BLAST announced that the group stage of the BLAST Open Fall 2025 tournament will be held online, despite initial plans to host it on LAN at the BLAST studio in Copenhagen. The final stage of the tournament will take place at the OVO Arena Wembley in London.

The format change was mentioned only in passing in a press release about BLAST's multi-year partnership with the organization GamingMalta. As part of this collaboration, the finals of BLAST Bounty Season 2 will be held in Malta. You can read more about this in our article.

The reasons for abandoning the LAN group stage are currently unknown. Recall that at the first BLAST Open Spring 2025 tournament earlier this year, group stage matches were held in Copenhagen, while the playoffs took place in Lisbon.

According to Complexity's general manager Graham "⁠messioso⁠" Pitt, moving online will have serious consequences for the tournament's VRS rating, as the group stage essentially turns into a closed online qualifier.

Teams knew about this in advance, but BLAST hid it in the announcement. The calendar lost 24 LAN matches, leaving only 5 playoff games. This kills the VRS value of the tournament—no LAN, no prize bonuses for the group stage

 

Meanwhile, the BLAST Bounty Fall 2025 in August will take place in a new format: the second week of the tournament will be held at the new BLAST studio in Malta with spectators. Participation in the second week of BLAST Bounty matches in Malta will be free for spectators—registration on BLAST.tv is required to be the first to access tickets.

Invitations for BLAST Open Fall 2025 and BLAST Bounty Fall 2025 will be distributed based on the VRS rating on July 7, with official team announcements on July 14.

Participation in the second week of BLAST Bounty Fall 2025 matches in Malta will be free for spectators—just register on BLAST.tv to be the first to access tickets.