BLAST has announced the invites for BLAST Rivals Fort Worth. The eight-team event saw six of the top teams decline invites for the $1,000,000 North American Counter-Strike tournament.
The following teams accepted the invite:
- Vitality
- Furia
- NAVI
- Astralis
- G2
- FaZe
- GamerLegion
- FUT
Six big-hitters decline BLAST Rivals invitation
As such, there is no North American team representation as part of the event, though Canada’s Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken and Guatemala’s Mario ‘malbsMd’ Samayoa can still represent their region on international teams.
Of the eight invited teams, MOUZ, Falcons, Parivision, Spirit, Aurora, and The MongolZ all declined. Those declines will be a major blow to the event and BLAST as they aim to sell out the 14,000-seat Dickies Arena.
However, teams declining an NA event is not specific to this event. ESL’s IEM Atlanta 2026 only attracted three of the top 10 teams, again, Vitality, NAVI, and Astralis accepted. The remaining seven will instead play PGL Astana.
It is believed that the threat of Visa issues, as well as the additional travel burden, acted as disincentives for IEM Atlanta, factors that also apply to BLAST Fort Worth.
The combination of geopolitical factors and the extreme schedule crunch that VRS demands of Tier-1 rosters may be persistent issues for events in the United States for the foreseeable future.
BLAST outline 2028 events, with clashes expected
BLAST also announced dates for their 2028 events, announcing events on January 10-24, February 21-March 6, April 3-17, and May 1-15.
Three of the dates clash with announced calendar slots taken by PGL or ESL, with the January, February, and April events featuring at least some overlap, though the February event only has its opening day affected by a PGL Grand Final day.
The jostle over calendar space has led to an increasing arms race of hospitality, financial incentives, and LAN matches to attract more teams for reasons of player comfort, org finances, and to maximise VRS offering. BLAST is no exception, having vastly increased the LAN matches in its circuit from 2027 onwards.
The announcement includes two further events which are yet to receive a date or location.
Who do you think is going to win the Tournament Organiser wars? You can discuss that and more on our community Discord Server
For more on the Counter-Strike ecosystem, see the recently announced PGL 2027-28 Roadmap
Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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