The BLAST Premier: World Final 2021 will not be played in front of a live audience. The pinnacle of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive BLAST Premier tournament season will instead be played in a LAN studio environment in Copenhagen, Denmark. This is in contrast to the recent BLAST Fall Final, which was played in the Copenhagen Royal Arena in front of thousands of fans.
“BLAST is confident and committed to delivering this event on LAN with the current COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines in place, but will continue to monitor the situation as it develops and adapt the event to meet all global restrictions and government guidance,” read a statement from BLAST.
Eight teams have qualified to compete at the BLAST World Final. They are Gambit Esports, Natus Vincere, Heroic, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Astralis, G2 Esports, Team Liquid and Team Vitality. Five places were awarded to the winners of the following events: BLAST Premier Spring Finals (Gambit), Fall Finals (Na’Vi), ESL Pro League Season 13/14 (Heroic/Na’Vi respectively) and the PGL Stockholm Major (Na’Vi). The remaining teams qualified through the BLAST World Final Leaderboard, with two extra qualifying slots becoming available since Na’Vi won three of the automatic qualifying events.
“The World Final is the endgame for all teams competing in Counter-Strike across 2021 and the perfect way to crown the best and most consistent team across the last 12 months of competitive play,” said Andrew Haworth, Commissioner for BLAST Premier. “The qualifying mechanism for this event means we’ll have eight of the strongest teams competing for our biggest prize pool this year of $1 million. We can’t wait to welcome these teams to our studio in Copenhagen and end the year in style.”
The event will run from Dec. 14-19, 2021 and offer up $1 million in prize money. Teams will compete through a double elimination bracket where all matches are best-of-threes.
