BLAST Bounty 2025: Everything you need to know about the new CS2 event

BLAST Bounty 2025 is a brand new tournament structure introduced by the famous organizer. Described as a tournament full of grudge matches and more, the Counter-Strike 2 contest will see 32 of some of the best teams from all over the world engage in a cut-throat competition for the unique prize pool. Known as the Bounty Prize Pool, it will be given out based on results from individual matches and seeding.

Announced on June 14, 2024, the BLAST Bounty 2025 tournament is bound to be full of twists and turns with a new innovative structure that keeps the teams on their toes. Meanwhile, other announced tournaments also include the BLAST Open 2025 and the BLAST Rivals in the same year.

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BLAST Bounty 2025: Innovating the competitive heirarchy in CS2

BLAST Bounty 2025 will have 32 teams, out of which 30 will be the top ranking ones in terms of their Valve Global Rankings. The remaining two will be wild-card entries decided by BLAST. Interestingly, these two wild-card entry teams will have a bounty placed upon them. Defeating them will mean securing 50% of their bounty with the remaining 50% carrying off into the next match.

This remaining bounty will get added to the winning team's total bounty. Each team will have a bounty on their heads as they head into the tournament through seeding. The higher the team on the ladder, the more the bounty upon their heads.

Here is how the official BLAST website lists the way bounties are distributed in the BLAST Bounty 2025 tournament:

• Seed 1 to 4- $60,000
• Seed 5 to 8- $30,000
• Seed 9 to 12- $20,000
• Seed 13 to 16- $15,000
• Seed 17 to 32- $0

Now, for the twist. The lowest-ranking teams will get to choose their own opponent from among the higher or the highest-ranking teams in the BLAST Bounty 2025 tournament's Opening Round stage.

BLAST Bounty 2025 prize pool (Image via Blast.tv)

By doing so, these lower-seeded teams will get bounty hunt trying to secure as much prize money as possible. In the next round, seeds will be reset considering results from the Opening Round, and the process will repeat itself with the upcoming rounds.

Teams will also be allowed to wager their own bounty to contest against others, adding to the sheer level of competition in the matches. The first two rounds will be a BO3 single-elimination contest with the matches being played online on European servers.

Eight quarter-finalists will make it to the second week, which will be played on LAN in the BLAST Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark. Yet again, the quarter and semi-finals will be single-elimination BO3 matches.

Finally, the last two standing teams will battle each other for the ultimate bounty prize collected through all the hard work battling others on their way up. The final will be a BO5 tournament, which will spell the end of the BLAST Bounty 2025 tournament for that specific season.