StarLadder has announced a slight change to the dates of the Challengers and Legends stages of the upcoming Counter-Strike: Global Offensive major.
The Challengers Stage has been reduced to just four days, now running between August 23 and 26. The original schedule for the event had this stage listed as a six-day tournament. Meanwhile the Legends Stage of the competition will now be held between August 28 and September 1, having been reduced to a five-day competition instead of six as originally planned.
The Champions Stage remains unchanged, with the competition taking place at the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin between September 5 and 8.
A StarLadder representative told HLTV that this is “the first step towards reducing the footprint of CS:GO Majors on the global event schedule.”
While shortening the length of the stages by a few days may not seem like a big deal at first, it is certainly a welcome move for most people involved. For StarLadder it means a reduction in costs. For the teams that do not make it through to the Champions Stage, it means they can get back to competing in other tournaments or go on break sooner.
Tickets for the Champions Stage have also gone on sale, with a general admission four-day pass setting you back €99 ($110.02). Single day tickets are also available, with access on Thursday and Friday costing €25 per day ($27.82) and access for Saturday and the grand final on Sunday costing €35 ($38.94) per day. Tickets can be purchased on The Ticket Fairy. Premium four-day passess have already sold out, so prospective attendees may not want to delay much further.
The open qualifiers for the StarLadder Major are set to kick off in the coming days, with teams hoping to make it through to the closed qualifiers where they will have a chance to qualify for the Minors.
While teams that compete in these open qualifiers rarely make it all the way to the final stages of the competition, there are often more than a few upsets from squads on the rise, and you never know when the next upstart may be taking its first step towards major glory.
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