Gla1ve reveals only CS:GO events Astralis will attend for remainder of season as BLAST criticism continues
L: DreamHack, R: Blast Pro SeriesAstralis in-game leader Lukas ‘Gla1ve’ Rossander has responded to criticism of the team’s recent tournament schedule by revealing which CS:GO events they will be attending in the coming months.
Astralis have come under fire for their tournament schedule, which has seen them absent from premier events in favor of BLAST Pro Series tournaments, which
In response to the criticism, Gla1ve has assured fans that the team will in fact be challenging for upcoming premier titles, sarcastically announcing: “I understand that you want us to play at every BLAST event, but I am sad to tell you that our last 3 tournaments before summer break is: ECS Finals, ESL Pro League Finals and ESL One Cologne.”
Astralis have come under fire over their apparent prioritization of Blast Pro Series events.Unfortunately, the announcement doesn’t seem to have gone down well with a lot of fans. Though they will undoubtedly be pleased to see Astralis in attendance at the remaining premier events before the player break, it seems many do not appreciate Gla1ve making light of their concerns.
“Glaive trying to pull the positive PR switcheroo while ignoring the fact that because of this Blast bullshit it’s just their time in the rotation to go play elsewhere while Cologne gets devalued without Liquid in attendance,” u/Cigs77 said in the top-rated comment on the topic in the GlobalOffensive subreddit. “It’s just a rotation so we never get to see the best teams at the same LAN.”
A lot of people have been asking about our upcomming events. I understand that you want us to play at every BLAST event, but I am sad to tell you that our last 3 tournaments before summer break is: ECS Finals, ESL Pro League Finals and ESL One Cologne. I hope its ok.
— Lukas Rossander (@gla1ve_csgo) May 12, 2019
Why are fans angry at Astralis and BLAST Pro Series?
Both Astralis and BLAST Pro Series – both of which are owned by RFRSH Entertainment – have come under heavy criticism in recent weeks.
BLAST have been accused of pushing towards a “soft exclusivity” tournament circuit by tying top teams into multi-event contracts and allegedly positioning tournaments such that some of those teams miss other large events, resulting in fewer events other than BLAST themselves featuring all of the top squads.
Reports have suggested that Team Liquid are set to miss ESL One Cologne in favor of attending a BLAST Pro Series event in Los Angeles, and BLAST are reportedly currently at odds with ESL over event dates in December.
Other than the ESL Pro League group stage, BLAST events are the only offline tournaments Astralis have competed at since winning the IEM Katowice Major in March.While the CS:GO community has historically been vehemently against any form of exclusivity, BLAST has also come under fire for what many have described as one of the worst competitive formats CS:GO has seen for a “premium” event, with a best-of-one single round-robin group stage feeding directly into a best-of-three final.
In the instance of Astralis, fans have been frustrated to see the current number one team, and perhaps the greatest team of all time, missing large tournaments apparently in favor of participating in the less-prestigious BLAST Pro Series.
Astralis’ last three offline events have all been BLAST tournaments, during which time they’ve passed on StarLadder i-League Season 7 and IEM Sydney, both of which feature much more rigorous formats, and are due to miss DreamHack Masters Dallas, another event which counts towards the Intel Grand Slam.