23.04.20243 min read

How are Counter-Strike tournaments organized? (Part 2)

In the first part of this article, we gave you details about the major tournaments organized by Valve and which organizations hosted them. This time, we will introduce and rank tournaments other than the major ones from Valve.

In general, it can be said that only 2 of the many tournament organizers are left after COVID, one is ESL, and the other is BLAST. Let’s start by introducing you to ESL competitions.

Both ESL and BLAST work with teams on a contract basis, with a system that obliges contracted teams to participate in their competitions. But in the case of ESL, depending on the tournament, fewer entries than the contracted team, while for BLAST, it uses a strategy that invites the majority of teams from their contracted teams, but instead harnesses the opportunity for a new team to participate from the open qualifiers.

In the ESL, teams are divided into 3 categories: Championship, Masters and Challengers. They call this system entirely the ESL Pro Tour, in which the biggest tournaments are Championship-class IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne. The teams participating in both competitions will be invited to become Masters champions and top the ESL World Rankings. IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne are the next most prestigious tournaments after the Majors and have been held for more than 10 years.

In contrast, the following rankings include some IEM tournaments and ESL Pro League tournaments in the Masters level. There are five Masters class tournaments in 2024, including IEM Chengdu 2024, IEM Dallas 2024, IEM Rio 2024, ESL Pro League S19 and S20. Masters level tournaments not only invite teams in the ESL World Ranking, but also teams from regional qualifiers.

But depending on the region where the tournament is held, there are times when there are no available slots. For example, IEM Chengdu and IEM Rio tournaments are available in Asian, while IEM Dallas does not have slots for teams from Asia to participate.

Thus, the lowest level of the ESL Pro Tour involves 2 types of tournaments, the first being the ESL Challenger, and the lowest being the ESL Challenger League. The different aspects are that the ESL Challenger involves 8 teams and is held over LANfor 3 days, while the other is a league format where 16 or more teams participate in a full 3 to 4 months of online matches. Winning the ESL Challenger and ESL Challenger League tournaments not only earns you a cash prize, but also the right to participate in the top-tier ESL Pro League.

But for tournament organizer BLAST, the sides are involved in the Spring Final and Fall Final for the next level tournament, including teams in the group format Spring Groups and Fall Groups in the Spring and Fall Final, while the remaining teams participate in the Spring Showdown and Fall Showdown for another chance at the Spring Showdown and Fall Showdown. will compete in the competition.

As mentioned earlier, in the case of BLAST, it can only be said that the contracted teams participate in their Spring Groups and Fall Groups competitions, while the teams from the zone qualifiers can only participate in the Spring Showdown and Fall Showdown, it is a slightly more uninteresting competition. Thus , the teams selected from tournaments such as the Spring Finals and Fall Finals have a format in which they participate in the main single major tournament, such as the BLAST World Final.

But Valve’s teams have been barred from contracting with tournament organizers, and ESL and BLAST are forced to change their tournament formats from 2025.

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.