Image: BLAST
Team Vitality and Astralis ended their campaigns in the BLAST Premier: World Final 2024 in 3rd-4th place.
Only two teams remain standing after the penultimate day of the Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) BLAST Premier: World Final 2024 on Saturday (November 2). 
G2 Esports and 
Team Spirit advanced to the grand finals after they defeated 
Team Vitality and 
Astralis in the semifinals.
G2 and Spirit are now set to clash in the best-of-five grand finals on Sunday (November 3) for the final BLAST World Final championship and the grand prize of $500,000 out of the tournament's $1 million prize pool.
Here's how all the action went down on day two of the BLAST Premier: World Final 2024 Playoffs:
2-1
Team VitalityG2 entered the tournament as one of the biggest favourites to claim the title, and they made good on that promise with a stellar run through the Group Stage. G2 opened their campaign by taking down Team Liquid in their Group B Opening Match before soundly sweeping Spirit in their group's Winners Match to earn a direct berth to the semifinals in the Playoffs.
Despite being the defending BLAST World Final champions, Vitality were considered underdogs as they had to play with Audric “JACKZ” Jug as a stand-in for William “mezii” Merriman, who elected to skip the event in order to be present for the birth of his child.
While Vitality lost their Opening Match against Spirit, they bounced back by defeating Liquid in their group's Elimination Match to earn a spot in the Playoffs. Vitality then cruised through MOUZ in the quarterfinals to meet G2 in the semifinals.
The series opener in Dust2 kicked off with a bang as Vitality on the T side took a 3-2 lead after the first five rounds, which included an Ace for Lotan "Spinx" Giladi in round 5. G2 then struck back hard behind Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov and Nikola "NiKo" Kovač, spearheading a seven-round streak for their team that gave them a commanding 9-3 lead by halftime.
G2 then won the first two rounds after the side switch and looked like they would take the easy win. However, Vitality answered with six straight round wins as Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut finally woke up to help trim G2's lead down to 11-9. Vitality got as close to 12-10, only for m0NESY to shut things down in round 23 by winning a post-plant 1v1 over Dan "apEX" Madesclaire to give G2 the 13-10 Dust2 win.
G2 continued rolling in game two at Inferno, where they looked like they could sweep the series by building a 6-1 lead as the T side. However, Vitality's stand-in JACKZ led the team on a five-round rally that ended the first half in a 6-6 deadlock. Vitality then closed out the map with a 7-1 run in the second half, punctuated by an Ace from Zywoo in round 19.
Mirage was the decider, with a back-and-forth first half ending with G2 on the CT side holding a narrow 7-5 lead. NiKo then led his team on a furious five-round run to get to within series point, bagging a 4K in round 14 in the process. While Vitality managed to string together a three-win streak to show signs of life, G2 clinically secured round 21 to claim the 2-1 series victory and advance to the grand finals.
M0NESY spearheaded G2's march to the grand finals with 63 total kills and 20 assists on a series-best 36 deaths while NiKo added 46 kills and 11 assists on 41 deaths. Meanwhile, ZywOo put up a commendable 49 kills and 18 assists on 41 deaths in the loss.
1-2
Team SpiritThe second semifinals match then saw Spirit take on a rather unexpected opponent in Astralis. Not many pegged Astralis as contenders in this tournament, but they put people on notice when they soundly swept title favourites Natus Vincere in their Opening Match in Group A. They then continued turning heads by punching their tickets to the semifinals with a 2-0 sweep over MOUZ in the Group A Winners Match.
Meanwhile, Spirit finished as the second seed of Group B after sweeping Vitality in their Opening Match, before getting swept by G2 in the Winners Match. They then knocked out FaZe Clan with a 2-0 sweep in the quarterfinals, though the final result belies how incredibly competitive that series was.
Spirit started the series strong by building a 7-2 lead as the CT side in Dust2, but Astralis managed to trim their lead down to 7-5 with a three-round run to close the first half. Despite Astralis' late rally in the first half, Spirit closed out the map in decisive fashion with a six-round streak that was punctuated by Boris “magixx” Vorobyev getting a 3K out of a 3v5 in the final round.
Astralis then bounced back in game two on Vertigo, the second time this tournament where they pulled out this unorthodox map pick to force their opponents to fight in a battlefield they know much better. Astralis dominated the first half just as planned, going up 9-3 as the T side with Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz notably clutching a 1v3 to win round 10. Astralis then forced the series to a decider with four-straight round wins in the second half.
With game three on much more familiar ground in Ancient, Spirit proved themselves to be the stronger squad in straight-up gunfights. They finished the first half with a commanding 9-3 lead as the T side behind Dmitrity “sh1ro” Sokolov. While Astralis managed to score two more rounds in the second half, they could do little to stop Spirit from taking the 13-5 win in Ancient and advancing to the grand finals to face G2.
Three Spirit players racked up at least 40 total kills in the series to lead their team past Astralis. Danil “donk” Kryshkovets led the way with 47 kills on 37 deaths, Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov added 42 kills on 31 deaths, while sh1ro had 41 kills against a series-best 28 deaths.
With the day's results, G2 and Spirit have secured themselves at least a 2nd place finish as well as $250,000 in winnings. Of course, they have their sights set on the $500,000 grand prize out of the tournament's $1 million prize pool.
Meanwhile, Vitality and Spirit bow out of the tournament in 3rd-4th place and will take home $85,000 in consolation.
The BLAST Premier World Final 2024 features eight of the best CS2 teams in the world fighting for their cut of a $1 million prize pool, taking place from October 30 to November 3 at the Resorts World Convention Centre in Sentosa, Singapore. For everything you need to know about the BLAST Premier World Final 2024, check here.
