BLAST Premier Showdown NA open qualifier announced

Mexican tournament organizer Liga ACE have revealed the first details of the ACE Masters which are set take place from April 4th to 6th. The qualifier tournament, which was previously revealed by BLAST in February, will take up the usual BLAST-mandated format with the winner being awarded a slot at North American bracket of the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown.

The open qualifier, which will award two slots to the ACE Masters, is set to take place from March 22nd to 27th with registration closing on March 20th. Despite the locality of the organizers, only teams from the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean will be able to sign up with Mexico itself notably missing from the list.

The format for the open qualifier is a single-elimination bracket starting with BO1 matches up until the semifinals which will be played in BO3 format to determine the two qualifying teams. A BO3 seeding match will also be played following the semifinals. Although in a potential regression, the qualifier is being hosted on Challengermode which was previously utilized by the infamously lag-ridden open qualifiers for the VENN Invitational last year.

The two winners of the open qualifier will be joined by six invited sides which will be announced in the coming days. The eight teams will then be divided into two GSL groups with BO1 matches where the top two from each group will advance. The playoffs will be played in a single-elimination bracket format with all matches being BO3 series.

The current team list for the North American Spring Showdown is:

Teams interested in participating in the open qualifier can sign up here.