{"id":881242,"date":"2025-12-28T01:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T07:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/28\/ecstatic-replaces-imperial-esports-at-blast-bounty-season-1-2026\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T01:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T07:14:08","slug":"ecstatic-replaces-imperial-esports-at-blast-bounty-season-1-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/28\/ecstatic-replaces-imperial-esports-at-blast-bounty-season-1-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"ECSTATIC replaces Imperial Esports at BLAST Bounty Season 1 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><picture decoding=\"async\"><source type=\"image\/webp\"  ><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/esportsinsider.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/ecstatic-blast-bounty-season-1-2026-large.jpg\" alt=\"Image of ECSTATIC Counter-Strike team standing on stage at esports event\"  >\n<\/picture><figcaption>Image credit: ECSTATIC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Esports tournament organiser <strong>BLAST<\/strong> has announced <strong>ECSTATIC<\/strong> will replace <strong>Imperial Esports<\/strong> at the upcoming <strong>BLAST Bounty Season 1 2026<\/strong> Counter-Strike 2 event.<\/p>\n<p>The Danish esports organisation joins an extensive list of teams competing in the first Tier 1 event of 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Announced on <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BLASTPremier\/status\/2003442968498450464\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">December 23rd, 2025<\/a><\/strong>, the event will be the first Tier 1 event ECSTATIC has competed in since August, where it featured in the online phase of <strong>BLAST Open London<\/strong>. During the online qualifiers, the Danish side lost to <strong>FaZe Clan <\/strong>and <strong>Fnatic<\/strong>, scoring a top-16 finish. Notably, BLAST hasn\u2019t revealed the reason behind ECSTATIC replacing Imperial Esports.<\/p>\n<p>Outside of Tier 1 competition, the team has continued an upward trajectory in online and offline events. November saw it earn a second place at <strong>DraculaN #3<\/strong> and victory in <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/liquipedia.net\/counterstrike\/Winline_Insight\/Season_9\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Winline Insight Season 9<\/a><\/strong>.  <\/p>\n<p>Currently ranked 44th in the <strong>Valve Regional Standings (VRS)<\/strong>, a strong showing at BLAST Bounty Season 1 offers ECSTATIC an opportunity to begin the year on the front foot after recording victories in recent months. <\/p>\n<p>As a result of the change, Imperial Esports will no longer feature at BLAST Bounty Season 1, taking the number of participants from the Americas down from five to four.<\/p>\n<p id=\"esi-heading-6950c280b6a43\">\n<h2><span id=\"blast_bounty_season_1_2026_teams-2\">BLAST Bounty Season 1 2026 Teams<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<p>Taking place from January 13th to 18th, 2026, 32 teams will compete in online qualifiers for eight places in the LAN playoffs running from January 22nd to 25th in Malta.<\/p>\n<p>With Imperial Esports no longer competing, the updated BLAST Bounty Season 1 team list is as follows: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>FURIA<\/li>\n<li>Team Falcons<\/li>\n<li>Team Vitality<\/li>\n<li>Aurora Gaming<\/li>\n<li>Team Spirit<\/li>\n<li>Team Liquid<\/li>\n<li>NAVI<\/li>\n<li>Astralis<\/li>\n<li>HEROIC<\/li>\n<li>3DMAX<\/li>\n<li>paiN Gaming<\/li>\n<li>FaZe Clan<\/li>\n<li>Parivision<\/li>\n<li>Gentle Mates<\/li>\n<li>GamerLegion<\/li>\n<li>FUT Esports<\/li>\n<li>BetBoom Team<\/li>\n<li>Fnatic<\/li>\n<li>M80<\/li>\n<li>Passion UA<\/li>\n<li>HOTU<\/li>\n<li>Ninjas in Pyjamas<\/li>\n<li>NRG<\/li>\n<li>EYEBALLERS<\/li>\n<li>Inner Circle Esports<\/li>\n<li>OG Esports <\/li>\n<li>9INE <\/li>\n<li>ENCE<\/li>\n<li>Virtus.pro<\/li>\n<li>Monte<\/li>\n<li>SINNERS Esports<\/li>\n<li>ECSTATIC<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<p> Jonno Nicholson <br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/esportsinsider.com\/2025\/12\/ecstatic-blast-bounty-season-1-2026\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image credit: ECSTATIC Esports tournament organiser BLAST has announced ECSTATIC will replace Imperial Esports at the upcoming BLAST Bounty Season 1 2026 Counter-Strike 2 event. The Danish esports organisation joins an extensive list of teams competing in the first Tier 1 event of 2026. Announced on December 23rd, 2025 , the event will be the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":881243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23189,32120],"tags":[102604,11969],"class_list":["post-881242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ecstatic","category-replaces","tag-ecstatic","tag-replaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/881243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}