ESL Announces ESL One Rio 2020 Featuring a $1 Million Prize Pool

Cover and Thumbnail Image Courtesy: ESL Counter-Strike

It turns out that Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev was indeed telling the truth, as the rumours of a CS:GO Major taking place in Rio de Janeiro turns out to be true. ESL took to Twitter to announce the ESL One Rio 2020, the tickets for which are set to go live tomorrow.

For the first time ever a CS:GO Major would be held in South America as part of the ESL Pro Tour. A total of 24 teams will be flying down to Rio to compete for a prize pool of $1,000,000. The tournament will be held at Jeunesse Arena, Rio from 21^st - 24^th May 2020.

The audience heading down to witness the Major live will be able to hear the caster audio in Portuguese, with analysis being done in English. This would, however not affect the online streams.

This Major will witness a bit of change in the pattern that it follows, the Minors, Challenger Stage, and Legends Stage will be broadcasted live from a studio without an audience. The Champions Stage will be the only part of the Major which will be played live, at the Jeunesse Arena, Rio.

The schedule of the Major is as follows,

Also for the first time, all the Minors will be taking place together from 26^th April to 3^rd May. Two teams from each of these Minors will qualify for the Challengers Stage, along with two more teams making their way through the Minor Play-In.

These twelve teams will move on to join the following six teams,

These sixteen teams after going up against each other will be cut down to just eight teams. These eight teams will join another eight teams, which are as follows,

While a Brazilian team has won a Major, never has a Major been held on its home soil. ESL goes on to state that,

“2020 is a year of firsts for us at ESL but also for the inferno of fired-up fans in Brazil. In 2016 we stopped in São Paulo for ESL Pro League S4 and thereafter created fond memories in the Mineirinho Arena for ESL One Belo Horizonte during 2018. At the seaside city of Rio de Janeiro, where passion leads the dream, the Jeunesse Arena will attempt to house thousands of embering fans ravenous for world-class Counter-Strike.”

Let’s see which teams make their way through the minors onto the big stage, ready to fight against the best in Brazil.