BLAST Premier 2020 teams announced

BLAST has announced all 12 partnered teams who will participate in their 2020 Premier tournament series, as well as some details on the organizer's first event, which will begin in January.

Many of the world's best teams have partnered up with BLAST for the entire year 2020, including three out of the current top-five teams, Astralis, Evil Geniuses, and Liquid, as well as a couple of organizations with new lineups in Complexity and OG.

Most of the remaining teams who regularly took part in the BLAST Pro Series circuit in 2019 will join next year's Premier series, as well, with FaZe Ninjas in Pyjamas, Natus Vincere, and MIBR also being part of the list, which is rounded out by new partners in Vitality, 100 Thieves, and G2.

fnatic and MOUZ are two of the most notable omissions from the partnered list, but the organizers have stressed that the 12 partnered teams will not be the only ones participating in BLAST tournaments throughout the year.

Although more details on the exact scheduling and locations are yet to be announced, BLAST has revealed that the 2020 season will begin with a studio series in London kicking off in January, with the organizers promising that the setup will bring the fans "the closest they have ever been to the players."

"BLAST came to all of the teams with a proposition that is set to transform the industry," Nicolas Maurer, CEO of Team Vitality, said in a statement. "We believe the BLAST approach of producing best in class entertainment will continue to attract large new audiences as a global series in cool locations, innovative format and unique experiences. It was a no-brainer to participate for all the teams and players. We are excited to be competing against each other."

The partnered teams for BLAST Premier in 2020 are:

MIBR
Natus Vincere
Astralis
Liquid
FaZe
Vitality

Ninjas in Pyjamas
100 Thieves
OG
G2
Evil Geniuses
Complexity

The London series constitutes the beginning of the Spring season, which will first see the teams distributed into three groups of four. From there, the top two teams will advance to the eight-team seasonal finals, with the remaining two participants coming from an as-yet-unexplained "showdown."

The Fall season will take place later in the year with the same system before the series concludes at the Global Final, featuring the best teams from the Spring and Fall seasons alongside some of the best-performing teams from the entire year outside of BLAST competitions.

A total of $4,250,000 will be on offer in the BLAST Premier series, $1,375,000 of which allocated for each of the seasons and $1,500,000 for the Global Final, with the Global champion clinching a whopping $1,000,000.