Bruce Dias 
Counter Strike: Global Offensive is one of the most popular esports shooters in the world. Every month there are tournaments with big prizes, rating points, and titles. However, among the stream of events, you can skip the most important ones, where world giants compete. This article will help you understand the main tournament formats and the esports scene so that everyone can choose the most spectacular matches for themselves. For more info, you can visit the news website https://progamestars.com/ where you can find all info about tournaments and so on.
Main Types of Tournaments
In Counter Strike, competitions are held for both the average level of teams and for the Tier-1 scene. Some are separate from the ranking season, but most are linked.
The main list of tournament series looks like this:
- IEM;
- Starladder;
- Esl One;
- Blast;
- DreamHack;
- Epicenter;
- WESG ;
Each competition differs in its format, prize money, and qualification system. Therefore, it is worth talking about each tournament separately.
IEM
A series of competition games that also includes Counter Strike. The organizer is the Electronic Sports League, and the main sponsor is Intel. In 2020, IEM Katowice will be held, where the strongest teams will compete for 500 thousand dollars. First, the teams will meet in the group stage, and the best of them will get into the playoff bracket and continue the battle.
Starladder
Ukrainian organization, which has several dozen CS: GO championships. One of the most famous is the StarLadder Berlin Major 2019, where $1 million was up for grabs. The tournaments also included previously known events: StarSeries, ProSeries, and AMSeries.
Esl One
One of the largest competitive leagues, which holds several events annually. ESL One: Cologne 2020 and ESL One: Rio 2020 are already planned for 2020.
Based on the results of previous tournaments, some of the participants in the Legends and Challengers stages are already known. Events are scheduled for May and July 2020.
Blast
BLAST Pro Series is a competition that is not included in the rating system of Minors and Majors. This is a LAN tournament between 6 teams that fight each other for two days to determine the champion. RFRSH Entertainment came up with this format in 2017.
DreamHack
A series of competitions with large prize pools. Teams receive direct invites or go through closed qualifiers. The format of the games is divided into a group stage and a playoff bracket. Groups play according to the double-elimination system. The top two players from each group advance to the playoffs, where all matches are played Bo3.
Epicenter
A fairly new tournament that appeared in 2016. The event is held in Moscow. Four teams receive direct invitations, and the rest go through qualifiers. Two groups of four go through the classic GSL system, all Bo3 matches. The three strongest teams advance to the playoffs, and the fourth places leave the competition. Then everyone plays single elimination with Bo3 matches.
WESG
The largest international championship, where teams represent not their organizations, but countries. Lineups are specially mixed with consisting of only one nationality – this is the main rule of the tournament. All participants of the main event go through regional qualifications. At the last stage, all winners of the qualifiers are invited to the main event, which takes place in China.
Minors And Majors
The best opportunity for second tier teams to break into the esports scene. The Minors come before each Major and are divided into four regional qualifiers. Participants are divided into groups and determine the winners who go to the playoff stage. Then the game goes to take off until two victories. The two strongest teams go to the Major.
The Majors are the main tournaments of the year in the CS:GO world. The prize amount reaches 1 million dollars. Recently, Valve studio changed the invite system, replacing it with a rating system, and also adding two more unannounced championships. According to the results of performances, eight teams receive the status of “New Legends”, positions from 9 to 16 places start the game from the “Challengers” stage.
