CSGO Rio Major reportedly delayed again, until late 2021

Valve has reportedly postponed the next Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major until at least November 2021.

According to an email obtained by HTLV, Valve has scrapped plans for a CSGO major until the second half of 2021. While plans had been in place to hold the first CSGO Major in over a year in early 2020, the email details the developer’s plans to delay the next major tournament by at least another year. CSGO’s last major was the StarLadder Berlin Major in September 2019, meaning viewers will have gone over two years without seeing the game’s premier competition.

Valve postpones 2021’s CSGO Major till at least late next year

The news comes on the heels of a large content update for CSGO in the form of Operation Broken Fang, but fans of competitive CSGO won’t see another LAN major until at least the latter half of 2021, per the email. CSGO usually sees two majors per year in the spring and fall, but worldwide conditions forced Valve to postpone the spring ESL One Brazil Major from May 2020 to late November. In September 2020, the developer announced that it had cancelled the major’s production altogether.

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In its place, Valve revealed plans for ongoing online competitons called “Regional Ranking Tournaments” in order to continue to keep track of the best teams in the world. But those plans, haven’t panned out the way it seemed as though they were initially formed. There hasn’t been any official regional ranking tournaments since DreamHack Open Fall for European teams and IEM New York Online for rosters based in North American and CIS regions. Both tournaments took place in October 2020.

A quote from the email attributed to Valve explained the possible format for a 2021 CSGO Major, saying that the developer has both a tournament organizer and European venue lined up. The tournament organizer will likely be ESL, as it would have hosted both the original Brazil 2020 Major as well as a planned major tournament to end out 2020.

Depending on the global health situation, the next CSGO major may begin October 25.

When is the next CSGO regional ranking tournament?

There has been little word from Valve regarding future regional ranking tournaments as of yet, but the ranking tournament formats have already been skewed by teams swapping regions and players despite penalites imposed by the developer in an official blog post dated April 4, 2020.  It is still too early to tell if a 2021 Major will actually take place, especially given the worsening difficulties involved with global travel. But with the majority of the world’s top teams currently located in Europe, Valve’s regional rankings may even themselves out despite a rocky start as “international” competition resumes in an online environment.