Blast Paris Major 2023
| 2023 | |
| Tournament information | |
|---|---|
| Game | Counter-Strike: Global Offensive |
| Location | Paris, France |
| Dates | May 8–21, 2023 |
| Administrator | Valve BLAST |
Tournament format(s) | Two 16-team Swiss-system group stages 8-team single-elimination playoff |
| Venue | Accor Arena |
| Teams | 24 teams |
| Purse | US$1,250,000 |
The BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023, also known as BLAST.tv Major 2023 or Paris 2023, will be the nineteenth and final Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship.[2] It will be held in Paris, France at the Accor Arena from May 8 to 21, 2023. Twenty-four teams will qualify via regional major rankings and features a US$1,250,000 prize pool. It will be the first Major Championship tournament hosted by BLAST.
Background
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve Corporation. It is the fourth game in the Counter-Strike series. In professional CS:GO, the Valve-sponsored Majors are the most prestigious tournaments.[3][4]
The defending Major Champions are Virtus.pro[a], who won their second Major championship at IEM Rio Major 2022.[6] Virtus.pro were eliminated by MOUZ during the European major qualifiers, making them the first defending Major Champions to fail to qualify for the following major.[7]
The event will be the final Counter-Strike: Global Offensive major tournament, with the game to be succeeded by Counter-Strike 2, and that game's first Major tournament set to be held in March 2024.[2]
Format
24 teams will qualify for the tournament. 16 teams will qualify for the Challengers Stage, while 8 teams will receive a bye to the Legends Stage. In the Challengers Stage, 16 teams will participate in a Swiss bracket. The top-8 teams will advance and join the 8 teams that received a bye in the Legends stage. The top-8 teams from the Legends stage will advance to the Champions stage. The Champions stage will be a single-elimination tournament, where each match will be a best-of-3.[8]
Map Pool
|
Teams
- Legends
- Natus Vincere
- 9INE
- Furia Esports
- Fnatic
- Heroic
- Into The Breach
- Bad News Eagles
- Team Vitality
- Challengers
- paiN Gaming
- Team GamerLegion
- Apeks
- OG
- G2 Esports
- FORZE
- Ninjas in Pyjamas
- Monte
- Contenders
- MOUZ
- Team Liquid
- Grayhound Gaming
- Complexity Gaming
- The Mongolz
- Fluxo
- ENCE
- FaZe Clan
Qualification
Qualification took place through 3 Regional Major Ranking (RMR) events to determine qualifications for the geographic regions. The 3 regions were Europe, the Americas and Asia. Each region received a certain number of places at the Major in Paris based on the performance of teams from the same region at the IEM Rio Major 2022.
The RMR tournaments took place in the following cities:[9]
- European RMRs: Copenhagen, Denmark: April 6–9 (Group A) and April 11–15 (Group B)
- American RMR: Monterrey, Mexico: April 5–9
- Asian RMR: Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: April 4–8
RMR Results
| Region | Legends | Challengers | Contenders |
|---|---|---|---|
| Europe A |
|
|
|
| Europe B |
|
||
| America |
| ||
| Asia |
| ||
| Last Chance Qualifier |
Source:[10]
Notes
- ^ Due to sanctions against Russia in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Virtus.pro competed under the neutral name Outsiders. On March 22, 2023, tournament organizers ESL and BLAST lifted the ban on Virtus.pro.[5]
References
- ^ "PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024 – The first ever Counter-Strike 2 Major will take place next year in Denmark". PGL. March 28, 2023. Archived from the original on March 28, 2023. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
- ^ a b Chalk, Andy. "CS:GO's next Paris Major will be its last". PC Gamer. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Chiu, Stephen. "Retrospective of the Majors: Lineups with 2 Major Wins and Players with 3". VPEsports. Archived from the original on February 13, 2021. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
- ^ Kovanen, Tomi. "Why CS:GO needs major events". HLTV.org. Archived from the original on May 12, 2021. Retrieved February 14, 2021.
- ^ "ESL and BLAST lift their bans on Virtus.pro". HLTV.org. Retrieved March 23, 2023.
- ^ "Outsiders Defeat Heroic 2–0 To Win IEM Rio Major". HLTV.org. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
- ^ "Virtus.pro eliminated from EU RMR after surprise swap backfires". HLTV.org. Retrieved April 8, 2023.
- ^ https://blast.tv/major/rulebook
- ^ "BLAST unveils Paris Major RMR locations". January 11, 2023.
- ^ "All CS:GO teams qualified for BLAST Paris Major". April 15, 2023.