BLAST announces changes to ecosystem adhering to Valve guidelines

Earlier today, Valve issued a blog post outlining a dramatic change to Counter-Strike's tournament models, forcing every large-scale event to select its participants from open qualifiers or Valve's ranking system. This will phase out partner teams, both from BLAST's ecosystem and ESL's Louvre Agreement.

In a Tweet by BLAST, they have announced that they will abide by Valve's new criteria starting in 2025. Essentially, this means teams part of BLAST's agreement will no longer receive invites to BLAST Groups.

This will obviously lead to a huge change for BLAST events, with their seasonal Groups comprising entirely of partnered teams, and at least 75% of their seasonal Finals as well. How BLAST will look at the start of 2025 we do not know yet, but the tournament organizer has said that they will continue to communicate their plans and share information with the community.