Video: Pros weigh up importance of Majors vs. Intel Grand Slam

Winning a Major has always been lauded as the crowning achievement in the books of every CS:GO player, a dream that starts from their careers’ infancies and remains with them until retirement or fulfillment. For the majority of our game’s lifespan, no tournament has quite reached the individual acclaim that taking home a Major title brings — although nowadays, IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne often occupy the step just below.

In 2017, an achievement that could rival that of winning a Major finally emerged as ESL and Intel announced the Grand Slam, a $1,000,000 prize that would be awarded to teams that could win four out of ten $200,000 ESL or DreamHack events. The title also went hand in hand with marking when a team was completely dominating the scene, something that was proven by the first three winners — Astralis, Liquid, and Natus Vincere.

Ahead of season 4, a new ruleset was announced, making the achievement marginally more difficult to attain, but not by a substantial amount. Ever since, the race for the season 4 crown has been on, with FaZe currently sitting on three wins as they look to secure the $1,000,000 prize at ESL Pro League Season 16 or the IEM Rio Major later this year.

Although the European combine already took home their first Major crown at PGL Major Antwerp, Håvard “⁠rain⁠” Nygaard still gave the Valve-sponsored event the edge over the Grand Slam, stating that the Intel title was “something that comes if you’re good enough” whereas the Major is a “special feeling.” To see what other pros thought, including the likes of Kristian “⁠k0nfig⁠” Wienecke, Robert “⁠Patsi⁠” Isyanov, David “⁠frozen⁠” Čerňanský, Andrei “⁠arT⁠” Piovezan, check out the video above, or head on over to our YouTube channel for other interviews, episodes of HLTV Confirmed, news recaps, and more.