ESL One: Road to Rio

The coronavirus is affecting sport across the world and the majority of leagues, both virtual and real, have been postponed or cancelled. The pandemic has also hit the ESL One Rio Major hard and Valve has had to completely reorganise the entire tournament plan for 2020 with the organisers. As always, we have all the information for you so you can stay up to date!

Only one Major in 2020

There’s good news for the Brazilians: the tournament was only postponed, rather than cancelled, and South American fans can look forward to the first CS:GO Major in the region in the game’s history. The event is now set to begin on November 19, 2020 and, as things stand, will take place as planned.
For CS:GO as a whole, however, this does represent a setback as there have been at least two Major tournaments a year for fans to enjoy since the Major system was introduced. This year, the Rio Major will be the only Major tournament on offer.
However, to fill the gap that the postponement entails, the ESL has – in coordination with Valve – changed the entire system usually used as the basis of the Major and has conjured up the “Regional Major Ranking”.

Reshuffling the pack

Like the ESL Pro League, the structure of these RMR events is based on the teams’ regions. This means that there will be separate online events. The teams for the first event are, by and large, already confirmed. This means that the first tournament is made up of teams that have qualified for the Minors, as well as the legend and challenger teams.
Although we already know the identities of the first participants, every team is still able to qualify for the following tournaments. This means that in Europe, for example, BIG and Sprout get another chance to qualify for the Rio Major. It could also mean, however, that ENCE slip out of contention again. The Finns would have had a guaranteed spot in Rio due to their legend status, but have suffered an awful downturn in form in recent months and they now need to turn things around, and fast, in CS:GO’s strongest region. If they don’t show significant improvement in the coming weeks, it appears very unlikely that they will qualify for the Major.

Plenty of unanswered questions

A lot might already be confirmed, but there are still some unknowns. Every RMR event is set up as a group stage, followed by a KO-bracket. The further a team gets, the more ESL Pro Tour points they get, thereby giving themselves a better chance of sealing their spot in Rio.
We do not yet know when the other RMR events will take place and Valve is yet to announce when the dates will be confirmed. Qualification will certainly be easier for the smaller regions, such as South America and Oceania, whose teams usually have to battle through Minor tournaments to earn their chance. It could be that these regions receive a guaranteed spot at the Major, but we will have to wait and see.

More CS:GO action to enjoy in the coming weeks

One thing’s for sure: the RMR system is set up to provide fans with maximum entertainment in the coming weeks! The last ESL Pro League showed that the fans, despite all the restrictions in place, support the new system just as much as they did before the crisis. Furthermore, the ESL was able to stream Counter-Strike for 24 consecutive hours for the first time due to teams playing in different regions. Times might be hard, but that is a dream come true for every CS:GO fan.

bet-at-home wishes all fans an enjoyable first RMR event of the year!