BLAST Bounty Season 2 Finals quarter-finals set

Liquid and Spirit will face off in the first match of the offline stage.

The opening matchups for BLAST Bounty Season 2 Finals have been set following the conclusion of a predictable live draft show in Malta.

The bottom-four seeded teams chose their opponents from the four high seeds, with paiN getting the pick of the litter as the first to draft.

Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt stressed the importance of VRS points amidst paiN 's tumble down the Global Standings (where they are currently ranked 29th), but still opted for Astralis for his team's quarter-final matchup.

"The first thing about Astralis is that their map pick is Ancient, and we don't play Ancient," the Brazilian in-game leader said. "It's a big point for us. We have a lot of maps in common that I would like to play, and the last time we faced, we them. Of course in Counter-Strike it's not a rule, it's just more like football sometimes, and we never know, but yeah, basically that."

FaZe picked The MongolZ for their opener, stressing the additional day to prepare for the matchup and the importance of VRS points with the Mongolian team ranked just above them. Niclas "⁠enkay J⁠" Krumhorn added that Erdenedalai "⁠maaRaa⁠" Bayanbat 's absence was not a factor, while Sodbayar "⁠Techno⁠" Munkhbold stated that his team's newcomers might play with more freedom without the pressure on them.

3DMAX , left with MOUZ and tournament favorites Spirit as choices, chose the former for their quarter-final matchup. "We could [fancy our chances against Spirit]," Damien "⁠wasiNk⁠" Dufour said, "but I thought about the map pool. And since the first day, I wanted to pick MOUZ, to be honest, we wanted this with the change, and we thought it was possible. But before, we took other choices, and today was the perfect day to take it."

Liquid , to no surprise for Viktor "⁠flashie⁠" Tamás Bea , were left with Spirit as their only option. With Johnny "⁠JT⁠" Theodosiou taking over as in-game leader and Georgi "⁠Jorko⁠" Mitev as their new, inexperienced AWPer, Liquid already surprised in the online stage by beating Vitality and G2 to make it to Malta, and their run is only getting harder as they take on Spirit in the first game of the offline stage.

"Yeah, I feel like they definitely earned some respect because they've beaten Vitality," Boris "⁠magixx⁠" Vorobiev said when asked about Liquid 's online run. "Of course, everyone can say it was the warmup game after the break, but... we also could have lost earlier (smiles). I've seen it, two times I guess."

The opening matchups and schedule can be found below: