BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 Update: What Secrets Did VALVE Hide From Us, Thoughts on New Stickers and Future Changes
On May 24, 2025, VALVE released an update that included new items for BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 and new Warhammer 40,000 capsules. Surprisingly, the developers did this well in advance, rather than the day before the first matches began, as was the case with previous Majors. Despite everything remaining in a fairly familiar format, the stickers themselves finally received an updated and, most importantly, thematic design. Also, traditionally after each update, interesting rumors appeared regarding new maps, and we’re not just talking about Cache! In this article, we’ll review all the innovations and express our opinion about them!
Viewer Pass Details
First and foremost, VALVE, of course, invites us to spend our money. We do this with both great pleasure and a slight pain in our hearts. Everything here is quite traditional, except for one BUT, which we’ll discuss a bit later.
The Viewer Pass is available in two variants:
- Standard for $9.99, including basic features such as participation in the Pick’Em challenge, receiving a tournament coin (starting with bronze, with the possibility of upgrading to diamond with correct predictions), and access to team graffiti.
- Premium for $17.99, which includes everything mentioned above plus three souvenir tokens. Tokens can be exchanged for special souvenir containers with skins related to tournament matches.
So what innovations are worth noting here? First and foremost – the Major itself now has one additional stage, which means getting a diamond medal becomes significantly more difficult. Considering the participants of the first stage – this looks really challenging, because teams that are not regular participants in tier-1 events made it there. This creates a feeling that in this stage anyone can beat anyone, and the randomness of BO1 format hasn’t been canceled either. Also, thanks to the additional stage and correct predictions, it will be possible to get an extra token, which already feels like a positive moment!
Sticker Capsules
The update added sticker capsules for the 32 teams participating in the Major, as usual divided into categories: Legends, Challengers, and Contenders. Before moving on to discussing the design, we’d like to focus on the last Contenders capsule, where instead of the usual 8 teams, 16 are presented at once. For us, this looks like the first warning sign that stickers from this capsule will be quite rare due to several factors. Obviously, the larger the quantity, the lower the chance, and second – demand for these teams clearly falls short of other collectives, and they will be opened significantly less than the other two.
Moving on to evaluating the visual aspect. The sticker designs are inspired by Texas culture, where the tournament takes place, and include thematic elements. Stickers are available in qualities: Paper, Foil, Holo, and Gold, each having their unique visual effects. Additionally, there are capsules with player autographs that include signatures of all tournament participants. Paper versions are executed in an original style resembling a brand mark, while metallic ones look like belt buckles of local cowboys. We should separately note the return of metallic stickers, which were once replaced by shiny Glitter versions. If this isn’t a one-time action, then from the next Major we can expect to see price growth for Glitter stickers. The holographic effect, in our opinion, has also transformed for the better and should look much more expressive when applied to weapons.
The price of each sticker capsule is $0.99, which corresponds to previous rates, and you can find out the current exchange rate in your currency through our social networks.
Community Reaction to Stickers and Our Opinion
The community’s reaction to the new stickers turned out to be diverse and emotional. Some players highly appreciated the creativity of the designs, emphasizing that they well convey the atmosphere of Texas. Others were happy about the return of stickers with backgrounds, which were lost after the Rio 2022 Major. However, not everyone supported the innovations: critics spoke out about “terrible” designs due to their shape and aesthetic execution.
From our perspective, any changes are already cool, as observing the same designs with only tournament logo changes was regrettable. Thematic local nuances are also an unconditional plus. Is this a successful experiment? We think yes! First – the developers didn’t kill the possibility of completely removing the background by scraping, and second – they got quite a large size, which wasn’t the case with Katowice 2019. We especially want to focus attention on paper stickers, which, as it seems to us, will become an excellent investment and will definitely take off at a certain moment. Why? We’ll explain a bit later.
Warhammer 40,000 Capsules
We don’t see the point in dwelling on these capsules in detail. Warhammer 40,000 fans will clearly appreciate them properly. From an investment perspective, they’re obviously not attractive, and otherwise, as they say – it’s a matter of taste. Each capsule costs $0.99, doesn’t require keys to open, and is available in the CS2 in-game store.
Unconfirmed Information
According to leaks discovered in the May 23 update, souvenir weapons may include special keychains that record match highlights. These keychains apparently will allow viewing the best moments through the inventory menu, but VALVE hasn’t made any official announcements about this yet. How useful this feature is – is a debatable question, but if the keychain has a unique and original design, then souvenir versions of items may receive increased demand. Gold stickers haven’t surprised anyone for a long time, but such a change in the appearance of souvenir skins could bring back user interest.
Now let’s return to paper versions of stickers. As we already mentioned, they’re executed in the style of a print or brand that’s applied with hot metal and burns its ornament onto the surface. The developers left a frame around logos and player autographs that glows in the dark like smoldering coal. Users immediately saw this as a hint at the appearance of “night” versions of maps, and if this really happens, then these stickers will have incredible success. As we already said, this design is strongly tied to the Major’s location and we’re unlikely to see similar sticker designs at future tournaments.
Cache Map Rumors
There were also inevitable rumors about the Cache map. However, this time – these are no longer just rumors, but bold hints on the official CS2 account on X, suggesting that VALVE and FMPONE finally managed to agree on rights to the legendary map. The map has been available in the Steam workshop for almost half a year, and for several months it hasn’t received any updates from the creator and rights holder. Apparently, this was related to the negotiation process about selling rights, and FMPONE simply wasn’t spending time on it.
As we know, VALVE wants to have full access to their products in order to timely fix all bugs and know how every pixel works. Therefore, we’re unlikely to see Cache in the near future. It’s possible that the map awaits serious reworking, and in fairness, there’s work to be done there, as even users with the newest hardware don’t get stable FPS on it. Although all this isn’t officially confirmed yet – literally in half a year we’ve made a huge step from minimal chance of Cache’s return to the fact that this will happen sooner or later. This is definitely a big celebration for the community!
Conclusions
Although the update received a fairly classic set with Major attributes, we have a complete feeling that it will be able to surprise us in the future. We saw many well-founded guesses from which more than realistic scenarios of events can be built. This doesn’t happen often, so the May 23, 2025 update gets a confident 8 out of 10.
