The 16 teams competing for a spot at the OVO Arena in Wembley have been confirmed.
BLAST is returning to London for the second year running after they put on the BLAST Premier Spring Finals 2024 in the same arena. The UK event is set to welcome some huge Tier-1 teams; however, only six will appear on stage at Wembley.
Earlier in the year, BLAST quietly changed the format of the Open tournaments. Previously, for Open Lisbon, the group stage was held at the BLAST Studios in Copenhagen. But now, for BLAST Open London and future events, the qualifier portion will all be held online after being originally meant to be played on LAN.
Whilst it was always the case that the teams that don’t make it to the playoffs of BLAST Open London wouldn’t travel to the UK, at least they were originally going to be LAN matches at the Copenhagen studios. Now, all matches prior to the playoffs will be held online, and the tournament will only have 5 LAN matches on HLTV, for reference EPIC.LAN 45 had 18. Moreover, the maximum LAN wins from BLAST Open London are only three; EPIC had double that of six. It is impossible to compare EPIC.LAN to a Tier-1 event like this, but it makes BLAST London and future events very unappealing for teams.
Despite this, Vitality confirmed their attendance. This event will be the first time William “mezii” Merriman will be returning to compete in the UK since his Major win at the end of the first half of the season in Austin, Texas.
mezii won’t be the only British representation hoping to appear in the playoffs in Wembley, as coach Ashley “ash” Battye of GamerLegion will also be vying for a spot. Cai “Cypher” Watson will also be in attendance as fnatic replaced HEROIC after they were unable to field at least three players from the related invitation Valve Regional Standings. fnatic were then the next team in line eligible for a replacement invite from the Global VRS out of teams that did not previously decline an invitation to the tournament or its qualifiers. This came as a second chance after CYPHER and company failed to qualify through the European Rising tournament, placing third-fourth.
mezii will be looking to secure victory on home soil this time around
Across the pond, Rory “dephh” Jackson’s squad M80 qualified for BLAST Open London through the ACE NA Masters 2025 Season 2 – BLAST Premier Rising event over NRG.
Reigning champions Spirit will also be returning to play the event, attempting to defend their BLAST London title after they beat NA’VI 3-1 in the grand finals. The finalists in NA’VI will also be making an appearance, albeit with a different roster, with Justinas “JL” Lekavicius on the bench and academy prospect Drin “makazze” Shaqiri taking his place.
When the invites came out, eight of the top 10 teams in the world would have been in attendance; now, only five. Despite this, a high-profile name in Falcons turned down the invite to play in the UK event. This marks their second BLAST invite they have turned down this year. They will be joined by Astralis, who won’t be able to contend for the trophy like they did last year in England.
As mentioned before, there have been some withdrawals since the original list of teams was published. Liquid took the place of The MongolZ due to visa issues, as the Mongolian squad would not be able to travel to England in the case that they made it through the opening online stage. A saving grace for Liquid after they were eliminated from the BLAST Open London qualifier by VP.Prodigy. Imperial took paiN’s spot as major semi-finalists initially declined their direct invitation to the South American Closed Qualifier for BLAST Open S2. As a result, they are ineligible to participate in The Open.
The four final spots were claimed by teams competing through regional qualifiers in their respective regions. As previously stated, M80 stood above the rest in North America. They will be joined by FlyQuest, who dominated the Asia qualifier, ECSTATIC, who unexpectedly made it through the European qualifier, and Legacy, who hope to continue their good form from the BLAST.tv Austin Major from South America.
All 16 teams are now locked in and confirmed for the BLAST Open S2 London 🔒🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/f406xagUfy
— BLAST Premier 💥 (@BLASTPremier) August 4, 2025
