BLAST cuts North American Showdown
Well, regional fans should have seen that one coming. Just days after ESL cut one of two North American qualifier spots for IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne, BLAST has entirely removed the North American Showdown from the calendar.
In its place, there will be one single showdown played in Europe. The six teams that fail to qualify for the season finals will head to the Showdown, along with three invited teams and seven teams that qualify from global qualifiers. BLAST has confirmed to Dust2.us that there will be a specific North American qualifier for the new, all-region encompassing Showdown.
Like the previous iterations of the North American and European Showdowns, two spots will be available for teams to progress from the Showdown into the seasonal Final.
The North American Showdown was theoretically removed in this Fall season with the creation of the "Rest of World" Showdown, however that language appeared to be abandoned in subsequent posts on social media and in reference during matches. Now, the regional showdown is done away with, forcing Liquid and Complexity to have to qualify through groups to avoid a perilous European gauntlet.
Complexity, who were eliminated in the Semi-Finals of the 2023 BLAST Fall Final were able to make it to this stage of the competition thanks to the North American Showdown. Astralis had eliminated the squad in the Play-In stage.
