The BLAST Premier 2021 circuit will end with the World Final, one of the biggest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive events of the year. And we have all of the details for you.
After a full year of competition, eight of the best CSGO teams in the world will meet in Copenhagen to battle for $1 million. The World Final event is the grand finale for BLAST’s competitive CSGO season. The tournament will take place live and in person, which makes every matchup just that much more exciting. Here’s everything you need to know before tuning in to BLAST Premier: World Final, the last CSGO tournament of 2021.
The BLAST World Final will start on December 14 and end on December 19. The tournament will be streamed for free on the official BLAST Premier Twitch channel. The tournament format will be a double-elimination bracket with all matches set to best-of-three. The standard map pool and ruleset will be in effect. For American viewers, the matches will start fairly early in the morning. The opening match on December 14 will be Natus Vincere against Team Liquid at 9:30 am.
The following is a list of all eight teams scheduled to compete at BLAST Premier: World Final.
Teams qualified for the BLAST Premier: World Final through two different methods. The first five teams ranked within the top five on the BLAST Premier Global Leaderboard. The last three earned their spot with victories at other tournaments. Gambit won the Spring Finals, Heroic won Pro League S13, and Natus Vincere won three different qualifier events. All teams will start on a level playing field with no advantages for direct qualifiers. Seeding is determined at BLAST’s discretion.
Natus Vincere is unquestionably the favorite to win BLAST Premier: World Final. Na’Vi will enter the event after a victory at the Fall Finals and a $1 million championship win at PGL Major Stockholm. Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev is by any metric the greatest active CSGO player in the world and makes a very strong case as the greatest of all time. While Natus Vincere is highly favored, there are a few teams that could take the event by surprise.
Other particularly strong teams include Team Vitality, Gambit, and Astralis. Vitality pushed Na’Vi to a close 1-2 final at BLAST Premier Fall, and the Final is the French squad’s best chance to correct the record. Gambit is the only team to truly go toe-to-toe against Natus Vincere thanks to the spectacular sniping of Dmitriy “sh1ro” Sokolov. Astralis just came off an embarrassing 12th-place finish at IEM Winter, but the new additions of Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke and Benjamin “blameF” Bremer have brought a second wind to the Danish side.
Due to health concerns, BLAST Premier: World Final will not have a live audience. The tournament will take place in the BLAST Studio without any live spectators. Some of the teams’ home countries are beginning to reinstate travel restrictions, which would make it difficult for many fans to attend. Denmark is one of those countries, but the event will still be streamed live for free on the BLAST Twitch channel so that fans can watch from afar.
Players must be 21 years of age or older or reach the minimum age for gambling in their respective state and located in jurisdictions where online gambling is legal. Please play responsibly. Bet with your head, not over it. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, and wants help, call or visit: (a) the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey at 1-800-Gambler or www.800gambler.org; or (b) Gamblers Anonymous at 855-2-CALL-GA or www.gamblersanonymous.org.
