According to Industry experts on an episode of “HLTV Confirmed”, which was broadcast on Twitch.tv today, Valve’s new changes to the way that teams qualify for CS:GO majors could have a negative impact on team’s schedules in 2020.

As reported on in a previous article on TheGamer.com, Valve recently made changes to how teams would qualify for majors following ESL One Rio in May of 2020. “HLTV Confirmed” hosts Zvonimir “Proffesuer” Burazin, Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill, and Milan “Striker” Zvejda were joined by FaZe Clan coach Janko “YNk” Paunovic as they discussed the potential impact that these changes could have on the teams schedules in 2020.

During the broadcast, after first going over the details of Valves demands, SPUNJ pointed out that ESL would not likely want to implement these changes into their ESL One Cologne event - which takes place before the player break in July. Building on this, Striker pointed out that because of this, there will only be a month and a half window where these events could be reasonably scheduled.

YNk agreed that these changes to major qualification would create problems for teams from a scheduling perspective. He said that since no tournament organizer would likely want to convert one of their existing events into a major ranking event, there would likely have to be two new events added to the calendar after the player break. He then asserted that this would give teams little time to prepare following the break, and would only crowd teams’ schedules further.

Professeur then brought up the potential issues with the minors, which would follow these new ranking events the next month. Not only would players have to participate in the closed/open qualifiers and the minors themselves within a one month span following two important tournaments, they also could run into potential visa issues due to the tight schedule. Following this, the cast wrapped their discussion and moved on to their next topic.

While Valve’s decision should help to ensure that teams don’t just settle for top 8’s to qualify for the next major, it comes with some serious pitfalls. It’s no secret that the CS:GO calendar is already packed full of events, especially as we enter the second half of the year. Adding more events only exacerbates the problem, and could potentially lead to more player burnout.

As YNk mentioned, the timing of these events could also be problematic. Teams tend to come out of the break a little rusty, and the proximity of these events means that teams likely won’t be able to prepare in time. Fans want to see the best teams compete on the biggest stage, but these major ranking tournaments might be placed in such a way that we don’t get to see the quality Counter-Strike that one would expect from an event with such gravitas.

Finally, this puts pressure on tournament organizers to find the space and resources to host additional events. With such short notice from Valve, this could leave them scrambling to put together new tournaments which could give us sub-par broadcasts and viewing experiences.

All said, Valve could have approached this better. They should have given tournament organizers more of a heads up, and a greater window of time to fit the new ranking events they requested in. Hopefully, these changes can have a mostly positive affect on this fall’s major, and avoid the potential scheduling issues that worry those who work within CS:GO’s competitive scene.

Source: HLTV Confirmed