BLAST Rising announced

Going by the tagline "A truly global affair", BLAST Rising, a Counter-Strike 2 circuit by BLAST has been announced for 2025. The circuit aims to bring teams from Asia, North America, Europe and South America, scraping talent from the grassroots on the road to BLAST Open.

The circuit begins with open qualifiers across all four regions which lead into the closed qualifiers. Following the closed qualifier the circuit ends with the BLAST Rising Finals. The top teams from each region based on VRS, gets a direct invite to the BLAST Rising Final and are entitled to a $10,000 participation fee. The winner of the BLAST Rising Finals in each region will head into BLAST Open

The next twelve teams in the region's VRS are invited to the closed qualifier where four teams from the regional open qualifiers join them. The closed qualifiers will split sixteen teams into four groups which run double-elimination bo3 brackets. The winners of these four groups head into the BLAST Rising Finals, where they join four invited teams.

The BLAST Rising Finals will feature eight teams in a single-elimination bo3 bracket, sending the winner to the BLAST Open. The BLAST Rising circuit across all regions will run completely online. GGTV has partnered up with BLAST to run Asia's Rising circuit which begins in February.