Friendly Campers replaces NRG at BLAST Bounty Season 1 2026

BLAST has announced that Polish Counter-Strike 2 team Friendly Campers will replace NRG at BLAST Bounty Season 1, the first Tier 1 tournament of the 2026 season.

As a result of the change, Friendly Campers will take the slot vacated by the North American organisation and play against HEROIC in the round of 32.

Announced on January 12th, Friendly Campers’ appearance at BLAST Bounty is the team’s second event of the 2026 season. Earlier this month, on January 4th, the squad was one of 12 to compete at Urban Riga Open 2, where it scored a top-six finish.

Notably, neither BLAST nor NRG has disclosed the reason behind withdrawal. Instead, the North American organisation stated that its ‘full focus will be on IEM Kraków 2026,’ which the team earned qualification for after securing victory at Fragadelphia’s Frag Miami 2 earlier this month.

Currently ranked 43rd in the Valve Regional Standings (VRS), Friendly Campers has an opportunity to cause an upset if it can defeat HEROIC in its round-of-32 match. Moreover, in case the roster advances to the round of 16, it would enter the second round as the lowest seed.

Friendly Campers is the second replacement team joining the BLAST Bounty line-up. On December 23rd, 2025, BLAST named ECSTATIC as a replacement for Imperial Esports.

A total of 32 teams from across the world will compete in closed qualifiers from January 13th to 18th for a chance to secure one of eight spots at the LAN finals taking place from January 22nd to 25th in Malta.

With NRG no longer competing, the final list of BLAST Bounty Season 1 teams is as follows:

All the BLAST Bounty Season 1 2026 matches will be streamed live on BLAST Premier’s Twitch and YouTube channels.