BLAST Premier (also called BLAST Premier) is a professional esports league for Counter-Strike 2 (CS2), which was previously known as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The league began in 2020 and mainly operates in two regions: North America and Europe.
The Danish esports organization, RFRSH Entertainment, introduced the series in 2019 as a replacement for the BLAST Pro Series. In 2020, the BLAST Premier Series faced challenges because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most events, except the Spring regular season, moved online, and many events had smaller prize amounts. These issues continued into the 2021 season, with both the Spring Groups and Spring Showdown held online.
Format
The Blast Premier series has two seasons each year: Spring and Fall. Each season lasts about four months and includes 16 teams in the Group stage. The top 6 teams from the Group stage advance to the season finals. These finals also include two teams from each season’s Showdown events. Showdown events are open to many teams, including those not in the regular season. Non-partnered teams usually join Showdown events through invitations or regional tournaments, such as the ACE North American Masters for North American teams. The winner of each season’s finals qualifies for the Global Finals at the end of the year. Other teams that qualify include winners of major non-BLAST Premier events and teams with the highest rankings in the BLAST Premier Global Leaderboard, which tracks top teams from various leagues and tournaments.
In August 2023, Counter-Strike developer Valve announced that Blast Premier’s partnership system would end in 2025. This change required all tournament organizers to use an open format or an invitational system based on Valve’s rankings. To prepare, Blast Premier’s 2024 season included 16 partnered teams. These were the previous 12 teams that had been partnered since the series began, except for 100 Thieves, MIBR, and Evil Geniuses, whose spots were taken by BIG Clan, Heroic, and Cloud9 in 2021, 2022, and 2023, respectively. Four one-year affiliate teams also joined: GamerLegion, Team Falcons, Team Spirit, and Virtus.pro.
BLAST shared its plans for 2025 and beyond during the 2024 Spring Final in London. To follow Valve’s rules, BLAST will use three formats: Bounty (a 32-team invitational tournament where teams earn rewards for winning matches), Open (a 16-team tournament similar to the Intel Extreme Masters), and Rivals (where the top 4 teams from Valve’s rankings, plus the next-best teams in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, compete in the old Final format). With this change, the 2024 World Final was the last BLAST Premier World Final.
Editions
In August 2023, the developers of Counter-Strike 2, Valve, banned tournament organizers from forming "unique business relationships" with teams. Because of this rule, Blast changed how their tournaments are organized, starting in 2025.
The new "Bounty" tournament includes the 16 highest-rated teams out of 32 total. These teams also compete for bounties, which are additional prizes. If a team wins a match, it takes half of its opponent's bounty, and the other half is added to its own bounty. This tournament uses a best-of-three format in a single-elimination style, meaning teams are eliminated after one loss.
The "Open" tournament includes 12 teams invited based on rankings from the Valve Regional Standings. Four additional teams qualify through new regional "Rising" tournaments, which include both invited teams and teams that compete in open qualifiers. The "Open" tournament has two groups of eight teams each, playing in a double-elimination best-of-three bracket, where teams can lose twice before being eliminated.
The "Rivals" tournament includes eight teams directly invited to compete. These teams play in four-team double-elimination brackets, and the winners advance to a best-of-five grand final.