BLAST Rising with €30,000 prize pool announced

BLAST and Fantasyexpo have announced a new tournament for up-and-coming teams called BLAST Rising, which will be held in May and feature a €30,000 prize pool ($32,300).

Produced by Polish agency Fantasyexpo and broadcast on the BLASTtv Twitch channel, BLAST Rising will run over the course of three weeks, from May 4-22, with each week featuring four play days.

The tournament will house 16 European teams from the lower echelons of the rankings, with the participants — all of whom will be determined by direct invites — set to be announced on April 28.

"At BLAST we love the elite and allow everyone to be a part of Premier through the Qualifier Series and the Race to the Global Final, but have created BLAST Rising to support teams and players at all stages of their careers," Nicolas Estrup, Director of Product and Experience for BLAST, said in a statement.

"By giving teams and players more opportunity and exposure in the way only BLAST can, we want BLAST Rising to be a platform that drives forward their personal and team growth."

The draw for the group stage will follow on April 30. The 16 teams will be distributed into four round-robin best-of-one groups, in which each team will play each other twice, with the top-two sides advancing to the single-elimination playoff bracket.

In the group stage, each day from Monday-Thursday will see one set of matches played in each group over the first two weeks before the tournament concludes with the playoffs from May 18-22.