BLAST Pro Series will change its format for the first time since 2017

The BLAST Pro Series will feature a new format with best-of-threes semifinals in Los Angeles, RFRSH announced today.

The organization will also open the entire tournament for fans instead of allowing them only in the second day of the event. These are the first changes BLAST has made since its first tournament at Copenhagen in November 2017.

BLAST has faced criticism from a part of the CS:GO community that believes it’s damaging the game’s tournament calendar. The criticism began after Astralis opted to skip premier tournaments like IEM Sydney and DreamHack Masters Dallas while continuing to play on BLAST events.

Jordi Roig, executive producer at BLAST Pro Series said that they want to have a balanced format for the players and viewers. “In Los Angeles we’ll for the first time introduce semifinals in a best-of-three format between the four top teams from the group stage,” Roig said.

“It’s something we’ve been trying to get our heads around for a while as it’s a balance between maintaining a compact format only taking up a few days of the players’, fans and viewers time in a compact season while also securing the most competitive format possible.”

The format of the BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles will include a round-robin group stage with two best-of-one games at a time except for the final group stage round, in which all three matches will be played simultaneously.

The winning team will have to play more maps in order to lift the trophy as BLAST added best-of-three semifinals combined with the best-of-three grand final.

BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles will be played from July 13 to July 14. It will feature Team Liquid, FaZe, NRG, MIBR, Cloud9 and the remaining spot is yet to be announced.