Major CS:GO Dates for 2022
The CS:GO professional circuit features numerous tournaments. The most important are the S-tier ones, but many other A-tier competitions are worth watching if you’re a game fan. Here are the most influential CS:GO dates for the remainder of 2022.
S-Tier CS:GO Tournaments
These are the unmissable events. If you want to see the world’s best teams compete, there is no better CS:GO than the one provided by these tournaments.
August 19 – 28: BLAST Premier Fall Groups
This competition is made up of 3 independent brackets and offers around $180,000 in prizes. The teams are fighting for a place in the BLAST Premier Fall Finals. The top six teams of the 12 participants will qualify for it, while the remaining six will get a second chance to qualify at Fall Showdown.
August 31 – October 2: ESL Pro League Season 16
This is one of the most important leagues of the year. It offers $835,000 in prizes and features 24 teams. Every relevant team in CS:GO attends this tournament, from Natus Vincere to G2 Esports.
One of the cool things about this competition is the format. The participants are divided into 4 groups, 6, and each group consists of a round robin. This creates a lot of matches and a lot of opportunities.
The playoffs stage uses the single-elimination format. Throughout the tournament, every match is best-of-three, except for the Grand Final, which is best-of-five. The winning team qualifies for IEM Katowice 2023 and BLAST World Final 2022.
October 31 – November 13: IEM Rio Major
This is the season’s second Major and possibly the most important CS:GO event of 2022. The prize pool is $1 million, the duration is 2 weeks, and the number of participants is 24. Without a doubt, the best of the best teams will take part in it, and the winner is the king of CS:GO for at least 3-6 months.
Right now, people want to see if FaZe Clan can defend their title and defeat Natus Vincere for the third consecutive time this year. They already stole their title at the first Major and IEM Cologne. If they do it again, then it’s clear that FaZe Clan is the strongest team in CS:GO.
Because it’s a Major, IEM Rio will feature a lot of matches divided into 3 stages: The Challengers Stage, The Legends Stage, and The Champions Stage. The first two stages use the Swiss System Format. The best 8 teams enter the competition only in the second stage.
As usual, advancement and elimination matches are Bo3. Every other match is Bo1. For the playoffs or The Champions Stage, all matches are Bo3, and the format is single-elimination.
If everything goes according to plan, Natus Vincere and FaZe Clan will meet in the Grand Final. But at a tournament of this caliber, there’s a lot that can happen, and we might see other teams take their place.
November 16 – 20: Elisa Masters Espoo
This is a relatively small tournament, but it’s still an S-tier one. Because it starts immediately after the Major, it’s likely that most of the big teams will not take part in it. And even if they do, most of the community will not be interested in watching them compete.
We’ve already seen this in the case of other tournaments that succeeded a Major or an IEM Cologne. If the action takes place too soon after a monster event, the CS:GO community feels like it’s relatively unimportant.
However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t watch it. Just don’t expect a huge crowd. Unless, of course, the CS:GO enthusiasts from Finland will show up in large numbers.
November 23 – 27: BLAST Premier: Fall Finals
This will be an important result. With $425,000 in prizes and 8 of the world’s best teams, BLAST Premier: Fall Finals is guaranteed to attract a big crowd.
Another thing that makes this event prestigious is that it’s now part of a tradition that happens every year. BLAST Premier is part of CS:GO’s circuit and the community has gotten used to it.
The participants will be determined in the Fall Groups and Fall Showdown.
December 14 – 18: BLAST Premier: World Final
Finally, this big event concludes the 2022 edition BLAST Premier. The competition takes place in Abu Dhabi and features just 8 teams. This is a top-tier tournament that offers $1 million in prize money, and it also happens to be the last important CS:GO event of the year.
Two of the participants are already known: FaZe Clan and Natus Vincere. This alone should make you want to watch the action. But more reasons will be announced until then. For many teams, BLAST Premier: World Final is usually a chance to get revenge for what happened at the second Major of the season.
A-Tier CS:GO Tournaments
Apart from S-tier tournaments, CS:GO also features many A-tier tournaments worth watching. Here’s a list of what’s left for 2022:
- September 2 – 4: ESL Challenger at DreamHack Melbourne
- September 9 – 11: Fragadelphia 17
- October 13 – 16: FiReLEAGUE 2022: Global Finals
- October 14 – 16: ESL Challenger at DreamHack Rotterdam
- October 19 – 23: BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown
- November 25 – 27: ESL Impact League Season 2
All of these tournaments have prize pools ranging from $100,000 to $150,000. In some cases, they feature at least a few top teams, while in others, they bring together slightly less famous competitors from the 20 – 100 area of the global rankings.
If you love CS:GO, prestige shouldn’t be everything. Ultimately, it’s about the quality of the games and not just the storylines. Plust the matches will be full of opportunities for those who like to make predictions.