NRG Eliminate B8 from BLAST Open Rotterdam with Dominant 2-0 Victory

NRG kept their BLAST Open Rotterdam campaign alive with a convincing 2-0 victory over B8, eliminating the Ukrainian side from Group A and moving one step deeper into the lower bracket. The North American team won the series on Inferno and Ancient, taking the maps 13-6 and 13-9 respectively. According to HLTV’s match report and match page, NRG established control early on both maps, while B8 struggled to build momentum after isolated bright moments. 

The opening map, Inferno, quickly turned in NRG’s favor despite B8 securing the pistol round. A second-round force buy from NRG flipped the script and sparked a long run of rounds on the T side. HLTV’s report highlighted Michael “Grim” Wince as a key factor in that stretch, especially in repeated duels against B8 AWPer Daniil “s1zzi” Vinnyk around apartments. NRG carried a 9-3 lead into halftime, then used a strong start to the second half, including a triple kill from Nick “nitr0” Cannella in the pistol, to move onto map point. B8 delayed the finish briefly, but NRG still closed Inferno 13-6. 

Ancient followed a very similar pattern. NRG again built a commanding first-half advantage, this time going up 10-2 with Grim and Josh “oSee” Ohm leading the way. B8 showed more resistance after the break and managed to put together a partial comeback, but they were never able to fully threaten a reversal. One of the decisive moments came when Grim converted a 1v3 clutch to bring NRG to match point, after which the Americans sealed the map 13-9 and completed the sweep. 

The numbers backed up the eye test. On HLTV’s stats page for the match, oSee finished with a 1.59 rating and 37 kills across the two maps, while Grim added 42 kills and a 1.43 rating. On the B8 side, no player managed to consistently match that output; Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi posted the team’s best rating at 1.07, while s1zzi had a particularly difficult series, ending with 15 kills and a 0.71 rating. 

This result mattered even more because both teams had already dropped their opening matches in Rotterdam. NRG entered the elimination series after a 0-2 defeat to Falcons in the Group A upper-bracket quarter-final. HLTV reported that Falcons won the series despite playing without Maksim “kyousuke” Lukin, and that even a huge defensive half from Aran “Sonic” Groesbeek was not enough to save NRG in that opener. 

B8’s road to the lower bracket had been similarly difficult. Their tournament began with a 1-2 loss to NAVI, who had just arrived in Rotterdam after winning ESL Pro League Season 23 in Stockholm. HLTV noted that B8 started that series competitively and even pushed NAVI to a third map, but they could not complete the upset. That meant the clash with NRG became a straight elimination match, and once the series began, B8 never really found the level they had shown in parts of the NAVI match. 

For NRG, the win was important not only for survival, but also as a sign that the roster may still have room to grow. In HLTV’s post-match interview, Grim said the future should be “brighter” once the team gets more time together, framing the result over B8 as a step in the right direction rather than a finished product. That fits the broader picture of the event: NRG were still trying to recover after the opening loss, while B8 were attempting to prove they could translate flashes of promise into a full series against a direct rival. 

The victory sent NRG forward in Group A’s lower bracket, where they were set to face FURIA in the next elimination round according to HLTV’s event schedule. BLAST’s official tournament page lists BLAST Open Rotterdam 2026 as a 16-team event running from March 18 to March 29 with a total prize pool of $1.1 million, while HLTV’s event page shows that the competition spans the group stage in Copenhagen and the playoffs in Rotterdam. In other words, beating B8 did not put NRG close to safety yet, but it did keep them in contention at one of the biggest events of the month. For B8, meanwhile, the defeat meant an early exit after back-to-back series losses in Group A.