As the 2026 season kicks into full gear, BLAST Bounty Season 1 continues to deliver some long-awaited debuts following a rather calm offseason shuffle.

To close out the opening round, Spirit, paiN, and PARIVISION all got their year off to a winning start, sweeping SINNERS, BetBoom, and ENCE, respectively.

The real headline of the tournament, however, belongs to zweih. He has slotted seamlessly into Jame’s system, in a move that just feels right after the Spirit detour - something that never should’ve happened in the first place. Across PARI’s first four maps, including their sweep of Astralis to secure a LAN spot, zweih posted a donk-like 1.61 rating.

Word of advice: don’t sleep on PARIVISION in 2026.

Speaking of the devil, the year changes, but donk doesn’t. As usual, he carried a restructured Spirit to a comfortable landing in Malta - albeit without facing the toughest of opposition - following sweeps over SINNERS and Inner Circle.

The other heavyweights also lived up to expectations, with Vitality, Falcons and FURIA all advancing to LAN after wins over EYEBALLERS, Monte and FUT, respectively. The usual suspects - ZywOo, m0NESY, and molodoy - picked up right where they left off to start the season.

Shoutout to EYEBALLERS, who in their first tier one tournament, picked some of the toughest possible opponents. Well, they did pick FaZe, though. That’s some low-hanging fruit.

Other notable results saw new-look paiN being eliminated by the AWPer-less HEROIC. After the Brazilians’ convincing sweep of BetBoom, it feels a bit unexpected, with rookie piriajr the lone bright spot.

Lastly, Aurora turned in an alarming performance against GamerLegion in the qualification match, especially on the Mirage decider. The Turks clearly needed an offseason change, but it wasn’t soulfly. A shakeup in leadership has to be on the cards for Aurora, as MAJ3R’s approach simply doesn’t cut it anymore - and, honestly, hasn’t for quite some time.