BLAST change dates for Paris Major RMRs and Spring Showdown

BLAST made the adjustments based on feedback from teams and key community members.

Tournament organiser BLAST has announced changes to the dates for their Paris Major RMRs and the Spring Showdown, bringing the Showdown forward by two weeks and adjusting the schedule for the RMRs.

The Spring Showdown has been moved to take place on March 29-April 2, when it was originally due to happen April 12-16. The RMRs were all previously due to go down April 3-12 and have now been spaced out slightly so that the Asia RMR takes place April 4-8 (may be shortened to April 5-8), the Americas RMR April 5-9, the Europe RMR A April 6-9, and the Europe RMR B April 11-14. The European Last Chance Play-In will take place on April 15.

There were several potential issues with the original dates, the first being that the RMRs for the Paris Major were due to end on April 12, the same date the Spring Showdown was scheduled to begin. The second was that IEM Brazil is due to start on April 17, one day after the Spring Showdown was originally scheduled to end.

Such congestion would have presented issues for teams slated to participate in two or more of these three events as they would not have enough time to travel between them. Even with the new schedule, the European Last Chance Play-In will take place only two days before IEM Brazil, leaving teams participating in both little time to travel.

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BLAST add second RMR open qualifier for Americas & Europe; shift Americas qualifier dates

This is not the first time BLAST have made changes to the qualification routes for the BLAST.tv Paris Major — the organiser added extra open qualifiers for the RMRs after criticism from the community. The RMR dates have also been changed more than once since the original schedule of April 3-9 was announced back in November.

The new dates are as follows:

Spring Showdown: March 29-April 2
Asia RMR: April 4-8 (may be shortened to April 5-8)
Americas RMR: April 5-9
Europe RMR A: April 6-9
Europe RMR B: April 11-14
Europe Last Chance Play-In: April 15