Like hundreds of thousands of Counter-Strike fans, you are probably hyped going into this Major. This grand festival of Counter-Strike only happens twice a year. Maybe you bought tickets. Maybe you rearranged your schedule so you could watch the games. You have willingly sacrificed things in order to get the best experience possible. But this Major will not be all that it has promised to be.

Much of the hundreds of thousands who turn up to watch the Major do not tune in to every tournament. They enjoy Counter-Strike, but there are other things in life that they prioritize. What does incentivize them is the many things that often surround the Majors - the things that make the Major different from other tournaments. Some of that is the prestige inherently associated with a Major, but a lot of their interest is in the drops, the stickers and the high levels of production and polish.

Often times, ELEAGUE delivers a top-notch product. People behind the scenes of ELEAGUE are associated with very well respected shows. Upon entering the esports space, ELEAGUE brought a level of class and flair that has raised the bar in Counter-Strike. But with the choices ELEAGUE has made going into this Major, it seems as though ELEAGUE hasn’t gotten the memo, and instead of raising the bar, they are playing a game of limbo to see how low can they go.

The most glaring example of ELEAGUE cutting corners is with their choice in hiring talent. ELEAGUE has hired some of the best people in the business, but that’s not the issue. ELEAGUE has hired too few people to cover the games, and as a result, they will end up using exhausted and inexperienced analysts. Perhaps they thought that they could get away with it because many viewers will have only a basic familiarity with Counter-Strike, but for those in between noobs and diehard fans, ELEAGUE’s hiring choices are a great disappointment. Personally, I will still very much enjoy the Major, but I am let down because the total product of the Major will not be as good as it has been in the past or could be today.

Pundits like Janko, Thorin, SPUNJ, and moses contribute a lot to a tournament. They also possess unique skills that make them the best at what they do. Sadokist possesses a unique ability to make hype moments in-game more memorable through phrases such as “the Big Apple and Snax is hungry” and passionate reactions like “What in God’s name is that from, Snax?” So too does Thorin have the ability to make witty jokes that keep viewers engaged and interested in what might otherwise be a fairly dry breakdown of the game. Just as Sadokist adds an additional factor through his casting, analysts like Janko are able to provide unrivaled breakdowns of games and draw attention to subtly complex details that make the greatest plays all the better. As you can see, although talented in their own way, casters are often unable to provide top-notch breakdowns of games just as analysts are often not cut out to cast. There certainly is an exception in moses as he is able to cast and analyze games, but since he is the only one to do this, he is the exception that proves the rule.

The work of analysis is not only unique, but it is also a strenuous job. Most events, such as the ELEAGUE 2017 Major, do not hire relief analysts; therefore, an analyst’s job is not just about how well they can analyze a game but how long they can stay focused. Talent at events are required to show up an hour or two before the event starts. At an event like a Major where days will be jam-packed full of games, they may have to spend 12 hours working. Excluding the time it takes to get up and get to the venue and the time it takes to go back to the hotel, that’s 14 hours of work without any true breaks. It appears as though ELEAGUE has a plan to minimize exhaustion by rotating casters on the analysis desk, but that doesn’t seem to be enough based on the calls for more talent, not less, from Thorin, a person who has had lots of experience as an analyst at big events like Majors.

Qualification and roster locks

Although it is not entirely ELEAGUE’s fault and these issues have existed in the past, I will nonetheless address these issues as they cause the Major to be underwhelming. ELEAGUE contracted the European Minor Qualifier to CEVO. The qualifier was played online in October, and there were zero restrictions on who could join. Concerns over competitive integrity erupted when three players were banned for cheating from the event. There was little that could be done to properly remedy issues over qualification. Even though CEVO is directly responsible for an ineffective anti-cheat, ELEAGUE was the company that hired CEVO to run the qualifier for their event and therefore possess some culpability. Superior teams may have been blocked from qualifying because they were on an unfair playing field. As a result, the repercussions could ripple through the Minor and beyond. How destructive this failure was is uncertain, but there is an issue with competitive integrity within the Major because of it.

The Majors are expected to be the best events of the year, but because of the roster locking system Valve has put in place, we are almost certainly seeing suboptimal teams play against each other. The most well-known instance of this can be seen with SK’s inability to play with boltz. SK has played with boltz for months, and they have done much better with boltz than felps. felps is not a bad player by any means, but after felps’ departure to the bench, SK had won three tournaments in two months. In the two months following the Krakow Major, SK hadn’t even made it to a final. SK is so committed to boltz that they have hardly practiced with felps because they are looking at their primary line-up for the long-term. You might say that it is SK’s fault that they didn’t operate within the window and that they made a choice to go all in on boltz, but that doesn’t hide the fact that fans will be robbed of seeing SK playing at their best. Additionally, Valve does not provide much time to plan for roster changes because they don’t have a set calendar that is given for an entire year. This is possible for Valve to do for Dota, but it is apparently out of their reach for CS:GO.

