CS:GO Tournaments: 4 Events Worth Your Attention

Do you know that CS:GO is in the top 4 biggest eSports games ever? And there is no better proof of that than the number of annual CS competitive events. Of course, not each of those competitions is worth your attention. However, there are plenty of world-class events, attracting gamers and bettors from all countries. And those are the ones you will reveal in this article.

CS:GO Major Championship

Let’s start with our big boy: Major Championship. This event took root in 2013 when it was first conducted in Jönköping, Sweden city. Although it was first hosted by the DreamHack brand, the competition’s sponsor was and remains Valve (CS:GO developer). The first ever Major had a pretty modest prize pool: just $250 000. However, nowadays, the prizes reach up to $2 000 000.

CS:GO’s Major competitors come mainly from North America and Europe. Until 2018, the tournament featured 16 different teams. The eight best performers of the previous Major (called “Legends”) were always invited to the upcoming one. While the resting eight were called “Challengers,” chosen from the best seasonal teams. Since 2018, the tournament has featured 24 teams. While the number of legends increased to 16.

The CSGO Major Championship format is relatively straightforward. Firstly, the qualifications come. And then, players are fighting to get on top in the standard playoff stage.

The best-performing team within all the conducted Majors turns out to be Astralis. They’ve gathered 6 titles, while 4 are for first place.

CS:GO ESL Pro League

ESL Pro League is another famous CS event to gather the best teams. What do they come for? To show their skill, get some fame, and fight for the extremely high prize pool.

ESL Pro League was first conducted in 2015 and was held and produced by ESL (Electronic Sports League). At first, the prize pool distributed $500 000 among the best competitors. But later, it grew up to $1 000 000 just for the victory in the finals.

ESL Pro League has always been making changes to its format. Hence, at the very beginning, the tournament featured the twelve best teams invited from each continent. Further, the number was expanded to 28 and later got tweaked again.

The final changes to the format were made in 2022. From that time, there were 32 teams in the league, while 11 were selected from the ESL Conference. This conference is a qualifying event for separate regions.

Again, Astralis has shown the best performance in all the ESL Pro League seasons, getting 3 first places.

CS:GO Blast Premier

Now let’s talk about some fresh events. The Blast Premier league was launched just in 2020. But it has already managed to become a dream of CS:GO pros.

BLAST brand is a tournament organizer who has decided to gather teams from two regions: North America and Europe. The series of Blast is divided into the fall and spring independent seasons.

Each of the seasons has 12 teams competing for four months. When the season ends, the finals start, featuring the 6 best teams. But also, there will be 2 additional teams to join the finals, coming from Showdown events.  The tournament winner will participate in the next year’s finals too.

Eight best performers of the fall and spring Blasts are sent to the Blast World Finals. They may fight to win $1 000 000 spread among all the competitors there.

Intel Extreme Masters

Intel Extreme Masters is another event organized and sponsored by Electronic Sports League (ESL). It was founded long ago, in 2007. As you can guess, CSGO did not exist at those times. That is why the core game of the tournament was CS 1.6. But since 2015, the situation has changed, and Intel Extreme Masters switched to the CS:GO.

Intel Extreme Masters schedule says it will be conducted in February, April, July, May, and October 2023. Track all the upcoming CS:GO tournaments to keep abreast of everything going on in the professional scene. Never miss a single event, and watch how your favorite teams perform.

Nowadays, the tournament consists of a couple of seasonal events. For example, in 2022, the events occurred in Katowice, Dallas, Cologne, and Rio. Depending on the region, the amount of comprised teams’ changes. Thus, the most prominent are European ones. They feature 24 participants. While the bottom number for the comprised teams is 16.

The same as the number of participants, the prize pool also depends on the region. And it follows the same tendency as the last parameter: the biggest prizes are usually in Cologne and Katowice.