BLAST unveil Austin Major and MRQ dates
The BLAST.tv Austin Major will run from June 3rd to 22nd, BLAST announced on January 26th. On top of that, all the Major Regional Qualifiers (MRQs) will take place in April.
The invites for the BLAST.tv Austin Major will be sent out after the April 7th update to the Valve Regional Standings (VRS). The NA Major will be the first-ever Valve-sponsored tournament to feature 32 teams, which will add an extra stage to the Major and bump the number of American teams to 11.
While BLAST confirmed the dates for the MRQs, the tournament organizer still needs to reveal whether the tournament will take place on a LAN setup or if it will be played online.
The three MRQs will be played during the same week of April and all of them conclude on April 17. The difference is that the Europe MRQ kicks off on April 14, while the Asia and Americas MRQ begins on June 15.
The Europe and Americas tournaments will have 16 teams each, battling in a Swiss system stage. The top 5 teams will advance to the Stage 1 of the BLAST.tv Austin Major and the next three teams will proceed to the Play-in Stage.
The Asia MRQ is slightly different as the eight teams attending will be split into two double-elimination format groups. The top team from each group will advance to Stage 1 of the Major, and the next two teams from each group go to the Play-in.
