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The MongolZ punched their ticket past Heroic with a 2-1 victory on July 24 in the round of 32 of BLAST Bounty 2026 Season 2. The best-of-three online match was part of a European qualifier feeding into LAN finals in Malta, where $1.15 million in total prize money awaits.
For a team that started as a Mongolian underdog in 2013, The MongolZ have quietly built one of the more compelling narratives in competitive Counter-Strike. Their total career earnings now exceed $3.3 million, and they’ve cemented themselves as a consistent presence in the world’s top 20 rankings.
What happened in the match
The MongolZ fielded their current five-man roster of bLitz, who serves as in-game leader, alongside Techno, 910, tikuak, and DarkMeister. Coach maaRaa rounds out the squad’s support staff.
Heroic, a European organization with its own deep history in the Counter-Strike ecosystem, couldn’t close the deal after splitting the first two maps. The MongolZ took the decisive third map to advance.
The BLAST Bounty 2026 Season 2 tournament runs from July 21 through August 2, featuring 32 teams competing through online qualifiers before the action moves to a LAN setting in Malta for the July 30 to August 2 finals.
Where crypto meets esports, or doesn’t
The BLAST Bounty event and both competing teams appear to have zero crypto-native sponsorships attached to this tournament cycle. No blockchain partners, no token integrations, no NFT tie-ins.
That’s a meaningful data point. Rewind to 2021 and 2022, and crypto exchanges were practically tripping over each other to slap logos on esports jerseys and tournament broadcasts. FTX had deals with multiple esports organizations. Crypto.com was everywhere. Then the bear market happened, FTX collapsed, and the sponsorship dollars evaporated.
For crypto companies eyeing re-entry into esports sponsorship, prize pools like $1.15 million signal that the competitive gaming economy remains healthy. But the reputational residue from the 2022 blowups means any blockchain-adjacent brand looking to sponsor a major event will face more scrutiny than they would have three years ago.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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