BLAST sets Dota 2 Slam VIII with $750K Malta finals in Oct 2026

BLAST announced BLAST Slam VIII for October 2026, expanding the field to 16 Dota 2 teams with a $750,000 prize pool. The online stage runs September 29 to October 3 on European servers, followed by LAN finals in Malta from October 8 to 11.

All series will be best-of-three, with best-of-one matches removed. Two series will run at the same time. The 16 teams will be placed into four double-elimination groups.

Entry will come through a mix of invitations and qualifiers. Eleven direct invitations will be issued on August 4, with one additional invite reserved for the Americas. Four more places will be decided in regional qualifiers: two for Europe, one for China and one for Southeast Asia. Open qualifiers are scheduled for August 26–27, followed by closed qualifiers on August 29–30 with eight teams per region competing for main-event spots.

The group stage will advance six teams. Each group winner moves to a seeding round; the two winners of those matches reach the upper-bracket semifinals at the LAN Finals, while the two other group winners start in the quarterfinals. Teams that finish second in their groups head to a Last Chance Stage to contest the remaining two quarterfinal berths.

The six teams that progress will travel to Malta for the finals at BLAST Arena Studios on October 8–11, with matches played in front of a live audience.

Valve recently released a Dota 2 update focused on bug fixes and the Dark Carnival event.