The USA will finally see the return of the illustrious Counter-Strike Major tournament for the first time in six years as the CS2 is ready to launch in June 2025. BLAST made the announcement over the weekend, saying that the organizers will bring the CS2 Major to the Moody Center arena in Austin, Texas.
Reports about such a move had been making rounds in the early parts of the year before the weekend’s confirmation of BLAST’s consideration for both the U.S. and Austin, Texas, particularly for the 2025 Major.
The U.S. fans have been signalling for more CS2 activities, especially after the number of fans that showed up for IEM Dallas earlier in the month as G2 Esports lifted the IEM Dallas trophy. G2 competed with North American hero Stewie2k as a stand-in. Coincidentally, Stewie2k competed in the last Major that was played in the U.S. as he was pivotal in helping the Cloud9 roster win ELEAGUE Boston 2018. Before the ELEAGUE Boston in 2018, the U.S. hosted a Major for three straight years between 2016 and 2018, but that was the last time, unfortunately.
Interestingly, BLAST is hosting a major for only the second time, hosting a Major, after the last CS:GO Major at BLAST Paris 2023. The new event will spearhead the revamping of the BLAST Premier 2025 schedule, which the organizer has also announced.
“Every year BLAST Premier will run six tournaments, split across two seasons of three tournaments each,” the press release said.
They also announced that it clashes with the official move into a fully open Counter-Strike ecosystem. They also revealed that the three tournaments include BLAST Bounty, a BLAST Open event, and a BLAST Rivals event.
BLAST Bounty will give a bounty system that gives teams more rewards for beating higher seed teams, while BLAST Open will involve regional qualifier teams, and BLAST Rivals event will involve the best teams around.
