What’s going on with CS:GO Majors in 2020?

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Even if you are a casual player that doesn’t get too much drive from climbing to the top of ladders and charts, the CSGO community lives with the thrill of championships and stans for their favorite team and players like any other sports fandom would. Plus, there is more to those clashes than just entertainment. Majors set trends in-game and influence the skin market, so it’s good to at least know the whats and whos of it to be up to date with the game’s overall direction. For example, as we’ve shown in this article, Mirage’s popularity as a map is closely related to the Majors map roster.

In this brief article, you’ll find out what are CSGO Majors, who play them, how to go about them and when is the next major CSGO championship exactly.

The history behind any CSGO Major

Counter-Strike franchise rose to the status of esports slowly, but steadily. The idea of LAN competitions was in circulation since the very beginning, but the first NA championship was held in Texas in 2001. Depending on how you want to qualify held events as majors, it took the next 2 to 5 years for Counter-Strike to become an esport. Professional teams like mIBR and Virtus Pro cherish a long tradition of being active competitors in major championships since the first CS games. By the time of CS:Source, the majors had many grand sponsors with great prizes and the matches were held literally worldwide and streamed globally.

CSGO had a bit of a rough start when it comes to esports, as not everyone believed that this edition could bring anything new or useful to the table, especially the old-school players. The game was criticized for a number of imbalances that almost disqualified it as professionally competitive. Nevertheless, the Valve followed suit, updated the game and for the first time in history, in 2013 they sponsored the grand prix of a CS competition, namely Dreamhack Winter 2013. The idea caught wind and CSGO became a full-fling esport. Now, after each competition is finished, everyone’s waiting for the news on when is the next CSGO major event. The hype is so real that legendary, skillful plays or unprecedented situations that happen during a major are sometimes enshrined by means of a new graphical element along with the next map updates.

Everything you need to know about CSGO Major

CSGO Majors are tournaments that are held in various locations throughout the world for teams coming from every corner of the globe. There could be also regional Majors – the players often ponder where and when is the next NA Major CSGO championship held, NA standing for North America. Also, Asian countries have an Eastern league of their own, and while there are efforts to intertwine both worlds, we’re far from a unified CSGO stage. Nevertheless, usually, when people speak of Majors, they mean the events sponsored by Valve and held worldwide.

The prize pool of the global Majors has been a whooping $1,000,000 for the last couple of years. Prizes for lesser championships will vary, but a pool of $300.000 is still something to strive for. Winners also get a secured place for the next tournament of the same series.

In 2020, the Legends, or the automatically qualified teams for the next group stage, are Astralis, Team Liquid, 100 Thieves, Natus Vincere, Evil Geniuses, ENCE, Vitality, and Virtus.pro. Astralis has been going strong in the last two years, winning 3 Majors in a row. Nevertheless, Natus Vincere and ENCE are on their heels and will provide strong competition during future plays. ZyWoo, s1mple, and device are hailed as top three Major players of 2019, so we’re waiting patiently to see if they will uphold their status this year. We’ll also see if they bring about some new skin loadouts with them, as an endorsement of a pro player is also a good leverage point for those sellers who want to present their skins in the better light.

So, when is the next CSGO Major?

International Majors usually happen twice a year. For now, we’re seeing through the last brackets for IEM Katowice, with its finals taking place between February 25th and March 1st. The next worldwide major will be held in Rio De Janeiro as ESL One Rio 2020. This competition qualifying minors will be held between February and May. As to when is the next CSGO Major, it will be between May 16th and May 24th in Rio.

For those who would like to watch the stream from the tournament, they will be surely directed from CSGO lobby into CS TV links with corresponding events. If you wish to travel to Rio and attend the big feast of Counter-Strike, you can go to the ESL website and buy either one-day tickets or event passes.

What do you get for watching a CSGO Major?

Apart from the sheer entertainment of watching other people headbutt each other and chewing cuss words under their breath, there is some material or a rather e-material gain from streaming Majors, and a reason for skin collectors to look out when is the CSGO next major. While you watch such an event using CS TV, you get a chance to get a drop the same way you would after completing a match in CSGO, with the extra chance to drop a championship-related sticker or, what’s even more exciting, a Souvenir skin. Those are special event-stamped versions of regular skins, which have a great market value, coming from the rarity of the drop.

Summary

These are a couple of things that will make you know your way around CSGO championships and their influence on the game itself, as we wanted to do more than just report to players of CSGO when is the next Major championship. It’s hard to put a finger on the impact of Majors on either game meta or skin market, but it’s those events that spin the world of CSGO further. We’ll get back at the topic in the context of ESL One eliminations in near future.

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