BLAST expand partner list with Virtus.pro, Falcons, Spirit, GamerLegion

5-1-2024 13:00

The tournament organizer now has 16 partnered teams.

BLAST enters 2024 with four new members

BLAST have announced the addition of Virtus.pro, Falcons, Spirit, and GamerLegion to their circuit as affiliate members and expanded their circuit to 16 teams, confirming an earlier report by HLTV. The four teams are set to join the action at the BLAST Premier Spring Groups, starting January 22.

BLAST Premier to expand to 16 teams in 2024

The Spring Groups format has also been changed slightly to account for more teams, with the event now featuring a $190,000 prize pool and an increase from 24 to 26 games in a format that removes "all redundant matches." BLAST also announced that their other other events will remain unchanged despite the expansion.

The tournament organizer states that after Evil Geniuses opted to sell their Member team slot at the end of the year, they received several propositions from interested teams. One of those came from the newly assembled BLEED roster, Aleksandar "⁠kassad⁠" Trifunović shared in a Tweet.

With Cloud9 securing EG's member slot, BLAST then offered four more Affiliate memberships for the duration of 2024 before Valve's ruling of effectively putting an end to leagues and tournaments with partnered teams comes into effect at the start of 2025.

Andrew Haworth, Programme Director for BLAST Premier, said: "We are excited to be expanding our pool of participating teams in the BLAST Premier circuit with four new Affiliate member teams. During the bidding process for Evil Geniuses' Member slot, it became apparent there was a strong appetite to be a part of BLAST from teams across the Counter-Strike ecosystem.

"Virtus.pro are an organization with a deep history in Counter-Strike, and GamerLegion experienced great success at the Paris Major last year. Both Falcons and Team Spirit have made statement signings as well, and we cannot wait to see all four teams debut later this month and compete across the year," he said of BLAST's new members.

The BLAST Premier circuit gets underway with the Spring Groups, set to start on January 22 at the BLAST Studios in Copenhagen, where six Spring Final spots will be up for grabs.

The full list of BLAST-partnered teams is as follows:

Spirit (Affiliate team)

GamerLegion (Affiliate team)

Virtus.pro (Affiliate team)

Falcons (Affiliate team)

Movistar Riders would have been better

2024-01-05 13:01

22 replies

Better than GL, Spirit, OG and BIG of course

2024-01-05 13:08

20 replies

BIG is 100% better.

2024-01-05 13:11

14 replies

I won’t talk shit about Big cause teams and fans have good relationships but check their match history.

2024-01-05 13:14

13 replies

Big literelly has the best match history of Any team in cs2 history right now. Just look at their matches

2024-01-05 13:15

12 replies

I meant their head to head record.

2024-01-05 13:18

3 replies

Ooh, yeah, but still, That was before big went into this weird New found form they have right now. I must admit i havent seen so much from mr, so idk how good they are tho

2024-01-05 13:22

2 replies

MR is ass now

2024-01-05 13:59

1 reply

2024-01-05 14:16

Big have quite literally beat noone but maybe aurora

2024-01-05 14:02

7 replies

Just like spirt, both teams have been really good. But both are unproven in t1

2024-01-05 14:17

6 replies

? spirit won 2 lans already, both vs VP

2024-01-05 14:26

5 replies

not t1 mr braindead

2024-01-05 14:32

4 replies

well we'll see how donk plays vs t1 now, excited atleast :)

2024-01-05 14:36

Me too man :D

2024-01-05 15:08

maybe not the lan but VP is #5 ranked team. They definitely are Tier1. double braindead. Ive also seen donk shit on NAVI core and simple in faceit. Not even using the spirit roster.

2024-01-06 06:42

And thats why they need to play good in a t1 lan before we can say anything "For Sure"

2024-01-06 16:05

Not Spirit tho. Donk and Sh1ro deserve it.

donk and sh1ro owns Movie star

2024-01-05 13:33

Maybe you misunderstood my comment or replied the wrong guy. Last time they faced mvr won btw but yes I’m not delusional, Spirit is way better.

2024-01-05 14:25

It's just my biased opinion I guess! But after signing Sh1ro, they should be on top next time, plus movie star missing on SunPayus.

2024-01-05 16:31

xDD

2024-01-05 13:40

Nice to see some new faces in blast after a while of no new ones.

2024-01-05 13:46

Still no brazilian team LOL

2024-01-05 14:00

cringe

2024-01-05 13:02

mouz monte furia should have been added first

2024-01-05 15:22

I agree, but I don't think that monte would have enough money to buy spot

2024-01-05 15:35

it's an affiliate spot, not a proper one + if gl could afford it mouz and furia 100% could

2024-01-05 15:41

Monte's CEO said that the slots were bought and they did not have time to decide on favourable conditions for themselves, so now we see VP spirit GL, which, apparently, did not care, as long as it was only to get into BLAST

2024-01-05 16:00

shit ass circuit if its based on money that much and not on skill

2024-01-05 16:38

2024-01-05 17:35

Mouz 100% agree

2024-01-05 15:44

SPIRITTTT YESSSSS

Name + flair

2024-01-05 13:09

you forgot + flag

2024-01-05 13:32

wdym donk is solid

2024-01-05 18:16

wow

where is attax

Somewhere in an ALTERNATE universe, with two 1.6 majors to their name.

