BLAST Bounty Winter 2026 in CS2: Format, Prize Pool, and Participants

BLAST Bounty Winter 2026 CS2 teams and tournament bracket

From January 13 to 25, BLAST Bounty Winter 2026 will be held - the first major tournament of the new Counter-Strike 2 season. The total prize pool of the championship is $1.15 million, with 32 teams taking part, all invited directly based on the Valve Ranking (VRS).

The tournament will be divided into two stages. The online stage is scheduled for January 13–18 and will be played in a Single Elimination format with best-of-3 matches. One of the key features of the BLAST Bounty series is the “bounty” system, where each team receives a starting cash bounty depending on its seeding. The winner of a match claims 50% of the defeated opponent’s bounty, while the remaining amount carries over to the next match, increasing the winner’s total bounty. Teams are also allowed to increase their bounty during the tournament.

Lower-seeded teams are given the opportunity to choose their opponents in the first round. This mechanic remains in place during the following stages, taking the updated seeding into account. Such an approach adds strategic depth and makes the bracket less predictable.

After the online stage, the top eight teams will qualify for the LAN finals. The LAN finals will take place from January 22 to 25 at the BLAST Studio in Malta. The decisive stage will follow the same format - Single Elimination BO3. The prize pool of the LAN finals will amount to $500,000.

The highest starting bounties were awarded to FURIA, Falcons, Vitality, and Aurora - $60,000 each. They are followed by Team Spirit, NAVI, Astralis, and Liquid with bounties of $30,000, as well as FaZe, HEROIC, paiN, and 3DMAX, who received $20,000 each. All remaining teams were classified as underdogs and started the tournament without an initial bounty. These teams took turns selecting their opponents in the first round.

BLAST Bounty Winter 2026 - Round of 32: