"See you in court" Says BESTIA CEO To BLAST!

BESTIA, who qualified for the BLAST Austin Major 2025 through open qualifiers, have been rejected their spot due to missing VISA deadlines. BESTIA had been struggling to get 2 American Tourtist VISA's for their travels to the Major. BLAST had apparently given BESTIA notice of a deadline that BESTIA HAD to have their VISA's acquired by or they would lose thier spot in favour of LEGACY. BLAST said they had been reminding BESTIA and keeping in contact with the organisation to see how their applications were doing. By the specified date, BESTIA still had not had 2 VISA's issued to them, ultimately meaning that BLAST had to forfeit them from the Major.

However, apparently the 2 VISA's were issued 2 hours after the final deadline and BESTIA had begged the tournament organisers to revert the decision. BLAST made it clear that, by their rules, they could not change the decision back and that they had to keep it for tournament integrity.

BESTIA's players, staff and CEO are obviously very upset with the decision and approach that BLAST have went forward with. The CEO had this to say on X:

"I gave them the option to do things right. See you in court in Texas and then in London. I'm not going to let you play with my kids' dreams. It will be Justice."

via X

Professional player for BESTIA, Noktse, had this to say on his personal X account also:

"Remember when, at a BLAST Premier event, Astralis replaced br0, claiming he was medically unfit, even though his agent said he was healthy and ready to play?

BLAST allowed a last-minute substitution after the deadline, without asking for medical proof.

They weren't so concern about competitive integrity right? 🤔

Seven IGLs protested by skipping media day. In a BLAST Premier!!!!!!!!!

This is a MAJOR. OUR Major.

One we earned. One that’s being taken from us.

A couple retweets and a hashtag?

We truly appreciate the support, but guys please: it’s not ENOUGH.

We’re a team that qualified for the fucking Major. We took every step. Got the points. Beat the best in our region. We earned our place. And now we’re being kicked out?

We've been witnessing with tears of joy or sadness every year in this tournament what a major means to a player from the bottom ranked player to the best in the world, and that's the beauty in EVERY sport

I know that nobody REALLY cares about us, as long as FaZe, Vitality, NAVI, FURIA, Spirit, or Astralis are in, the show goes on, right? But cmon.. This is about sportsmanship and being fair, this is about respect. This tournament has HUGE cultural, social, personal, economical implications to make a decision like that like it's nothing. People dedicate and sacrifice soooo much for that goal, not just us, every pro player.

Everyone can keep hashtagging and rt and whatever and PLEASE keep doing that but FROM YOU GUYS (TEAMS AND IGL'S) we need something different. We need u guys to MAKE A STAND. We need you guys fighting by our side, we're colleagues and if u take ONE moment to be in our place you'll see the madness this is and what role do u want to play as a player and as a person. People can't sleep, we are stressed like never, we suffer and then we fight and then we suffer again because we can't believe this nonse we should be training like everyone and enjoying what we achieved and instead we're stuck in a nightmare.

I don’t even care who’s to blame. @valvesoftware

, @BLASTtv

, @CounterStrike

, whoever.

Just SOMEONE, PLEASE do the right thing.

I'm feeling crushed by the way the game I love is handling this. It's really disappointing how they're just ignoring us like "mah, it will pass, as long as we have the top dogs we're good!" "mah, BLAST it's responsable we won't intercede!" It looks like no one really cares about people. No one in BLAST or Valve seems willing to do the right thing, the simple thing, whats fair and make a stand to make it right. We fought for YEARS for this. We EARNED it. Thats OUR slot. NOTHING is more important then that. Thats the way you protect TOURNAMENT INTEGRITY: Every team qualified MUST play. NOTHING should be more important than that. Since when are we prioritazing god knows what over this?

But no, even if is not in the rules and even if there were cases in which Valve waited teams till last days, they suddenly come with a "deadline" (which was 3 days after XD) which is apparently "immovable", but why "immovable"? 2 weeks till the tournament, whats the rush? missing a team? already happened and even tho with 5 days before is more than enough if u don't want to end like that. It was stickers? No, they could released ours (as normally should happen because we earned it, and also happened before with teams that not like us didn't have confirmation of visas) and then worst case scenario take them out like also happened before.

But the funny thing is we didn't even get to that point, we confirmed we have our visas with help of our goverment. We beat that deadline. And then they just straight yolo and went for it like is nothing. It feels disrespectful to our organization like we are amateurs but at this point all of this seems like a nonsense rushed and questionable criteria from @BLASTtv

. And I have to repeat: no deadline in official rulebook.

Someone explain me how not to feel like we're being treated with preconceptions? How not to feel DISCRIMINATED?

So again what the hell are we doing talking about deadlines and shits when CLEARLY it has nothing to do with it. And why THE IGLS THREAT if "cadiaN" with all due respect plays for Astralis in a minor tournament and NOTHING happens when a team (FIRST MAJORITY ARGENTINIAN TEAM

IN HISTORY, ALSO!!!) is being HEAVILY harmed by BEING KICKED from the tournament when we meet every requirement in time and more importantly but seems like forgotten.. WE WON THE SPOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We won't of course seek for help of talent or journalists because it's pretty clear that for those guys it's more important to do nothing that annoys BLAST so they can keep working than fight for JUSTICE. I get it even if I don't agree with it. Pretty sad but it's a clear example of how the world works this days.

As for VALVE I won't repeat the two precedents because already did in a past post but HOW do you NOT intercede? With all being SO clear?

This isn’t just unfair. It’s inhumane. And we need every competitor to prove what we're made of as a community by fighting by our side. This can't go along."

BLAST also issued their own statment on X:

via X