We’re inching ever-closer to the end of the 2019 year, and that means various things to various people. New ‘end of the world’ predictions loom large, children are excited as Christmas is just around the corner, and professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players are being whisked around the world attempting to get to every championship that’s offering massive prize pools.
It makes sense that it would be absolutely exhausting, as there is an absurd amount of events that all conglomerate around the end of the year; starting November and lasting until the end of December. It’s a wild two months of plane riding globe-hopping, leaving no room for rest, family, or even practice.
Professional players are beginning to speak up about this, stating that they might not attend events next year if it continues. There’s the United Masters League that begins at the start of November, Loot.BET Season from November until the end of December, ESL Pro League Final December 3rd-8th, ESEA Season that is smattered throughout November, IEM Katowice qualifiers, Dreamhack, 2 BLAST events with the upcoming one in Bahrain, cs_summit in LA, EPICENTER 2019 in Moscow, and Champions Cup Finals in Malta.
Professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team calendars look like etch-a-sketches were given to victims of cerebral palsy.
Of course they’re exhausted. The schedules of Counter-Strike‘s top teams is obscene, due to the fact that there are so many Tournament Organizers (TO’s) hosting events around the world. With Valve allowing anyone to host a tournament (assuming that a bare minimum of essentials are provided to all teams), you end up with a lot of competitions scattered throughout the year. Teams eager to maintain their ranking need to continue to compete in top tournaments, lest their rankings (based on points) slip. On top of that, keeping everyone focused on Counter-Strike is essential for your teams’ victory. If your strongest opponents are grinding an event every week, and you opt for your team to only grind on an event a month, your opponents will topple you very quickly.
This is what has been on Lukas ‘gla1ve’ Rossander’s mind at the closing of Arlington, Texas ECS Season 8 Finals. Astralis has reported that they are having difficulty planning and preparing for so many events, but it’s generally worth it to gather the ‘huge prize money and (prestige)’ that these events offer. With Odense just around the corner, teams are once again bouncing across the world to reach the LANs.
When questioned further, ‘gla1ve’ had this to say: ‘I think it is pretty sad that it is scheduled like this. If this happens again maybe we will say no to one tournament, even if it is the finals’.
Tournament Organizers would do well to stagger their tournament times even further if they want to continue to attract the biggest names in Counter-Strike. When a tournament can attract the powerhouses of Counter-Strike, their viewership numbers will skyrocket through the roof. Conversely, if they only can attract sub-top-fifty, their numbers will hurt, which will consequentially affect advertisement dollars.
With the beginning of 2020 already planned out, all teams can do is cross their fingers for being a bit more rested come next holiday season.
