BLAST Premier World Final returns to Abu Dhabi

5-7-2023 15:58

The Etihad Arena will once again host the $1 million season-ending tournament.

BLAST has announced that the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, will host the BLAST Premier World Final for the second consecutive year. Tickets for the event will go live in late August and people signed up on the website can get early pre-sale access.

The tournament will take place on December 13-17 and is expected to close out the second half of the season before tier-one competition goes on the winter break.

G2 won the World Final in 2022 after beating Liquid in the title decider

Eight teams will play for their share of the $1 million prize pot in Abu Dhabi. Three of them have been locked in so far: FaZe following their run to the title at ESL Pro League Season 17, Vitality as the BLAST.tv Paris Major winners, and HEROIC thanks to their victory at the BLAST Premier Spring Final.

At least three of the remaining five spots will be determined via the BLAST Leaderboard, the tournament organizer's special ranking. G2 are currently sitting at the top of it outside of the three teams already qualified, followed by Natus Vincere and ENCE, according to Liquipedia.

The other two spots will go to the winners of ESL Pro League Season 18 and BLAST Premier Fall Final. Should one of the three teams already qualified win either tournament, the extra spot will also be decided via the Leaderboard.

FaZe

Vitality

HEROIC

EPL S18 winner

BLAST Fall Final winner

BLAST Leaderboard *

* The official BLAST Leaderboard on the BLAST.tv website is severely outdated as of the time of writing.

Wow this is amazing!

2023-07-05 15:57

13 replies

Abu dhabi should be banned from esports..will wait for ESL impact league to take place in abu dhabi..blast is lured by money

2023-07-05 16:07

10 replies

you do know that ESL is owned by arabs and blast isnt?

2023-07-05 16:19

2 replies

Yea nah blast also fuck with Saudis

2023-07-05 18:30

1 reply

but blast is owned by Denmark iirc

2023-07-06 09:58

WRONG. ESL is Saudi's territory while Blast is the other arabs in dubai? idk

2023-07-05 16:22

No UAE is based as fuck as a country. Safe, rich, clean, beautiful, citizens are modest, polite and hospitable, everything is cheap and affordable, from housing to daily goods and luxury items. I spend 3 months working in Dubai and i had a blast. Living in UAE is better than any western country. I really think its funny to see people complaining about gulf countries from their shithole in chicago or birmingham. But i do agree that despite UAE being a amazing country, the crowd is dogwater

2023-07-05 20:33

4 replies

Bottom line for where an even should be held is if the venue will actually show up and make it lively. It’s gonna be dead compared to Brazil or Paris recently. Also the country is poorly built on borderline slave labor but we won’t talk about that.

2023-07-05 21:18

"Living in UAE is better than any western country." Thats objectively not true if you have sane people criteria. A few major nogos: No Freedom of expression, association and assembly No Press Freedom Criminalizes consensual same-sex relations between adults. ...

2023-07-06 06:09

He was already sold on UAE, you don't have to sell it to him more with based facts

2023-07-06 14:47

UAE is shithole only made relevant by oil and USA. If not for this they would still eat sand with their unhuman laws and slavery. Dubai is a mess for rich people who don't care about anything and anyone, it doesn't even have proper infrastructure of any sort and everything is fake because it was made without any proper idea just to show off. Why do you think it is like you say? Becuase they want to lure people otherwise no one normal would want to live there.

2023-07-06 12:00

yeah sellout..

2023-07-06 14:32

abu dhabi crowd again OMEGALUL

2023-07-05 16:35

rip fans

2023-07-05 17:17

Ez for NAVI and another MVP for the GOAT S1mple

2023-07-05 15:58

+1 no doubts

2023-07-06 08:14

cool

unexpected!

Niceuuuu Alhamdulillah!

another grand final I can watch live :DDD

2023-07-05 16:01

Same here let's go!!!!!

2023-07-05 16:08

It's not exactly news, is it? BLAST signed a three-year contract with ADGaming in 2022.

*BLAST signed a three-year contract with Oil Money in 2022

2023-07-05 16:02

3 replies

Ok?

2023-07-05 16:04

And ESL is owned by Saudi Arabia's Savvy Games Group, what's your point?

2023-07-05 16:09

ik. you just said my point

2023-07-05 16:34

Thank god the neom deal fell through

can i bring my husband?

2023-07-05 16:06

No. Only if you are XY

2023-07-05 16:12

yo BLP when you dropping a full mazel tron album

2023-07-05 16:28

when you stop being a w**b

2023-07-06 09:02

Frankie huge comeback incoming

2023-07-05 16:11

6 replies

frankie in abu dhabi?

2023-07-05 16:14

Why

2023-07-05 16:18

didnt want to cast for saudi organizers, but then did

2023-07-05 16:32

Frankie in jihab incoming? or is it allowed to wear western sty

i guess she' ll have to come in a jihad yes

2023-07-05 16:38

2023-07-05 23:49

Big L the crowd is 10 people and g2 won there last time

As fluky as G2 winning was and as poor as the crowd was I would hold atrocious company ethics to be the bigger L Maybe this time people will actually turn up instead of the paid audience, and maybe an actually good team wins though

2023-07-05 16:26

2023-07-05 16:16

Poor "guest workers".

just fucking sad, imagine 18000 people in crowd instead of 100... oil money tho... good money for them shit for viewers

2023-07-05 16:17

You are welcome to sponsor them in your country oh, you a broke aah bish? Well then it's oil money

2023-07-06 14:56

Fuck that man totally ruins the event imo. One off was completely fine and the event banged but 2 in a row is a massive L and hugely off putting.

They have contract with arabs lol and they have to honour it

2023-07-05 16:54

Still, that doesn't mean I can't be disappointed.

2023-07-05 17:09

Random rant: if it's supposed to be a end-of-the-year prestigious tournament with the teams that had the best performance said year, its kinda weird that we have 2 direct invites for the winners of the EPL's over Kato and Cologne (

It was like this last year At most I can imagine this is BLAST posturing to a. try and say they are more open-circuit because the EPL winner could technically be some random ass qualified team, b. because EPLs last longer and there are more matches giving you a better idea of team strength or c. discredit Kato/Cologne

2023-07-05 16:29

EPL format-wise is much tougher to win compared to Katowice and Cologne.

2023-07-05 17:13

Can't w8 to see Frankie hosting

Yay! (Joking ofc, ffs another show hosted from such a country...)

>says the fr*nch flag

2023-07-06 14:57

L. Nobody wants to fly there just to enjoy 40°C+ and no alcohol while watching CS. Also have to be careful, not to be locked up for bullshit reasons. What a joke.

2023-07-05 16:21

9 replies

But at least you know the language

2023-07-05 16:23

they will probably not even cast in arabic but in english.

XD y will never understand that many people wont have a chance to even visit EU due the visa issues

i mean i understand, that visa issues exist. But we all know, there will be a lot less people watching live, than in the americas or europe. Its just sad for the teams /sports. Not even talking about the human rights issues.

2023-07-06 09:09

there is some truth in this. but does this tournament have to be big in terms of viewers? remember 2021 world finals. there was Denmark and a small studio. I think it's meant to be.

2023-07-06 09:17