Faze in Counter-Strike during 2023 played 165 maps on LAN totaling 74 matches, one match every 5 days.
Val players on a good year play 31 matches TOTAL including a SEASONAL ROUND ROBIN FORMAT so one nearly every 12 days. this is pulled from fnatic, who had the most matches through the year to my knowledge (or at least larger riot ones)
and yes, it gets worse when we put in only the actual international tournaments, where, if you were fnatic and won every single match in champs, tokyo and sao paulo you'd only have 16 matches played through the year internationally, one nearly every 23 days.
let's say you're an unfortunate org like KOI?
1 international match in a year, LOCK//IN. you play your regular season, some playoffs, maybe a crossfire cup (all EMEA tournaments) and that's your entire year.
the system is broken. this cannot be all we can offer to these teams.
my proposition:
regional leagues should have 3 seasons to qualify for tournaments and each season you can go to the big tournaments if you're at the top
this would mean teams have multiple seasons to improve rather than just one where if you lose like 5 matches it's over
have (region) spring for masters 1, summer for masters 2 and fall for champs
winter offseason to align with contract expiration
for example
VCT Americas Spring (top 4 to Masters 1)
VCT Americas Summer (top 3 to Masters 2, top Americas team from Masters 1 auto quali)
VCT Americas Fall (top 2 to Champs, top Americas team from Masters 1 and masters 2 auto quali)
teams if they want can grind off-season tournaments during the winter offseason
could easily be done like:
Late January - Mid March: Spring season, Masters 1 late March
Mid May - Early July: Summer, Masters 2 Mid July)
Late August - Early October: Fall, Champs Late October)
November-almost February: off season (contract expirations and roster changes)
bottom teams get guaranteed 30 matches through the year, if a team wins every match through all 3 seasons its 45 matches. if they win all 3 tournaments like 66, 70 max. seems like a lot (and close to the CS one) but regular season matches are BO1 (all 30 guaranteed matches) so truly it'd be more like 68 maps through regular seasons and in tournaments maybe 29 more so 97 maps (faze played 165)
TL;DR: schedule ass, have seasonal schedules with winter season off. each season qualis to masters 1, 2 and champs