BLAST Open London to run with online group stage, losing VRS value

BLAST Open London's group stage will be played in an online setting, BLAST announced. This information was at the bottom of the announcement of BLAST's multi-year agreement with Malta, and was first brought to attention by Complexity's GM Graham "messioso" Pitt.

As messioso said, this change from LAN to online will significantly undermine the tournament value in the Valve Regional Standings (VRS) as the group stage is essentially an online Closed Qualifier.

This is bad, especially for the four teams who qualify from BLAST Rising events in Europe, North America, South America, and Asia, as they'll earn less VRS and therefore not close the gap to the top teams as much as they hoped for.

As of right now, BLAST hasn't explained why the group stage of BLAST Open London will be played online. This will be a significant change in comparison to BLAST Open Lisbon, as the Portuguese event's group stage was played on BLAST's studio in Copenhagen.

BLAST Open London will feature 16 teams, but the invites haven't been decided yet. The tournament will run from August 27th to September 7th.