Vitality added to BLAST World Final team list

19-8-2024 14:32

The IEM Cologne champions will face Natus Vincere, Spirit, and five other teams in November at the $1,000,000 event.

Vitality won their first trophy of 2024 in Cologne

Vitality are the third team to receive an invite to BLAST Premier World Final, the $1,000,000 event that has closed the year since its inception in 2021.

This year, the Shanghai Major will have that honor, and it is still unclear exactly when the World Final will take place because of a scheduling conflict with the RMR qualifiers for the Major.

The location is also yet to be announced after BLAST's deal with Abu Dhabi expired.

RMR dates create scheduling clash with BLAST World Final

The World Final's pitch is to bring the best teams of the year to one small eight-team LAN, and BLAST achieves that by inviting the winners of the biggest events: Major winners NAVI, IEM Katowice champions Spirit, and now IEM Cologne victors Vitality.

Two slots also go to winners of the other BLAST Premier stadium events, Spring Final (which Spirit won) and Fall Final.

The final slots are then decided by the BLAST Premier leaderboard, including if a team, like Spirit, wins two events that normally result in an invitation.

Four slots will be decided this way, with FaZe and G2 now in fourth and fifth place after IEM Cologne.

The final two spots will be more of a brawl, with MOUZ and Astralis in the lead but plenty of ranking points up for grabs at the final three events (ESL Pro League S20, BLAST Showdown, and BLAST Fall Final) before rosters lock on October 23.

BLAST announces 2025 circuit details

Due to Valve's rules around partner leagues, 2024 will be the final iteration of the World Final in this format. It will be replaced in spirit by BLAST Rivals, a bi-annual eight-team event that will invite teams using Valve's World Ranking.

The team list for the 2024 World Final is currently:

Natus Vincere

Spirit

Vitality

BLAST Fall Final 2024

BLAST Ranking points

lets go

2024-08-19 14:33

nice

Good

2024-08-19 14:36

Announce new dates and the location.

2024-08-19 14:42

final navi vs vitality, navi 3-2 will take against Vitality, revenge

2024-08-19 14:48

1 reply

Stop jinxing

2024-08-19 15:53

This year teams at World Final will seriously save strats for the Major. Big tournaments so close to the RMR or Major seriously lose a lot of prestige as players think of them as practice for more important matches.

2024-08-19 14:50

4 replies

Which is how it should be. The majors should be the centralizing tournament of each season. They are the big ones. Cologne/Kato at the beginning and then the major at the end is a good way of going about things imo. We'll see how it goes next year with the completely open circuit.

2024-08-19 17:00

3 replies

Katowice this year suffered a little because RMR was starting right after and some teams openly said Kato is less important.

2024-08-19 17:16

2 replies

Yeah because the major wasn't at the end of the season. The major being at the end stops this from being a problem in the future. Right now the world final will be sacrificed, but by next season, the foundation has been laid for TOs to have more flexibility with where they can put their big events. No need to worry about being too close to the major when we already know exactly when it's gonna happen every time.

2024-08-19 17:24

At last some order in this schedule.

2024-08-19 17:27

NaVi lost on theyr own picks . The game was not decided on inferno the game was decided when you pick 2 maps and don't get any of it

2024-08-19 15:37

Vita also lost Dust2. Aleksi is just cursed at BO5

2024-08-19 15:40

Vita shouldn't have lost D2, realistically. But they did so it's irrelevant I guess. What should and what does aren't the same.

2024-08-19 19:08

G2 and Faze are also already classified source: blast.tv/premier/leaderboard

2024-08-19 16:48

Isn't there a mistake in that last list? The team that wins in Shanghai will also get invited (if it wasn't invited before, i.e. if a team other than Vitality, Na'Vi and Spirit wins it), right?

2024-08-19 16:53

8 replies

No, the team that wins Shanghai Major won't be invited as this list will be closed on 29th September (BLAST Fall Final), so the top 8 teams will be announced then.

2024-08-19 16:59

OK, I didn't think about that...schedule conflict. You are correct.

2024-08-19 17:01

The major is in December and the fall final is in September.

2024-08-19 17:02

5 replies

Oh wait you're talking about the world final mb

2024-08-19 17:03

The Major ends on December 15th. I have no idea when the World Final will be scheduled, it will be tough for Blast to choose an appropriate period and, as they say in the article, an appropriate location. I hope they won't make it online.

2024-08-19 17:09

Yeah I got all the dates and stuff mixed up. Blast has way too many finals for me to keep it straight lol. So the main problem is that the rmr is taking place when the final is supposed to take place. There is a gap in October 25 - November 10 where they can fit the world final in maybe? After Thunderpick, before the rmr. If they can get 5 days in that time-frame, then it should be possible. No idea what location they could get.

2024-08-19 17:17

Yeah, that would be a possible gap but it is so close to the Major that some teams might choose to not attend. I don't know if they could do it after the Major and just before Christmas. Let me check the calendar: it would still be so close to the Major final (which will be on Sunday December 15th) - they would organize it from December 17th (Tuesday) until December 22nd (Sunday).

2024-08-19 17:21

They most likely can't do it that deep into December. Historically, players get roughly a month off from mid December to mid January. They aren't gonna show up to that event unless they really have to. The schedule from now on is designed so that the Major is the last event possible in a season.

2024-08-19 17:36