The first tournament of the year has begun and it started with… FlyQuest vs. MIBR and HEROIC vs 3DMAX. Great.

FlyQuest and HEROIC won those two matches, and that’s all we can really be bothered to say about that.

Oh, HEROIC took 3DMAX’s bounty, which was a fun realisation of the concept, but let’s be fair, no one really had any clue if they were the underdog or not in that game.

Elsewhere, NertZ looked great in his Liquid debut against 9 Pandas, so it looks like kicking YEKINDAR was the right play. Who knew?

fnatic then had to contend with donk, which, as you would expect, didn’t go well for them. That match also saw the return of Train to tier 1 CS, and we’re happy to announce that Train has already had more watchable games than Vertigo as a result.

On day two, we got to see the return of device after he missed the Shanghai Major. He made light work of Wildcard in a 2-0 Astralis victory. BIG then took down SAW 2-0, the second bounty-snatch of the event.

We also got our first taste of ropz on Vitality. He and ZywOo put on a display against Metizport to show that they might just be the deadliest duo since Fred and Rose West.

Don’t look them up.

But the real main event happened one game earlier, when NiKo finally made his debut for Falcons going up against ENCE.

TeSeS and NiKo cooked, and we’re actually excited for the future of this Falcons roster as they showed composure in two overtime maps. It’s also worth giving ENCE their flowers for that game. gla1ve kept Falcons on their toes with some exceptional calling and their young stars all showed their potential.

BLAST Bounty continues today and through the weekend, but more on that in our preview below.