BLAST Bounty Season 1 marks a new beginning for the BLAST CS2 circuit. Gone are the days of the Spring, Fall, and World Finals, as we usher in BLAST Bounty, Rising, and Open. Bounty is kicking off the year, with a total of $500,000 in prize money up for grabs during the event, which runs from January 14th to 26th.
To watch BLAST Bounty Season 1 live, you can head over to the official BLAST Premier Twitch channel, which is found below.
BLAST Bounty Season 1 has one of the most unique formats ever seen in a Counter-Strike tournament. All 32 teams enter from the very beginning, where they will play out the following format:
However, it’s the seeding where BLAST Bounty really differentiates itself from other events. Before each round, teams are re-seeded based on the opponent beaten in the previous round. Lower-seeded teams then get to pick their opponents from the higher-seeded teams. There’s one more catch – teams get prize money based on their opponent’s seeding. The higher the seeding, the higher the prize pool, allowing lower teams to pick better teams for the chance of winning more money at the risk of elimination.
Once 32 teams have been whittled down to eight, BLAST Bounty Season 1 moves to LAN Finals at BLAST Studios in Copenhagen. There, the event will use the following format:
Once again though, the same seeding rules apply. Lower-seeded teams pick their opponents right until the Grand Final.
The teams attending BLAST Bounty Season 1 are notable for one big reason: this marks the first time a female CS2 team has attended a Tier 1 LAN in many, many years, if ever. You can check out the list of invited teams below:
Credit: BLAST
As you can see, we’re getting pretty much all the best CS2 teams in the world, many of whom will be debuting new rosters. It promises to be an awesome event with the new format!
With the new VRS rules, pretty much every top CS2 team is attending BLAST Bounty Season 1. Therefore, we’re not short of potential winners here. Something like NAVI and Spirit might be the obvious pick, but we’re going to go with MOUZ as our eventual winner. Something about BLAST Bounty just screams out for MOUZ, and they’ll be wanting to get off to a flying start to the 2025 season.
The underdogs are an interesting proposition. The single-elimination format means we could see upsets galore, and it’ll be interesting to see how Falcons get on in their debut. We’re also rooting for Imperial Fe to give a good account of themselves here. They’re trailblazers of the female scene no matter what happens, but it would be great to see them defy expectations.
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