 31 at 04:30AM
G2 v. Liquid 
on Oct. 31 at 07:00AM
Vitality v. Spirit 
on Oct. 31 at 09:30AM
