The BLAST Premier: World Final 2021 is the final S-Tier event of the year in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which runs from Dec. 14-19. The World Final is the culmination of the BLAST Premier season, with a whopping $1 million in prize money on the line and $500,000 for the first place winner.
The teams
The BLAST World Final is an intimate affair with only eight teams in attendance: Gambit Esports, Heroic, Natus Vincere, G2 Esports, Team Vitality, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Astralis and Team Liquid. Five teams — G2, Vitality, NiP, Astralis and Liquid — qualified through the Global Leaderboards, collecting points over the course of the season. The other three teams qualified by winning certain events. Gambit won the Spring Final, Heroic won ESL Pro League Season 13 and Na’Vi won three different qualifiers — ESL Pro League Season 14, PGL Major Stockholm 2021 and the Fall Final.
Of the teams in attendance, only Na’Vi, Astralis and Gambit are playing with full rosters that they are expected to keep going into 2022. Heroic are missing Martin “stavn” Lund because of “private personal reasons,” according to the team’s Twitter account. He will be replaced by Heroic alumnus and current MAD Lions player Johannes “b0RUP” Borup. NiP are likewise playing with stand-in Love “phzy” Smidebrant. Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz, who missed the back-end of the IEM Winter playoffs, is still out due to illness so phzy, the Young Ninjas AWPer, will continue to fill in.
As for the other three teams, G2, Liquid and Vitality are all slated for roster changes in 2022.
The favorites to win the World Final will be Na’Vi, the No. 1 team in the world. After winning the PGL Major and the BLAST Fall Final, Na’Vi took a short break, skipping IEM Winter. Despite fielding a “dead” roster, Vitality will be close on the heels of Na’Vi. The French team won IEM Winter, making their case as the second best team in CS:GO.
The talent
Desk host:
- Freya “Freya” Spiers
Interviewer:
- James Banks
Analysts:
- Jacob “Pimp” Winneche
- Janko “YNk” Paunović
Commentators:
- Mohan “launders” Govindasamy
- Conner “Scrawny” Girvan
- Jason “moses” O’Toole
- Anders “Anders” Blume
The schedule
The BLAST World Final will feature a double-elimination bracket. All matches will be best-of-three’s. The games will all take place on LAN at BLAST’s studio in Copenhagen, Denmark. The first matches are as follows:
- Natus Vincere vs. Team Liquid — 10:30 a.m. ET on Dec. 14
- Gambit Esports vs. Heroic — 1:30 p.m. ET on Dec. 14
- G2 Esports vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas — 7:30 a.m. ET on Dec. 15
- Team Vitality vs. Astralis — 10:30 a.m. ET on Dec. 15
To watch the event, viewers can tune in on BLAST’s Twitch or YouTube channel.
