BLAST Bounty 2026 Season 2: 32 Teams, $1.15M Prize Pool, Malta LAN

32 Teams, One Big Bounty

BLAST Bounty is back, and the second season of 2026 is shaping up to be one of the more densely packed CS2 events of the summer. According to HLTV, a 32-team field will compete starting next week, with 28 organizations earning their spots through the Global VRS standings as of June 2 and four additional squads coming in as Wildcard invites.

The lineup includes most of the sport’s marquee names: Vitality, Spirit, G2, FaZe, The MongolZ, FURIA, MOUZ, HEROIC, Liquid, and Falcons are all in. So are some mid-tier outfits with plenty to prove, like 3DMAX, Gentle Mates, and EYEBALLERS. Notable absences, as reported by HLTV, include Natus Vincere, 9z, BetBoom, Legacy, and PARIVISION.

How the Format Works

The structure is a single-elimination bracket with a twist up front. The online stage opens with a draft phase, where teams seeded in the bottom half of the draw get to pick their opponents from the top half. It adds a layer of strategy before a single map is even played.

Online play runs July 21 through 26, with four matches scheduled each day. The opening round gets going Tuesday when M80 faces Ninjas in Pyjamas at noon, followed by Nemesis vs. Astralis, Nuclear TigeRES vs. MOUZ, and Alliance vs. Wildcard rounding out the day. Wednesday brings a highlight matchup that should draw real attention: 100 Thieves against Falcons in the evening slot, plus EYEBALLERS vs. FaZe and Nemiga vs. G2 earlier in the day.

Thursday and Friday feature more first-round action, including OG vs. Spirit, Liquid vs. Vitality, and HEROIC vs. The MongolZ, which might be the single most anticipated match of the online phase.

The eight teams who survive the online rounds then have three days to get themselves to Malta. The LAN portion of the event runs July 30 through August 2.

A Prize Pool Built Around Risk

The total prize pool sits at $1.15 million, divided between $500,000 in prize money and $650,000 in what BLAST calls a club share. The prize money side operates on the bounty mechanic that gives the event its name. Each team is assigned a bounty value tied to their seeding. Win a match, and you pocket 50 percent of your opponent’s bounty as cash. The other 50 percent folds into your own bounty, meaning a deep run can compound into a significantly larger payout than your initial seeding would suggest.

The club share is distributed across all 32 participants regardless of results, tiered by final placement. Teams finishing first through eighth each receive $40,000 from that pool, ninth through sixteenth get $26,500, and every team placing seventeenth or lower takes home $7,500 just for showing up.

Talent Returning to the Desk

The broadcast team for Bounty Season 2 includes some familiar voices alongside a welcomed reunion. James “BanKs” Banks and Natalie “NatTea” Mahoney handle hosting and interviews, with analysts Alex “Mauisnake” Ellenberg and Donald “voo” Parkhurst supporting from the desk. The casting lineup features Conner “Scrawny” Girvan and Mohan “launders” Govindasamy, plus the returning duo of James “BARDOLPH” Bardolph and Daniel “ddk” Kapadia, who HLTV specifically noted are rejoining the BLAST fold for this event.

For fans who want more than just watching, HLTV’s official Fantasy game will cover BLAST Bounty Season 2 across two fixtures, one for the online stage and one for the Malta LAN.

With Vitality and Spirit potentially on a collision course and The MongolZ gunning to make noise once again, the Malta finale in early August could deliver some genuinely memorable CS2.