Another Immortals exile missing from this Major is steel. Team Liquid with steel have had very few showings, leaving fans curious about where exactly they stand within North America and internationally. Like SK, Team Liquid has been forced to use a suboptimal line-up, and with zews playing for them, Team Liquid’s situation is a very tough one. Many fans would have liked to see Team Liquid go to the playoffs at this American Major, which, though unlikely, was not out of the question. Only because of 100 Thieves’ absence did Liquid make it through, which leads me to my next point.

You will not find a 100 Thieves fan out of me, but I had hoped to see the former Immortals core in the Major as a means of determining how good their new line-up will be. This absence, like that of boltz and steel, is not the fault of ELEAGUE, but their absence leaves me wanting more out of the Major that which they host. It is also important to consider not just which players will not be playing with their new teams but which players would be removed if there was greater freedom in making roster moves. What if G2 wanted to recruit RpK or ScreaM but can’t because of Valve’s roster locking rules? That would not only make the Major theoretically worse than it could be but it would bar teams from making roster changes sooner and cause suboptimal line-ups to play in other tournaments because few teams are willing to make a move like what SK had done. Getting removed for a better or more desirable player and missing out the Major as a result is unfortunate, but the alternative is that teams like Tyloo are forced to forfeit their spot in the Major Qualifier, which is bad for the whole team and the player that would have had the chance to be a substitute on a Major stage.

Conclusions

I loathe to suggest such a thing for a Major, but due to the large number of analysts left out of this Major, an alternative stream exclusively for the purpose of providing analysis between games or a recap show at the end of the day may be the most logical solution. For especially long tournaments, like the World Championship in League of Legends, pundits have provided analysis of the games independently from Riot throughout the tournament. Additionally, content creators in CS:GO have made their own videos providing analysis during the Major.

In an age where literacy is at an all-time high, people are more aware and understanding of scientific facts. People have come to place their faith in science rather than superstition. Despite making a comeback through the New Age phenomenon, divination in the form of tarot, astrology, and even Chinese fortune cookies are less valued. If we are to believe that the lucky numbers inside a fortune cookie to be bogus, then why should we not consider the 3/5’s, which has had no explanation from Valve, to be Counter-Strike’s “lucky number?”

We shouldn’t take Valve’s occasional responses to community issues as gospel truth. The 3/5's rule was created before we had gotten to the present-day infrastructure of qualifying for the Major. The 3/5's rule, if it ever made sense, makes less sense now because of how much it restricts player transfers due to the lengthy process of qualification and the level in which Counter-Strike is at as an esport. When the scene was less developed, organizations were more capable of screwing players over, but now with the growth of the game, organizations are making a big investment in Counter-Strike and deserve some sort of guarantee that they will be able to have a spot in the Major when they invest in a team. Players also should be protected against a player departing to a rival team and taking the team’s Major spot with him. A team that has Legend’s status might want to change to players because they are allowed to under the 3/5's rule. A player may realize the team’s situation as an opportunity to demand more money, as Peacemaker did from the position of being Tyloo’s only possible substitute for Bntet. This issue was highlighted by KRiMZ’ departure to Fnatic from Godsent though it fortunately wasn't as devastating as it could have been.

With the current system, it's as though you are given a set of lucky numbers from a fortune cookie and are told to live your life in accordance to them with no explanation given. I am not suggesting that the slot belong entirely to the org or entirely to the majority of players in the team, but I do believe is that there should be room for interpretation. I would suggest that Valve hire a commissioner and public relations official for CS:GO and adopt a system like EPL’s for approving roster moves, but that would run counter to Valve’s modus operandi of being silent and secretive on their decisions and philosophy. The bottom line is that Valve’s policies are often ridiculous and do not allow for interpretation, and as a result, they lower the level of play and sometimes make the Major less fair than it would be without the 3/5's rule.

I am very excited to see the ELEAGUE Boston Major, even if it isn’t as good of an event as it could or should be, and I would still encourage my friends to tune in.

________

Author's Note - After the time of writing this article, it was confirmed n0thing would be appearing on the desk at the ELEAGUE Major. This is a step in the right direction. It also shows that ELEAGUE has begun to understand that they planned poorly for the Major.

Image credit: ELEAGUE, EPICENTER

Follow the author for more on Twitter at @Bleda412.