22.02.20244 min read

How are Counter-Strike tournaments organized? (Part 1)

Counter-Strike tournaments can be hosted by anyone, but when it comes to organizing a high-class tournament with many teams, it requires a lot of experience, as well as conducting practices over and over again.

Major tournaments in CS can be generally classified as a Major tournament funded by Valve and others. Here, we’ll detail the major Championships hosted by Valve, and next time we’ll cover other tournaments.

Majororganized by Valve

During CS 1.6, Valve didn’t think much of organizing tournaments. But since the release of CS:GO in 2012, Valve has partnered with tournament organizers to launch major tournaments.

Their first major was DreamHack Winter 2013. The tournament had a prize pool of $250,000, and in 2014 and 2015, they also organized Major tournaments with a prize pool of $250,000 each year. But from 2016 onwards, the prize fund was raised to $1,000,000, with tournaments occurring twice a year.

One of the features of the Major hosted by Valveis that in addition to the high prize pool, team and player stickers are put into the game and sold to the teams from the profits they earn from the sales. There are reports that last year’s Blast.tv Paris Major 2023sticker sales exceeded $110 million, with teams participating in the tournament earning $4.5 million each, plus a $200,000~$250,000 profit per player. Of course, this income is separate from the prize fund.

Over the past 10 years, there have been a total of 19 major tournaments, and Valve has partnered with many tournament organizers to host them. Let us list them:

DreamHack:
- DH Winter 2013
- DH Winter 2014
- DH Open Cluj-Napoca 2015
ESL:
- ESL Major Series One Katowice 2014
- ESL One Cologne 2014
- ESL One Katowice 2015
- ESL One Cologne 2015
- ESL One Cologne 2016
- IEM Katowice Major 2019
- IEM Rio Major 2022
MLG (Major League Gaming):
- MLG Columbus 2016
ELEAGUE:
- ELEAGUE Major Atlanta 2017
- ELEAGUE Major Boston 2018
PGL:
- PGL Major Kraków 2017
- PGL Major Stockholm 2021
- PGL Major Antwerp 2022
FACEIT:
- Major London 2018
StarLadder:
- StarLadder Berlin Major 2019
BLAST.tv:
- BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023

However, some tournament organizers have ceased operations, and some have merged with others (such as the merger of DreamHack and FACEIT within ESL). So, only a few organizers are still standing.

For Valve, every 1-2 years, they receive proposals from tournament organizers for the next Major events. In 2024, the Majors will be held in March and December, and from 2025 they will be held in June and December.

As for the tournament format, the format has changed from year to year depending on the tournament organizers. However, in 2022, Valve released an official rulebook to improve consistency going forward. These include: The three main regions are Europe, America, and Asia. Each region will hold an RMR (Regional Major Rankings competition to find the top 24 teams to qualify for the Majors.

Out of the 24 teams, those who are ranked from 9th to 24th will play against each other in the Swiss format. From the 16 matches, eight teams will qualify for the next round. The eight qualifying teams will then be mixed with the teams who ranked from 1st to 8th, playing in the Swiss format again. Only eight teams can proceed to the final stage. The play-off round is played in a knockout format in a stadium, with the champion coming out on top.

For this year, CS2 will be the first major to be played, with PGL hosting it. The second major will be held in December and is hosted by China’s Perfect World.

AuthorTemujin Batbayar

Analyst from Ulaanbaatar specializing in CS2. Has competed in MESA tournaments, worked with Esports TV during the ESL Pro League, and reviewed both the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 and IEM Katowice 2024. Author of his own player evaluation metrics and known for accurate predictions. Has interviewed s1mple and ZywOo. In esports since the days of CS 1.3.