2025’s first true barometer starts on Saturday. Oh, Kato, how we’ve missed you.

As cool as BLAST Bounty was, it’s not Katowice. This event and the legendary Spodek Arena bring the most out of teams. We’ll see some of the freshly minted rosters truly push their limits for the first time. And some of the teams already qualified for groups are real doozies.

G2, Vitality, Falcons, FaZe, and most importantly, The MongolZ, are all waiting to find out who they’re playing.

This event will tell us a lot about where these teams stand. You’re never 100% right about every team, and we can’t wait to find out who the disappointments are going to be. Our money is on Falcons. We’re assuming that org is cursed until proven otherwise.

You also wonder if the winner of this event is going to come from one of these teams.

We didn’t mention Spirit earlier, who seem like the bang-on favourites. These days you really have to assume any event is theirs by default. After showing some weaker spells last year, BLAST Bounty was a real statement of intent for them. donk is just too stronk.

At least there’s good news for the optimists among us. If any team was going to beat Spirit, it’s probably this Vitality team. Out of all the teams, they’re the best suited to match Spirit’s firepower. It’s hard to argue against ropz and ZywOo…

As good as Spirit and Vitality seem, and as hopeful as teams like G2 and FaZe undoubtedly are. Having The MongolZ face Eternal Fire in the finals would be far funnier. Wouldn’t you agree?