Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championships

From 2013 to 2016, Majors used a four group GSL format for the group stage. The highest seed (the semifinalists and finalists from the last Major) in each group would play the lowest seed in each group and the other two teams would play. The two winners would then play to determine which team gets the top seed. The two losers then play to decide which team would go home. The remaining two teams play to determine which team takes the final playoff spot. All games were best of ones. The last Major of 2015 and both Majors in 2016 featured a best of three decider match to make it more fair and to have a more guarantee that the better team would come out on top.

Starting in 2017, the group stage would feature a Swiss group stage. This would mean teams would be divided into four pots, in which pot one had the four highest seeds, pot two had the next four highest seeds, and so on. A randomly selected team from pot one would face off against a randomly selected team from pot four. The same process is done with the pots two and three. After initial matches are done, teams with the same record would play, so that teams with a 1–0 record would only play another team with a 1–0 record. If a team gets three wins, then that team moves on to the next stage. If a team has three losses, that team is eliminated. All games were best-of-one up until the FACEIT Major: London 2018.[9] The Boston 2018 Major featured two Swiss group stages; the stage formerly known as the offline qualifier was now known as the New Challengers stage and the group stage was now known as the New Legends stage. The Swiss system also guarantees no team would face each other twice unless necessary. The FACEIT Major: London 2018 revealed a slightly different form of the Swiss system called the Buchholz system, in which matchups would now be seeded instead of random and the last round would feature best of three sets.[10] The next Major featured an Elo system, in which teams would rank the other teams they would potentially play in the group stages to create a ranking system, thus getting rid of randomization.

A controversial form of the group stage came from ESL One Cologne 2015. Initially, the first three matches started out the same way as the GSL format intended, so that the winner of the group was determined. However, teams were then reassigned afterwards so that the two losers played from different groups and then the decider match would also be teams from different groups.

The playoffs, now known as the New Champions stage, have featured eight teams since the Major's inception. All games are best of three series. With the GSL format, the group winners would earn top seeds and the group runner-ups would earn the bottom seeds. Each top seed plays a bottom seed in quarterfinals and teams play until a winner is decided. For the Swiss format seeding, the two teams that came out on top in the group stage earn the highest seeds. Two randomly selected teams from the bottom three teams would be pitted against the top seeds. Two randomly selected teams from the third to fifth place teams would be put together and then the last two teams would finalize the bracket.

Valve has permanently banned players in the past for a couple of reasons. A Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) ban is the most common way players get banned. VAC is a system designed by Valve to detect cheats on computers. Any time a player connects to a VAC-secured server and a cheat is detected, the user is kicked from the server and given a permanent lifetime ban and would not be allowed to play in any VAC-secured servers. Other servers, such as ESEA, which is owned by ESL, and FACEIT have their own anti-cheat systems and work with Valve to detect new cheats.[11] Linus "b0bbzki" Lundqvist was the first known professional player to be banned in Global Offensive. Perhaps the most infamous VAC ban on a professional player was Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian's ban. KQLY was banned along with several other professional players, such as Gordon "Sf" Giry, while KQLY was playing for France's best team, Titan.[12] Vinicius “v$m” Moreira from Brazil was the most recent player to be VAC banned while he was playing for rantzausgade Gaming.[13] Most recently, Nikhil “forsaken” Kumawat of OpTic India was caught cheating at ZOWIE eXTREMESLAND Asia CS:GO 2018, although he was yet to be banned by Valve after the eXTREMESLAND staff and ESL confirmed the use of cheats.[14]

The only other way in which players are banned thus far is due to match fixing. The first case of Valve banning players because of match fixing was the iBUYPOWER and NetcodeGuides.com match fixing scandal after a leak from esports journalist Richard Lewis found that one of North America's best team at the time was involved in a match fixing scandal. After Casey "caseyfoster" Foster – co-owner of NetcodeGuides.com – and Sam "DaZeD" Marine – the captain of the iBUYPOWER team – were found to have a joint venture, it eventually came out that the most of the iBUYPOWER roster and the owners of NetcodeGuides.com fixed the a best of three series at the CEVO Season 5: Professional tournaments; the deal was the iBUYPOWER would lose the game and in exchange the NetcodeGuides.com owners would give them skins. Valve indefinitely banned seven players who were involved in the scandal. Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham was the only iBUYPOWER not banned as Valve deemed that it did not have enough evidence that Skadoodle threw the game. Valve would later make the bans permanent, causing some controversy in the Counter-Strike community as Valve did not permanently ban Dota 2 players for the same reason. These bans would effectively ban two of North America's best in-game leaders (DaZeD and Joshua "steel" Nissan) and young talents such as Braxton "swag" Pierce.[15] Skadoodle would go on to win a major with Cloud9. Afterwards, only two other cases of match fixing would take place that would ban nine other players.

Stickers are virtual items in the game in which players can buy or open from virtual capsules. There are four types of stickers: normal, holo, foil, and gold. Every player in the Major would get their autograph put into the game as a sticker, which fans put on their in-game weapon skins to show support. The teams and the tournament organizer also get their stickers. Each purchase of a sticker has half of its proceeds go to the player or the team and Valve takes the other half.

The older a sticker gets, the more expensive it tends becomes as that stickers become rarer to buy and with Valve not releasing any capsules for old tournaments, with an iBUYPOWER holo sticker from Katowice 2014 going for an average of US$4,500.[16]

Souvenir packages are virtual packages that are exclusive to CS:GO Majors. These are map-based packages that are signed by the most valuable player of the round, which includes the gold stickers of the two teams playing in that round, the gold sticker of the most valuable player of that round, and the gold sticker of the tournament organizer. The Cobblestone packages are the most sought after cases as it contains the rare Dragon Lore skin of the AWP, which prices can go as high as US$61,000, with Cloud9's Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham's sticker on it after Skadoodle was named the most valuable player of the ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018 and Cloud9 became the first ever North American Major champion; this skin, however, was not from the Boston Major, but rather from the prior Major, the PGL Major Kraków 2017, against G2 Esports.[17]

Beginning with the Berlin 2019 Major, players are no longer able to get random drops just by watching the match. Many players abused this option and kept streams running without actually watching the Major. It was impossible to know how many people really watched the match. Cobblestone was the most expensive case and every match that was played on Cobblestone had higher viewership than any other match.

However, it is no longer possible to get a random souvenir package drop just by watching a match. Players would need a viewer pass to be eligible for Souvenir Packages. To gain one, players would earn points by completing challenges during the Major. After collecting enough points, they can upgrade the coin and choose a souvenir drop from any match that was played on that Major, even if that player's team did not watch that match. Players could then redeem a Souvenir Package each time they were to upgrade their Event Coin. Take note that the coin can be upgraded three times total during a Major, from Bronze to Silver, Gold, and Diamond. Viewer pass holders can also purchase Souvenir Package redemptions in-game.[18]

Pick'em is an in-game challenge designed by Valve in which fans can buy stickers of teams and pick which teams will advance past certain stages or who will win certain matches. For more recent Pick'em challenges, players choose one team to go undefeated in the group stages, one team to go winless in the group stages, and another seven teams to move on to the next phase of the Major. For the New Champions stage, players fill out their brackets to determine which teams move on until a winner is decided. Valve also gives out virtual trophies in the forms of bronze, silver, gold, and diamond to players who earn enough points.

When there are moments in the Major considered to be iconic or historical, Valve has decided to honor and immortalize them with cosmetic additions on maps, mostly in the form of graffiti. Thus far, there have been six moments that have been memorialized by Valve that relate to the Major.