Austin Major's Asian MRQ likely to be held online

Through a post on X, BLAST have announced more details about the upcoming BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025. The year's first Major is also set to be the first one hosted in North America in over six years. NA's last Major was the ELEAGUE 2018 Major in Boston and Atlanta which saw Cloud9 put up a historic win in front of the home crowd, becoming the first NA team to lift the Major trophy.

BLAST began by announcing that the Austin 2025 Major would be held between 3rd June and 23rd June 2025 and followed it up with invite dates as well as the MRQ dates. MRQs (Major Regional Qualifiers) are set to replace the RMRs starting at Austin 2025. MRQs will begin on 14th April 2025 for EU and NA, as the Asian MRQ starts on 15th April 2025; however all three conclude on 17th April 2025.

The invites for the Major and MRQs are set to go out on 7th April 2025, cutting off after the VRS update on 7th April 2025, meaning which the MRQ and invite date are just a week apart. This could well indicate that the Asian side of things are held online, given the lengthy visa process for the States and the travel times.

On the off chance, some of the Asian Counter-Strike community speculates that BLAST might partner up with a reputed organizer in the local scene to hold a LAN in Asia, however these speculations could not be confirmed by any credible source.

Following the The MongolZ's impressive playoffs run at the Perfect World Shanghai 2024 Major, Asia gets two more slots at the Major and one direct invite to Stage 3 alongside Europe's top six and America's #1. Four more Asian teams can qualify to the Stage 1 of the Major through the Asian MRQ, to battle it out against six European and American teams to advance to the next stage.