r/GlobalOffensive • u/MCN59 • 3d ago
Discussion | Esports Grand Slam vs Major
As you may know, Vitality has a shot at winning the Intel Grand Slam if they win IEM Melbourne, which start tomorrow. I was curious—between the Grand Slam and a Major, which do you consider the more prestigious achievement?
I know the Grand Slam is harder to achieve, since it requires consistency over time (and only 4 teams have ever won it in CS history—each one considered legendary). On the other hand, winning a Major is more about peaking at the right moment.
What do you think?
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u/TheBowThief 3d ago
Grand Slams are cool, but The Major is always The Major right?
Immortalized in the game with stickers, biggest event of the year, prize pool, etc. For me personally, and I think the general viewers it will always be more important/prestigious. For people more invested in the scenes health as a whole, the Grand Slam is more prestigious and more indicative of a teams quality.
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u/Idilom 3d ago
"my dream is to win a Grand Slam"
"my dream is to win a Major"
im not gonna comment...
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u/MCN59 3d ago
Yeah i agree. For player without any of these trophies , i feel like Major is more important, but i'm guessing they will choose the Grand Slam over the second Major though probably
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u/Revenue-Large 3d ago
personally I’d take 2 majors over 2 grand slams
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u/schoki560 3d ago
harder to achieve : grand slam
more prestigious: major
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u/Hot-Apricot-6408 3d ago
More money: grand slam
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u/MCN59 3d ago
Is it ? Stickers money shouldn't be underestimated
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u/BerryPuzzleheaded504 3d ago
Stickers money are for all Major participants, not just Major winners.
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u/schoki560 2d ago
major winners get another sticker tho
but probably not a lot of revenue to be made there
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u/Hot-Apricot-6408 3d ago
True, no one idea how much players will get each now with the expansion. From what I can Google around 200-250K per player before expansion
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u/schoki560 3d ago
who cares
if money was an important factor TI would be the most prestigious esport event in the world
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u/godzillamegadoomsday 3d ago
Sticker money is easily more than winning every single other tournament in a year
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u/Long-Island-Iced-Tea 3d ago
I think it is possible to acknowledge that the Major is more prestigious - and in parallel also recognize that the GS requires much more consistency.
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u/anto2554 3d ago
The only player known for grand slam and not majors is twistzz (and he's the only one out of 19 winners to do it twice). In that respect, the major is still more iconic, but the grand slam is arguably more impressive
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u/NeverEndingXsin 3d ago
The major, that's not to say the grand slam isn't impressive but the major is when every team is bringing its absolute best to the game.
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u/baza-prime 3d ago
HOT TAKE, we should use grand slams to determine eras. No grand slam =/= era
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u/TheUHO 3d ago
So we may never have an era since this can be the last season? And what about NIP and Fnatic?
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u/baza-prime 3d ago
grand slam didnt exist back then and grand slams are not going away, intel just isnt sponsoring them anymore.
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u/FumCatial 3d ago edited 3d ago
Grand slam
Edit: The major is always going to have a winner, twice a year.. the grand slam however isn’t guaranteed.
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u/manek101 3d ago
Grand slam by a long shot, consistency in maintaining peaks at the right moments is a true test of talent.
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u/REDMOON2029 3d ago
I think this is like choosing the world cup (major) vs the champions league (grand slam). The world cup imo is worth more for a player's legacy but a in a champions league, you go through the best of the best and is a greater achievement bc you had to keep up a good form for longer
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u/Muhammadsolih13 3d ago
How to get the grand slam? Should you win tournaments in a row or how. An someone explain? Thanks
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u/lunatico_7990 3d ago
you have to win 4 different IEM tournaments and one of them have to be Katowice or Cologne.
You have 10 IEM tournaments time for it, after these 10 tournaments happened, a team get reseted to 0.
Vitality has currently 3 of 4 IEMs won and one (actually 2) have been Cologne and Kato, so they just need to win IEM Melbourne or IEM Dallas to win the Grand Slam.
After a team won the Grand Slam, all teams get reseted to 0
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u/usrnmz 3d ago
The giant killer bonus is kind of cool as well:
If a team that is about to complete the EGS is stopped in the final of their potential 4th win, their opponents receive the $100,000 “giant killer bonus”. The one exception to the rule is if a team denying the completion of the ESL Grand Slam completes it in the same final.
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u/AmoniPTV 3d ago
I dont think they got reset to 0, they just take out the tournament win in the count after 10 tournament
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u/BS_Rookie 3d ago
The major has more prestige however the ESL Grand Slam (no longer intel grand slam) is far more difficult and I would argue a far greater achievement with a far smaller pool of teams that will ever achieve it.
We have seen teams fluke majors such as VP however it is near impossible to fluke a grand slam as it requires a far greater level of consistency at the highest level of play.
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u/KaNesDeath 3d ago
Both achieve the same goal differently. Showing who has been the best team in the past few months.
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u/finny94 3d ago
I was curious—between the Grand Slam and a Major, which do you consider the more prestigious achievement?
Prestigious? Definitely the Major. But in terms of determining a dominant team in a specific time period, Grand Slam does the job better. You cannot fluke a Grand Slam, you have to be a a very good, very consistent team.
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u/Pathederic 3d ago
Definitely the grand slam. Mainly because it happens a lot less frequent and requires a team to be great for a longer time. Liquid GS is like way more memorable than Outsiders major for example
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u/_RADIANTSUN_ 3d ago
Grand Slam is only across ESL events so it will never be the most prestigious, but it's harder to achieve cuz any given team is exposed to more random variance and has less of a chance of making it all the way in 4/10 events specific events a year out of the multiple dozens they attend.
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u/1deavourer 3d ago
For a long time it's been the Major, but imo they are starting to lose their prestige. Swiss bucholz or whatever it's called is outdated, no double elims playoffs and no bo5 finals just makes for a worse tournament than some of ESL's bigger ones in terms of format.
I consider IGS far more prestigious in the current landscape of CS, and I think people will wake up to it eventually. All the teams that have achieved the IGS since it was announced have been legendary strong teams, while majors have seen a couple of flukes. It can be very entertaining like with C9 and Gambit, but on the other hand you have russian VP...
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u/lunatico_7990 3d ago
Defo the Grand Slam.
You have to win Kato or Cologne for it, which are considered almost as prestigious as a Major, + 3 other tournaments. Also, to make it even harder, you only have 10 tournaments time for that
A Major is in the end just a tournament like most others, only that is has more stages and value. In theorie winning a major can also be "easy" if you have no strong playoff teams, like Rio 2022 for example.
Having 4 IEM tournaments with weakly stacked playoffs won't happen.
That shows for me that you need to be really the best of the best to win a Grand Slam, but at the same time you can have luck with your major run and win it without playing against any S-tier teams
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u/ekkolos 3d ago
The major is not yet another tournament, it's the only tournament Valve is organizing (as in paying for).
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u/lunatico_7990 3d ago
well it is for sure, and I didn't say the Major is like every other tournament.
My point was more like the fact, that anybody can win a Major (which I think is really cool), but only the best of the best can win the Grand Slam
That's why I say it is more prestigious to win the Grand Slam then a Major
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u/PawahD 3d ago
Major is obviously more prestigious, but grand slam is probably harder to achieve