The teams competing in the World Final will have three weeks to build a fresh map pool and get used to the most recent #AWP and #M4A1-S improvements.
The #BLASTPremierWorldFinal will be played on the most recent #CS:GO version, which decreased the M4A1-S’s damage at range and the AWP’s magazine size and replaced Dust2 with Anubis in the Active Duty map pool. BLAST has confirmed this to HLTV.org.
The announcement comes little over three weeks prior to the tournament, which will award $1,000,000 and run from December 14–18 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
What Stays The Same?
The BLAST Premier Fall Final will take place this week, from November 23 to November 27, and will utilize the previous edition, with Dust2 remaining in the map pool and the M4A1-S and AWP remaining unaltered.
There are no other major events planned until the end of the year, so the World Final will be the first to use the new weapons and perhaps the first to see top teams use Anubis.
Following victories at the IEM Rio Major, ESL Pro League Season 16, BLAST Premier Spring Final, and ESL Pro League Season 15, FaZe, Natus Vincere, Vitality, and Outsiders are currently qualified for the World Final.
Three teams from the BLAST Leaderboard and the winner of this week’s BLAST Premier Fall Final will also join them, making a total of four teams if one of the teams that had already qualified for Abu Dhabi wins the Fall Final (FaZe or NAVI).
The following maps will be available during the BLAST Premier World Final:
- Mirage
- Inferno
- Nuke
- Overpass
- Vertigo
- Ancient
- Anubis
Aurora Benches Kairon
After only three months with the team, the Russian gets transferred to the inactive roster.
Aleksandr #KaiR0N Anashkin has reportedly been benched and added to the transfer list, according to Aurora.
The announcement ends a three-month relationship that the Russian player and Serbian organization formalized in August when Aurora signed the roster.
Since Aurora officially announced their arrival into CS:GO back in August, KaiR0N- has been on the team’s books. The group’s unexpected qualification for the IEM Road to Rio Europe RMR, where they famously defeated Astralis’ heavies in the first open qualifier to secure a berth at the Major-qualifying event, led to the squad’s signing.
However, once in Malta, the team with a Russian majority struggled to continue their fairy-tale run and left the tournament without a single victory after suffering lopsided losses to fnatic, GamerLegion, and Eternal Fire.
Even though KaiR0N- had a losing season through the RMR, the decision to sideline them nonetheless caught many off guard. The 18-year-old, who had a team-high 1.06 rating and Viktor #Lack1 Boldyrev as his nearest peer, had been his team’s best performer by a significant margin (0.97).
