BLAST has published the list of direct invitations to its Open Rotterdam event, using the February Valve Regional Standings as the basis for selection. The organiser awarded places to the top 12 teams on the Global list, all of whom accepted the invites, completing the core of the tournament field.
As the cut-off stood on February 2, the 12 directly invited teams were confirmed and the team in 13th place narrowly missed out — G2 ended up just outside the automatic qualification positions. With all 12 invitees committing to attend, BLAST moved on to confirm the remaining four slots via regional Rising qualifiers.
The 12 teams that received direct invitations are: Vitality, FURIA, Falcons, MOUZ, PARIVISION, FaZe, Spirit, Natus Vincere, The MongolZ, Aurora, Liquid and B8. They will be joined by four teams that secured spots through Rising tournaments: Ninjas in Pyjamas (Europe qualifier), 9z (South America qualifier), NRG (North America qualifier) and TYLOO (Asia qualifier).
BLAST Open Rotterdam is scheduled to run from March 18 to March 29. The competition will begin with a double-elimination group stage hosted at BLAST’s studios in Copenhagen; the six best-performing teams from that stage will advance to the playoff bracket, which will take place at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena.