BLAST Rising expands into LATAM region

The third edition of the BLAST Rising online tournament will take place later this month and be open to teams from the LATAM region with a $15,000 prize pool on the line.

So far, there have been two editions of the BLAST Rising tournament – the first in May 2020 and the second in May 2021 – both for European-based teams. The main goal of the tournament is to provide teams below the top tier of competitive Counter-Strike with an opportunity to improve their individual and team growth.

The third instalment of BLAST Rising will take place this month (November 30 – December 12). For the first time, it will focus exclusively on teams from the LATAM region, who will compete for a total prize pool of $15,000.

BLAST Rising will be organised by Fantasyexpo gaming agency, which is also the licensee of the BLAST Premier broadcasting rights in Poland.

The tournament is part of BLAST’s commitment to creating a sustainable esports ecosystem that provides opportunities for a wide range of organisations – and mirrors BLAST Premier’s attempts to offer a global qualifying circuit and route into their main events in 2021.

The list of participants will include 16 teams invited by the organizers. The invitations and group divisions will be revealed at the end of this week. The event will take place from November 30 to December 12. The last four days will be dedicated to the final phase.

Andrew Haworth, Commissioner for BLAST Premier and Director of Operations & Production at BLAST, said: “After the success of the first two European-based BLAST Rising tournaments, we’re delighted to be able to expand into the LATAM region and give teams in South America a platform to compete and impress. We’ve seen in the past that when teams succeed in this event the opportunities in BLAST Premier and other tier one tournaments will follow – we witnessed this with a number of teams over the last 12 months including Copenhagen Flames and Endpoint. The LATAM region has some of the most talented and passionate players in the world and we’re excited at the prospect of increasing opportunities for teams to compete and develop.”

Adrian Błaszczyk, Gaming Project Manager at Fantasyexpo, said: “BLAST Rising by Fantasyexpo is the result of our many years of cooperation with BLAST. The main goal of the tournament is to build a space for teams outside the top teams to show off. The first two editions showed how many great, not fully appreciated teams Europe has – a great example is Copenhagen Flames, who changed three players before the tournament, then proved their worth by winning the tournament, and the next few months later, reaching the legend stage at PGL Major Stockholm 2021. I’m excited to discover more regions – in this case, the LATAM region, which currently has the largest community!”

The official broadcast of BLAST Rising LATAM will take place on Twitch channel BLASTtv. In addition, organisers will work with local commentators to deliver the broadcast in multiple languages and support developing casters in different parts of the world.