When is the next CSGO Major? Rio 2020 canceled, RMR events, more

Valve has canceled the ESL One: Rio 2020 CS:GO Major due to the ongoing global health situation, as the company now concentrates its efforts in reassessing how to safely put on the event at a later date.

As more qualifiers, events, and cash prize tournaments are moving to an online landscape, there was still hope that the Rio Major could somehow go along as scheduled.

With the growing pandemic still challenging countries around the globe, Valve is going to put a hold on the Brazilian Major that was previously scheduled for November 9, 2020.

“When we announced the Rio Major, we were excited to bring a CS:GO Major to one of Counter-Strike’s most passionate fan bases,” the Valve devs wrote. “At the time, we couldn’t have imagined the global challenges that have limited live events throughout 2020.”

The company said it wasn’t “going to ask players and fans to risk their health in order to attend,” and that it would cancel the only tournament with a ‘Major’ label in the year.

Along with the news, Valve said they wouldn’t be scheduling any other Majors until they could at least hold Regional Major Ranking (RMR) events on LAN (local access network) to start a safe process toward a big event.

Back in December 2019, the company was excited to announce the first Major for the region that was supposed to be hosted at Rio de Janeiro’s Jeunesse Arena.

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Though the May event was later rescheduled because of initial concerns to public safety, ESL and Valve had to eventually shut down production on the event.

“Together with Valve we had to make the tough but safe decision to cancel the ESL One Rio Major 2020 due to the ongoing disruption (of the pandemic),” ESL wrote in an update. “We worked through several alternative options down to the last hour to make the Major a reality, but ultimately have to face the fact that the global situation currently does not allow for a Major to take place.”

When is the next CS:GO Major?

ESL has said that Valve can’t “say when and how Majors will return,” but when it does, the goal will still be to create a premier event in Rio de Janeiro.

“While Valve is currently not able to say when and how Majors will return, as soon as they do we’ll work to bring the Major to Rio. New dates will be announced once a return for an in-arena Major is safe for everyone involved,” ESL said.

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The company’s IEM New York 2020 and IEM Beijing-Haidian 2020 are still expected to continue in their online format for October and November, respectively.

It sounds like the priority will be to get RMRs back up and running in a safe manner – especially since there will be changes to the leaderboards after CSGO teams were found exploiting a coaching bug.

Teams whose coaches were involved in the spectator-bug situation had their RMR points reset; with more ‘limitations’ from Valve to the coaching position possibly coming soon.

As Valve continues to find solutions for putting on live events, the CSGO competitive community and its fans will look to when the next Major event for the esport will take place.