2024-01-05 13:06

GL waste slot

mouz missed out? what

2024-01-05 13:04

I always knew Blast was just a blood-moneyhungry organization. They could have proper businessess playing in their tournaments but rather take russian gambling money and bloody cheques from Saudi goverment. Way to support sportswashing project. Hope you will have a blast with these "teams"

2024-01-05 13:05

17 replies

2024-01-05 13:10

2024-01-05 13:13

not a single russian organization here

Sure... right...

2024-01-05 13:21

Cry

I would watch you cry when a rocket flies into your house :)

2024-01-05 13:19

wtf man fortecya lviv moment

2024-01-05 13:20

2024-01-05 13:31

XD flag, sry

2024-01-05 13:44

cry is free

no one cares

2024-01-05 14:21

Welcome to the real world

2024-01-05 14:24

You would be better fighting your corrupted gov then posting bs on hltv

2024-01-05 14:27

Cry is zero monies

2024-01-05 14:44

2024-01-05 18:40

if you buy partner for monte, b8, ikla and lazer cats, blast will be tier 3 tournament

2024-01-05 20:30

newsflash, most are sponsored by those. ESL, Saudi Arabia.

2024-01-06 16:31

Spirit & VP are ok but GL will be dead and Falcons expected but still not happy to see

GL? wtf xd

2024-01-05 13:07

yeah thats so garbage wtf

2024-01-05 13:57

Besides VP and Spirit this is the worst outcome

VP and GL are wasted spots. Still better than NRG and some Chinese team that some people assumed might buy the spot

8 replies

VP is not a wasted spot

Ok my bad, i worded that wrong. VP totally not a wasted spot, if you replace GL with MOUZ, i dont see a better team than VP who could play there, maybe Monte or Furia, although Furia are still mid. I mean, VP just a filler team, better than NIP, OG, BIG, but not good enough for vitality, faze, g2, navi and arguably even c9. They might sneak thorugh groups, but probably will be eliminated first on finals. In my opinion competitionwise it would be better if Falcons or Spirit/VP just straight up buy out NIP, BIG/OGs slots instead of expanding the league to 16 teams. Less boring matches

2024-01-05 13:30

Thing is they could definitely beat G2, NaVi, C9 in their current states, maybe even FaZe on a good day. They just rarely get the chance to, up until this point

2024-01-05 13:35

VP is a very lethal team who didn't play too many games against tier 1 opposition because they didn't have any partnership slot. They can go toe to toe with any team in top 10.

2024-01-05 13:51

VP is good wdym

Vp elite team

literally number 5 team in the world

2024-01-05 13:25

#68 You cant convience me that VP are better than G2, G2 are thtat low because they've only played one meaningful event after Sydney and points decay hit them, while VP's placement was boosted massively due to esl challenger event and two online events they played, still props to VP that they were grinding instead of sitting and doing nothing. Not to mention there is less than 100 point difference between 5 and 11 placements. I'd say realistically VP are 8-10 max and we didnt see falocns and liquid in action yet. They might be better than COL, 50/50 against Monte, but they will lose every head to head against vitality, faze, g2, navi and mouz

2024-01-05 14:18

wait , so who lost the bidding?

MOUZ

rip , they lost to who? hope not this fkin gamer legion

2024-01-05 13:16

Idk, according to Striker, MOUZ really tried to get a spot, but he doesn't know why it didn't happen

2024-01-05 13:17

where is the info from

2024-01-05 14:48

His twitter

2024-01-05 14:52

Yoooo

Jamesus the Savior and his apostles Little goat donkey Nice

I'm glad that this partner league is being dissolved in 2025.

based

Mouz no money after buying degster

more like mouz greedy fuckers want to get players for 0$ and sell them for 2kk$ and never invest anything

what?

I think MOUZ didn't even wanted, cuz this year is last for partner leagues, but it is funny to see GL, but not MOUZ or maybe furia, others expected.

weak teams

Furia sleeping?

2024-01-05 13:12

rip

2024-01-05 13:41

heeeeeey thats pretty good..

OG?!

VP W (they needed this) Spirit W Falcons (makes sense to secure the $$$) GL ???????

EZ Spirit

sigma move. gigachad even.

finally it can be called a elite tournament tho to many orcs here

either fakeflagger or krakow tro, not a single non-ukrainian uses this cringe word

2024-01-05 13:26

wtf you mean saszka?

2024-01-05 15:02

mouz???

Yep, mouz and Ence should not be surprised that players want to leave them after this.

leaving top 3 team because of a single year of blast lol

2024-01-05 15:15

budget org

2024-01-05 14:20

sad to see Furia seems to continue without great ambitions... economically it is clear that making a one-year contract would not be profitable... but they have the money and sportingly it would be very important

honestly seeing GL here and not Furia is disappointing, tho I would be happy to hear that they at least tried buying the partner slot

2024-01-05 13:43

Still no ENCE but GL 😂

2024-01-05 13:24

Mouz were snubbed

2024-01-05 13:28

Gamerlegion LMAO

2024-01-05 13:29

In every other sport on the planet Russians are ostracised, but in cs if anything it's the opposite. Absolute joke.

