BLAST Premier Showdown 2023 – Preview

With the ESL Pro League S18 in the history books, Counter-Strike teams at the highest competitive level are heading to the BLAST Premier Showdown 2023, where teams from Europe and the Americas will be playing for their lives to earn a spot in the Fall Finals.

This is not the only thing they will win, as the team that reaches the top of the podium will take home $20,000 in prizes and 1,000 BLAST Premier points.

There was much talk that this tournament would be the first to be played in CS2. However, the organizers decided to stick to CS:GO for now, as it’s no secret that the new game doesn’t seem ready for professional play yet. Likewise, many professional players complained about this. Remember that IEM Sydney 2023 will be played in CS2, and they will not have enough time to practice.

BLAST Premier Showdown 2023 – Details

As mentioned, the BLAST Premier Showdown 2023 will be played in Europe and America, where teams will fight for a quota (from each region) for the next BLAST Premier Fall Finals 2023.

Fall Showdown: 3 DAYS TO GO

Here is one of our favorite moments from last year in this @heroicgg Mic’d Up…. 😆#BLASTPremier pic.twitter.com/uECJrqwzvh

— BLAST Premier 💥 (@BLASTPremier) October 1, 2023

There are 16 teams (8 in each region) that will fight for the two slots for the main tournament to be played at the end of November in Copenhagen, Denmark. These teams are as follows:

Europe

• BIG
• G2 Esports
• OG
• ENCE
• 9INE
• Movistar Riders
• Alliance
• Cloud9

America

• Team Liquid
• Evil Geniuses
• Complexity Gaming
• FURIA
• Imperial Esports
• Forsaken
• Party Astronauts
• Legacy

As we can see, many high-level teams will fight for only 2 slots for the Fall Finals. Although it makes us think that we will have an exciting tournament with a lot of intensity, it also indicates that we will miss some of them in the Fall Finals 2023.

Format and Schedule

Like most of the events organized by BLAST, the Showdown 2023 in both regions is played in a Single Elimination format, where all games are best of 3 (BO3).

The tournament runs from October 4-8, 2023, and is to take place online. Below, we will show the first games of each region of this BLAST Premier Showdown 2023:

Europe

• 9INE vs. BIG – October 4 at 15:00 CEST
• ENCE vs. Alliance – October 4 at 18:00 CEST
• Cloud9 vs. Movistar Riders – October 5 at 15:00 CEST
• G2 Esports vs. OG – October 5 at 18:00 CEST

America

• Imperial Esports vs. Party Astronauts – October 4 at 20:00 CEST
• Team Liquid vs. Forsaken – October 5 at 20:00 CEST
• Complexity Gaming vs. Evil Geniuses – October 6 at 18:00 CEST
• FURIA Esports vs. Legacy – October 6 at 20:00 CEST

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