Blast Premier (stylized as BLAST Premier) is a ''

Counter-Strike 2 ''Counter-Strike 2'' is a 2023 free-to-play Tactical shooter, tactical first-person shooter video game, game developed and published by Valve Corporation, Valve. It is the fifth entry in the ''Counter-Strike'' series, developed as an updated v ...

'' (CS2) (previously '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'') professional

esports Esports (), short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, played individually or as teams. ...

league launched in 2020. It is primarily based in two regions: North America and Europe. The Danish esports organisation, RFRSH Entertainment, announced the series as a successor to the BLAST Pro Series in 2019. The 2020 Blast Premier Series experienced disruptions due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, including the transition of all events except the Spring regular season online and reduced prize pools for many of the events. This disruption continued into the 2021 season, with both the Spring Groups and Spring Showdown occurring online.

Format

The Blast Premier series is divided into two seasons per year: Spring and Fall. Each season lasts around four months with 16 regular season partnered teams participating in the Group stage, ending with a season finals for the 6 top teams from the group stage. The season finals are also open to two teams from each season's Showdown events, which are open to a much broader array of organizations, including those that did not advance in the regular season. Non-partnered teams usually qualify for the Showdown events via invites or via regional tournaments (One such example being the ACE North American Masters for teams from North America). The winner of each season's finals goes on to participate the Global Finals at the end of the year, as well as winners of other prestigious non-BLAST Premier events and those that rank highest in the BLAST Premier Global Leaderboard, a standings of the top events of the year from multiple leagues and tournaments. In August 2023, ''Counter-Strike'' developer

Valve A valve is a device or natural object that regulates, directs or controls the flow of a fluid (gases, liquids, fluidized solids, or Slurry, slurries) by opening, closing, or partially obstructing various passageways. Valves are technically Pip ...

announced that the partnership system that Blast Premier used would be abolished in 2025, forcing all tournament organizers to pivot to an open circuit or an invitational system using Valve's rankings. In order to prepare for the change to an open circuit, Blast announced that the 2024 Blast Premier season would feature 16 partnered teams: the previous 12 partnered teams that, with the exceptions of

100 Thieves 100 Thieves, LLC (abbreviated 100T) is an American lifestyle brand and Esports, gaming organization based in Los Angeles, California, founded in 2017 by Nadeshot, Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag. The organization competes in several video games, includ ...

MIBR Made in Brazil, commonly referred as abbreviated name MIBR (stylized as MiBR or mibr) is a professional esports organization with players competing in ''Counter-Strike 2,'' '' Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege'' and ''VALORANT''. It was a member o ...

and

Evil Geniuses Evil Geniuses (EG) is an American esports organization based in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington. Founded in 1999, the organization has fielded players in various fighting games, ''Call of Duty (series), Call of Duty'', ''Counter-Strike ...

(who had their spots sold to BIG Clan, Heroic and

Cloud9 Cloud9 Esports, Inc., or simply Cloud9 (C9), is an American professional esports company based in Santa Monica, California. The company was originally founded as a professional ''League of Legends'' team by Jack and Paullie Etienne in May 2013 ...

in 2021, 2022 and 2023 respectively), had been partnered since Blast Premier's inception, and four one-year affiliate teams, those being GamerLegion, Team Falcons,

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and

Virtus.pro Virtus.pro (VP) is an international esports organization founded in 2003 in Russia and acquired by Armenian investors in 2022. The organization has players competing in such games as ''Counter-Strike 2'', ''Dota 2'', ''Rainbow Six Siege'', ''War ...

. BLAST announced their plans for 2025 and beyond during the 2024 Spring Final in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. To align with Valve's new rules forcing their partnership system to cease, BLAST will use three formats - Bounty (a 32-team invitational tournament where teams receive bounties for winning matches against their opponents), Open (a 16-team tournament mimicking the

Intel Extreme Masters The Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) is a series of international esports tournaments held in countries around the world. These Electronic Sports League (ESL) sanctioned events, sponsored by Intel, currently host events in ''Counter-Strike 2''. Oth ...

), and Rivals (where the top 4 teams in the Valve rankings, plus the next-best teams in Europe, the Americas and Asia) will play each other in the old Final format). With this, 2024's World Final was the last BLAST Premier World Final.

Partnered teams

Editions

Partner league

Open circuit

In August 2023, ''Counter-Strike 2'' developers

banned tournament organizers from having "unique business relationships" with teams. As a result, Blast revamped their tournament format starting in 2025. The new "Bounty" tournament assigns the 16 highest-rated teams of 32 bounties in addition to the regular prize money earned, where victorious teams claim half their opponent's bounty, with the other half added to their own bounty. The tournament will feature bests-of-three in a

single-elimination A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

format. The new "Open" tournament features 12 teams invited from the Valve Regional Standings, in addition to four teams qualified through new regional "Rising" tournaments, which feature invited teams as well as teams from open qualfiers. Open tournaments feature two groups of eight playing a

double-elimination A double-elimination tournament is a type of elimination tournament competition in which a participant ceases to be eligible to win the tournament's championship upon having lost ''two'' games or matches. It stands in contrast to a single-elimin ...

best-of-three bracket. "Rivals" tournaments involve eight directly invited teams competing in four-team double-elimination brackets, before a best-of-five grand final.

World Team Of The Year

References

External links

Official website
{{Professional Counter-Strike competition 2020 in esports Esports leagues Esports television series Counter-Strike competitions