Blast Premier


Blast Premier is a Counter-Strike 2 professional esports 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, 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. 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 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, MIBR and Evil Geniuses, had been partnered since Blast Premier's inception, and four one-year affiliate teams, those being GamerLegion, Team Falcons, Team Spirit and Virtus.pro.
BLAST announced their plans for 2025 and beyond during the 2024 Spring Final in London. To align with Valve's new rules forcing their partnership system to cease, BLAST will use three formats - Bounty, Open, and Rivals. 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 Valve 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 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 qualifiers. Open tournaments feature two groups of eight playing a double-elimination 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.
EditionDateVenue, Host cityChampionsRunners-upMVPPrize pool
Bounty 2025 Season 1January 13–26, 2025Online/BLAST Studios, CopenhagenTeam SpiritEternal FireDanil "donk" KryshkovetsUS$500,000
Open Lisbon 2025March 17–30, 2025Copenhagen
MEO Arena, Lisbon 		Team VitalityMOUZMathieu "ZywOo" HerbautUS$400,000
Rivals 2025 Season 1April 28–May 4, 2025BLAST Studios, CopenhagenTeam VitalityTeam FalconsMathieu "ZywOo" HerbautUS$350,000
Bounty 2025 Season 2August 4–17, 2025Online/BLAST Studios, MaltaTeam SpiritThe MongolZDanil "donk" KryshkovetsUS$500,000
Open London 2025August 25–September 7, 2025Online
Wembley Arena, London 		G2 EsportsTeam VitalityNikita "⁠HeavyGod⁠" MartynenkoUS$400,000
Rivals 2025 Season 2November 10–16, 2025AsiaWorld-Arena, Hong KongFURIATeam FalconsIlya "m0NESY" OsipovUS$350,000
Bounty 2026 Season 1January 13–25, 2026Online/BLAST Studios, MaltaPARIVISIONTeam FalconsNikola "NiKo" KovačUS$1,100,000
Open Rotterdam 2026March 18–29, 2026Copenhagen
Ahoy Arena, Rotterdam 		TBDTBDTBDUS$1,100,000
Rivals 2026 Season 1April 27–May 3, 2026Dickies Arena, Fort WorthTBDTBDTBDUS$1,000,000
Bounty 2026 Season 2July 20–August 2, 2026BLAST Studios, MaltaTBDTBDTBDUS$1,050,000
Open 2026 Season 2August 24–September 6, 2026TBATBDTBDTBDUS$1,100,000
Rivals 2026 Season 2November 9–15AsiaWorld-Arena, Hong KongTBDTBDTBDUS$1,000,000

World Team Of The Year

YearRoleIDNameTeam
2022IGLkarriganFinn AndersenFaZe Clan
2022AWPs1mpleOleksandr KostylievNatus Vincere
2022EntryYEKINDARMareks GaļinskisTeam Liquid
2022SupportPerfectoIlya ZalutskiyNatus Vincere
2022LurkerropzRobin KoolFaze Clan
2022CoachB1ad3Andrii HorodenskyiNatus Vincere