so how are cs events formatted throught out the year?
like how val has 2 masters and 1 champs every year
whats it like for cs or are there just a bunch of 3rd party events
(hltv way too confusing to understand it)
CS is better for viewers and I think it allows the teams to truly show who is the best team through a year. There are consitent T1 big events run by Blast and ESL and sometimes other organizers. The majors are Valve sponsered and run and they are like the Masters/Champions of Valorant. Not including the hundreds of T2 online/small LANS. It is harder on the players undoubtly.
So i dont know if you heard the news about Valve banning franchising but both ESL and Blast have partner teams atm (untuil 2025) where some teams have secured spots, but with open slots for open qualifiers anyone can play, meaning you and four friends could try to qualify for Cologne or Katowice if you wanted, however it would take quite a bit of time, as youd have to qualify for the qualifier in the first place lol.
This partner system will come to an end though and all the other big teams will need to qualify for these events either by doing well in past events securing them an invite or by playing the qualifiers
bruh what the cs format is how it should be. Every event has open quals and invited teams, the invited teams are different in blast and ESL events, but are usually the top teams. Majors don't have invited teams, instead, each region is broken into qualifiers called RMRs, and some teams get invited to that. RMR to major slots are determined based on the amount of teams in the legends(top 16)/champions stage(top 8) of the previous major. Majors are big, but there are so many other tournaments that for most teams, they are just a chance to show your skill on the big stage, not like val where you physically cant play against other regions unless you go.
spring major usually april/may depends on organizer
iem katowice feburary iem cologne july blast finals november
smaller iem/blast tourneys spread in between
generally t1/t2 teams play year round with the exception of a player break which is like month or two (may-june)
csgo players play as a full time job while val players have a lot more free time
it depends on each TOs, each one has its calendar for events in the year
in addition there are the majors that are organized by valve 2 times a year
you could say that the pro players play almost all year round, but they do have moments of rest during the year, I don't remember well when but there they are xD
https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/S-Tier_Tournaments (here you can see the "important" tournaments of the year)
Heres a website to see past tournaments easier if you’re new.
https://liquipedia.net/counterstrike/S-Tier_Tournaments
Events:
S+: Majors - sponsored by Valve and chosen TO organizes it (2 per year typically one usually in Spring and one in Fall); IEM Katowice (Feb/March) and Cologne (June/July) - events that feel like a major but not technically (organized by ESL); Blast World Final (typically in December) - slightly under the previous events imo in terms of hype and prestigiousness but still huge event (organized by Blast ofc)
S: Blast Spring Final and Fall Final - season big events, Fall final is little more hype usually since it is in Copenhagen Royal Arena with a bigger CS audience; IEM events - big events but not as huge as Cologne or Katowice, around 3-4 events spread out per year, location depends but some in the past were in Sydney, Rio, Beijing, Dallas (very common per year), etc.
S-: ESL Pro League (variable time every year)- this is borderline to S tier as it has a big prizepool, but this is a chill event, but games are still very hype typically; Blast Spring and Fall Groups - big events to get qualified to Blast Spring Finals and Fall Finals. If you bomb out, you get another chance to qualify through Blast Spring and Final Showdown which is basically LCQ; Gamers8 - new organizer event that was added recently with a huge prizepool but the event itself is smaller than the rest (unsure if this event will continue next year and so forth).
Rest are A or below tier you can find on the link. If you think this is a lot, there used to be more events back then 2015-2019. My thoughts is that I like how many events there is because I can always watch many good events throughout the year.