2024-01-06 01:25

expected besides GL, ence and mouz wouldve been better

EZ4DONKY

SPIRIT POG

so its again CIS-year. VP, C9 and Spirit will be top-5 in 3 month

2024-01-05 13:34

Virtus pro POGGGG HUGE WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW GL can go away

What is GL doing here? bad team and bad IGL

2024-01-05 13:37

Selling it at a discount before it's gone. We can circle around this story but Blast is the main reason Volvo put a food down on this bs because of so many locked pay-to-enter kind of tournaments.

2024-01-05 13:39

now that I think about it, BLAST's closed circuit was the best mistake to ever happen cause it essentially forced Valve to come out and permanently ban these circuits for life)))

2024-01-05 14:46

yeah, still feels scummy to see Blast scraping and making -70% Christmas sale for those slots to milk any money they can before it's out.

they can take the money, the aftermath of their actions is the real prize. The CS pro scene can finally regain its soul that was lost many years ago.

2024-01-05 15:17

this means next year is going to be irrelevant with so many teams buying ranking points and later on using them to qualify for 2025 stuff

2024-01-05 15:45

frankly, I think this might depend on how many Valve Rankings spots TOs will put and how many open qualifiers.

2024-01-05 15:46

VP, Spirit and Flacons good but cmon GL?

wtf where is tyloo. They not spending the money correctly

DONK ERA INCOMING

2024-01-05 13:45

Honestly, I did wait VP, Spirit, MOUZ, Furia here, but I also understood that Falcons would be here cuz more money. GL unexpected

2024-01-05 13:49

Blast clowns

2024-01-05 13:55

mouz robbed

gamerlegion really has maximized that major final fluke run.

My goodness, Furia, you fucked up.

2024-01-05 13:56

Donk donk donk donk donk

2024-01-05 14:03

how the f can be Falcons placed on top 10hltv ranking.... wtf ? Oil money blink blink

BLEED > NIP

Cant believe furia let GL get the spot

We want monte now

2024-01-05 14:06

Who invited GL here???

I did. Problem?

2024-01-05 14:10

Yes.

Why did you do this? We need answers!

2024-01-05 20:31

GL didn't deserve this

2024-01-05 14:08

How did dogmerlegion sneak in ??? Who in the hell would pay big bucks just to watch keoz and isak play video games

Not gamerlegion again nooooo

Gl wasted spot , Ence would be better.

I don't think Ence would have wanted to spend money on this

2024-01-05 14:35

I have a feeling that ENCE is just saving some money for next roster changes which happen after major or during summer break most likely.

2024-01-05 14:51

Yeah they probably go full polish , this is just for major.

2024-01-05 16:02

pointless to do that.No real IGL and only Dycha is good enough for tier 1 out of these 4 Poles.All this 9INE thing is going out soon

2024-01-05 16:42

GL new EG

What's the point for just 1 year ?

$$$. More teams, more engagement, more revenue, more everything.

2024-01-05 18:05

I am excited to see new Spirit roster.

would have liked fnatic in there even though their current roster is tired as hell

2024-01-05 14:28

Why not ENCE😭😭😭

2024-01-05 14:37

Should have taken FURIA instead of EU EG with 0 fans..

2024-01-05 14:40

winline 1xbet fonbet

2024-01-05 14:43

+saudis lol

2024-01-05 15:30

Can't wait for Snappi to bash Blast again for this kind of shit! Oh, wait.

jame time

2024-01-05 14:45

I thought Blast didn't want anything to do with Russians because of war.

money always wins. And VP and Spirit technically "loop-holed" by relocating to Armenia and Serbia.

2024-01-05 16:13

They are a corrupt org, nothing new

2024-01-06 01:27

VP is armenian, spirit is serbian

2024-01-08 08:40

Spirit and VP WWWWWW blast

2024-01-05 15:10

What about Ence? :(

2024-01-05 15:25

Gamerlegion is a joke of a team, so desperate to use every single opportunity to hang themselves high enough at rankings

2024-01-05 15:38

Mouz hello??? u sleeping??? Furia also sorry i forgot

2024-01-05 15:49

GamerLegion

2024-01-05 15:48

BLAST WILL BE DONKED

2024-01-05 16:09

snappi on blast partner team now lol

2024-01-05 16:14

funny how money corrupts...

2024-01-05 16:53

how much money falcons pay to be in?

2024-01-05 16:16

WHY GamerLegion BRO? SUCH A WASTED SPOTTT

GamerLegion Xd

2024-01-05 16:20

Even some random thai mix joining in for free would be better and more beneficial than GamerLegion. (btw please BLAST do a thai tournament we need you)

2024-01-05 16:43

what a "coincidence" just when Saudis want a spot in every league there are "new" spots available... I hope this team will fail all the way across every tournament.

2024-01-05 16:52