Wild fans and big plays: Day 1 recap of BLAST Pro Series Madrid 19

The first day of BLAST Pro Series Madrid 19 is in the bag. Vodafone Giants became the first team to qualify for a BLAST Pro Series tournament ever. Astralis topped the leaderboard with 2 wins and 0 losses, while all other teams tied 1-1, except Vodafone Giants who has some catching up to do after 2 losses.

Check out our media library that is frequently updated throughout the tournament for free editorial, non-commercial use.

War screams from two buses full of Portuguese fans signal the beginning of BLAST Pro Series Madrid 19. The first game of the tournament is the Qualifier Final between Movistar Riders and Vodafone Giants - the latter brought the heat with them all the way from Portugal.

Vodafone Giant’s fans drove far to support their team in the Qualifier Final…

… two buses full!

A best-of-three match stood between the two teams and BLAST Pro Series Madrid 19.

The first map was Vodafone Giant’s pick, Nuke. Being behind 10-1 was a bad omen for the Giants, but they managed to claw their way back on the CT side in best Nuke fashion to win the game 16-14.

Movistar Riders ultimately faced defeat, despite a heroic effort from the team’s In-Game Leader, Alejandro “ALEX” Masanet, who put up a 1.56 rating and 103.7 ADR!

The energy in the Vodafone Giants camp was explosive after their monstrous comeback on the first map.

Next up was a riveting Overpass match where the veteran Òscar “mixwell” Cañellas Colocho lead his team to a quite convincing victory, 16-10. The Spanish player, who’s the only one in the qualifier final to have ever won a premier event, surely showed Madrid Arena that Movistar Riders were not ready to let their chance at the main tournament slip.

Òscar “mixwell” Cañellas Colocho delivered a stunning number of impressive AWP kills which helped Movistar Riders tie up the qualifier final 1-1.

The third and deciding map was Vertigo. The newest map in the pool and the first time it has ever been played at a BLAST Pro Series.

With a map like Vertigo, it’s really hard to predict the result due to the severe lack of data on the map. A perfect mystery of a third map to decide the fates of these teams.

A-site definitely looked like the place to be on this map. After continuous attacks, differing very little each time, Vodafone Giants ultimately exhausted their opposition and booked their spot at BLAST Pro Series Madrid 19 with a 16-12 victory!

The final result from the Qualifier Final at BLAST Pro Series Madrid 19.

Unexpected MVP’s

Ricardo “rmn” Oliveira and Alejandro “mopoz” Fernández-Quejo Cano from Vodafone Giants and Movistar Riders respectively were the most impactful players of the series. The two more experienced players, Ricardo “fox” Pacheco and Òscar “mixwell” Cañellas Colocho were a bit further down on the scoreboard.

Vodafone Giants took home the victory 2-1 and secured their spot against some of the best teams in the world at BLAST Pro Series Madrid 19.

The Portuguese fans did not drive all the way to Madrid in vain. They get to follow Vodafone Giants all the way through the tournament.

The Battle of Madrid - The first round of the group stages

Vodafone Giants might have won the battle, but still, have a war to win. In their first match of the initial group stage phase, Vodafone Giants took on Cloud9 on Dust2 which turned into a proper nailbiter. The experienced Cloud9 edged out Vodafone Giants 16-14 in the end.

René “cajunb” Borg, player, Cloud9:

- We’ve had training matches against Vodafone Giants a couple of times. We knew how they played Dust2 so we felt comfortable going into the match. We lost some stupid rounds though. The 14-14 round was the turning point, autimatic and Golden turned the game around in that round.

Astralis and ENCE stomped their opponents

ENCE came out of round 1 as the most dominant team, stunning NAVI 16-4 on Mirage. An impressive display of brute force by the Finnish team with Aleksi “allu” Jalli leading the charge with 29 kills and only 8 deaths.

Aleksi “allu” Jalli rarely breaks character from his stone cold attitude. Not on the server either.

Astralis shows better promise in Madrid after their shock-elimination from BLAST Pro Series Miami 19. A 4-kill round from Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen in the opening round of the match proved a dark prophecy for Ninjas in Pyjamas. A convincing 16-8 victory for the Danes.

Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen showed up in full form against Ninjas in Pyjamas.

First day in the bag - round 2 of the group stage

ENCE couldn’t keep up the momentum in round 2. A 16-5 defeat against Ninjas in Pyjamas on Nuke means that both teams of the match sit at 1 victory and 1 loss after the two first rounds of the group stages.

Dennis “dennis” Edman from Ninjas in Pyjamas left the team for while due to personal reasons, but recently returned to the roster. The break seems to have worked wonder for “dennis” who closed out the map with 27 kills in 21 rounds and an ADR of more than 145!

Jonas "Lekr0" Olofsson, In-Game Leader, Ninjas in Pyjamas

- I was expecting Nuke to go through. We went through their [ENCE] demos. We knew what plays they wanted to do and were able to counter them. Also, dennis is really good on Nuke and he played the rotations perfectly.

Dennis “dennis” Edman is back in full form after a well-needed break.

NAVI breaks Cloud9; Astralis Nuke streak continues

Cloud9 faced a tough defeat, 7-16, against NAVI on Mirage. With only Timothy “automatic” Ta and Maikil “Golden” Selim making a real impact for Cloud9 against the on-fire trio of Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, Denis “electronic” Sharipov, and Egor “flamie” Vasilyev, the struggle is truly uphill, to say the least.

Just as one would think Astralis was about to throw away their year-long win streak on Nuke, falling behind 0-4 against Vodafone Giants, the case wasn’t so. Astralis quickly regained control of their prime map and won quite dominantly 16-7 against the qualifier team.

The standings after day 1 of BLAST Pro Series Madrid 19

Here are the current standings:

Astralis are comfortably in the lead as the only team winning both their group stage matches so far. The local heroes on Vodafone Giants suffered badly.

Tune in May 11 for the three additional rounds of the group stages, the exciting 20,000 dollar BLAST Stand-Off and, of course, the Grand Final crowning the BLAST Pro Series Madrid 19 champions making one skilled team a step closer to the Global Final at the end of the year.

The action starts at 14:30 CEST and you can follow all the action on our Twitch channel.