Tournament organiser BLAST has secured a partnership with tournament operator Circuit X to manage and operate the regional qualifiers in North America for the upcoming BLAST Porto Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) event.
Under the terms of the agreement, Circuit X will fully run the Open Qualifiers and Closed Qualifiers for the North American region. According to the organisation, the initiative aims to strengthen and grow the competitive Counter-Strike scene across both North America and South America by delivering “professional, reliable, and scalable competitive environments”.
To execute the upcoming qualifying stages, Circuit X will deploy its proprietary tournament infrastructure alongside the FACEIT platform.
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The partnership signals an operational milestone for Circuit X, which is headed by CEO Carlos Passow. By integrating its dedicated tournament infrastructure with BLAST’s competitive circuit, the operator is tasked with executing the foundational layers of the premier event. According to a statement from Circuit X, the collaboration serves as a step to demonstrate the platform’s capacity to support its partners while expanding competitive opportunities for the community across the Americas.
Circuit X joins Relog Media (Europe, South America), and GGTV (Asia), also partnered with BLAST for regional circuits.
Prior to securing the North American qualifiers for BLAST, the platform established its operational footprint across the South American market through a series of independent regional events. These include the Circuit X Retake São Paulo 2025, alongside a sequence of 2026 activations such as Circuit X Pantanal Cuiabá, Circuit X Mayhem São Paulo, and Circuit X Base Recife. These competitions featured top-tier domestic lineups including paiN Gaming, Fluxo, and 9z.
This high-profile administrative assignment arrives eight months after Circuit X investor and owner Carlos Passow publicly clarified the platform’s governance structure to address community demands for competitive transparency. Circuit X was originally created to support the community across Brazil and Latin America.
BLAST Premier Open Porto 2026 is scheduled to run from 26 August to 6 September 6 featuring a $1,100,000 prize pool. The 16 teams-phase will kick off in Copenhagen, Denmark, before the tournament heads to Porto, Portugal, for the final matches from September 4th–6th.
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