Farewell, BLAST Groups: A genuine step forward for a tournament organizer, but a concept that is now well worth sunsetting as we head into the brave new world of CS esports

The group stage, repetitive as it is to guarantee screen time for the partners, hasn’t yet worn out its welcome, and the playoffs actually featured a double-elimination bracket at the time, which I sorely miss to this day.

BLAST Premier Groups is finally being put out to pasture after a seven-year run, and while the format did serve its purpose in guaranteeing maximum match and screen time to all partners, it ultimately led to depressingly low stakes in the group stages. In fact, it was literally impossible to get eliminated in the Groups event, making the whole thing just a big seeding party.

The goal to guarantee maximum match and screen time to all partners led to depressingly low stakes in the group stages. It took serious effort to get eliminated: in fact, in the Groups event, it was literally impossible to do so, making the whole event just a big seeding party. Inside the party, the first set of group stage matches only served as seeding themselves as we headed into the playoffs to play out near-identical games. The low number (and set nature) of participants also all but guaranteed repeat matchups, making it tough to care about an otherwise excellently produced product.

The Finals now feature a GSL-style group stage with an ESL-style truncated playoff, which feels inferior to a double-elimination bracket in terms of the possible storylines it could generate. (Again, of course, it all but guarantees three series to be played live on air for partner teams since only the bottom finishers are eliminated from the group stage.) Not quite the cauldron of competition it could be.

Small improvements have been made this year at least, with the 12-team partner-exclusive format softly expanding to sixteen, with some fun names and storylines that came along with the change. Now we’ve got Falcons, a team we all love to hate, and Team Spirit, a team with everyone’s favorite donk. GamerLegion and Virtus.pro also add a fun bit of color in playstyles and skill to an event that often ran the risk of running a little stale towards the end.

So, a farewell to BLAST Groups: great broadcasting innovations and a genuine step forward for a tournament organizer, but a concept that is now well worth sunsetting as we head into the brave new world of CS esports. I genuinely like a lot what's been teased for 2025 and am looking forward to seeing how it all shakes out. Here’s hoping we will hopefully look back on this period a few years from now and think, “This was as walled a garden as it ever got,” – but for now, let’s enjoy yet another FaZe vs G2 matchup. Or maybe two. Or three.

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