BLAST Premier Spring Series on-air talent unveiled
BLAST has unveiled the talent lineup for the upcoming CS:GO BLAST Premier Spring Series, which will kick off at the end of January at 3 Mills Studio in London, England.
The BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 Regular Season will kick off on January 31, 2020, and it will feature 12 CS:GO teams competing for a spot in the Spring Finals and the largest slice of US $300,000 prize pool.
Attending the first-ever BLAST Premier event will be 100 Thieves, Astralis, Complexity Gaming, Evil Geniuses, FaZe Clan, G2 Esports, Team Liquid, MiBR, Natus Vincere, Ninjas in Pyjamas, OG and Team Vitality, all of whom have been directly invited to participate at the tournament.
The Blast Premier Spring will be divided into two stages – group stage and playoffs. The group stage will run from January 31 – February 16, and it will feature three double-elimination GSL format groups, with four teams in each group. All fixtures are said to be played as best-of-three (Bo3), with only top two teams advancing into the Spring Finals, while the two bottom teams advance into the Spring Showdown.
The Spring Finals and Spring Showdown will offer $750,000 and $325,000 prize pools respectively, with the top two teams from Spring Showdown earning a spot in the Finals. As of today, the dates for the two events have not yet been revealed.
As announced by BLAST, the Series will feature a list of familiar faces in the talent lineup.
Taking the role as a desk host will be Auguste "Semmler" Massonnat who is a prominent caster in the Counter-Strike scene, having previously cast for several major CS:GO tournaments across the world, including Majors and league finals. He later joined Overwatch scene and has now returned to the CS:GO scene.
Joining him as analysts will be Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill, a former professional CS: Source and CS:GO, player and IGL for Renegades, who began his career as analyst and commentator in 2016, as well as Duncan "Thorin" Shields, who unveiled he will be working as the Creative Director for the B site league. Both SPUNJ and Thorin are arguably two of the best analysts in the industry, due to their immense knowledge about the scene, which helped them earn the renown as one of the prominent esports personalities.
As the casters, BLAST announced the iconic duo of Jason "moses" O'Toole & Anders "Anders" Blume and the Canadians Conner "Scrawny" Girvan & Mohan "launders" Govindasamy.
As the interviewer, BLAST announced a British host, presenter, commentator and journalist James "BanKs" Banks, who has been involved in Counter-Strike scene since 2002. Besides Counter-Strike, BanKs also worked with StarCraft II and Overwatch.
The upcoming CS:GO tournament will mark the inaugural Blast Premier Series event and will offer a combined prize pool of $1.375 million spread across the regular season, Spring Showdown and Spring Finals. The series will be organized by Danish organization RFRSH Entertainment, which is also the organizer for BLAST Pro Series.
The full on-air list for the upcoming BLAST Premier Spring Series is as follows:
Auguste "Semmler" Massonnat – Desk host
Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill – Analyst
Duncan "Thorin" Shields – Analyst
Anders "Anders" Blume – Caster
Jason "moses" O'Toole – Caster
Conner "Scrawny" Girvan – Caster
Mohan "launders" Govindasamy – Caster
James "BanKs" Banks – Interviewer
