With a big Champions League not being implemented, the Major will be the only large seasonal tournament, so it’s critical that it delivers the highest possible quality and prestige. Based on observations from recent seasons, we believe the following changes will significantly improve the overall experience.

These updates aim to reinforce the Major as a truly prestigious competition, where teams earn their place and every match matters.

Reducing number of teams to 32
The current 48-team format has proven too large. Moving to a 32-team tournament creates a more competitive environment, reducing filler matches and inactive or idling teams.

Double round robin
With 4 teams per group, we can introduce home and away matches between all participants.

Qualification criteria
Auto-qualification slots are reduced to 16, awarded as follows:
- Previous season’s Major winner, 2nd & 3rd place
- Previous season’s Master League winners
- Previous season’s S-Tier EOS winner
- Previous season’s Ladder Top 3
- The 5 highest-ranked teams that do not already qualify through the above criteria.
*If any team meets more than 1 criteria a new rank-based slot opens up.

This approach rewards both recent champions and long-term performers who have consistently accumulated rank points.

Stage 3 rework
The next 32 highest-ranked teams will enter Stage 3, joining the 32 teams advancing from Stage 2.

Stage 3 will consist of 16 groups of 4 teams, playing a mini-tournament format.
The 16 group winners will qualify for the Main Event.

New schedule
We are moving to a split schedule, with a maximum of:
- 2 matchups on Wednesday
- 2 matchups on Saturday

Sunday Scheduling
Matches will no longer be scheduled on Sundays.
This provides additional rest and preparation time between stages and prevents rushed transitions during decisive rounds.

Sundays are being reserved for special events or large-scale competitions planned every now and then.

Championship Branched Tournaments
With the Major becoming more selective, a significant number of strong teams will inevitably fall short of qualification and be grouped together with much weaker teams in the Minor. This creates an uneven competitive experience and undervalues high-performing teams that narrowly miss the Major cut.

To address this, we propose restructuring post-qualification tournaments into a tiered Championship system, ensuring teams continue to compete against opponents of comparable strength throughout the season.

Instead of treating these as separate, disconnected tournaments, all post-Major competitions will be unified under the Championship umbrella, with clear divisions reflecting performance and progression.

This way each tournament will be easy to find from the Championship page rather than standalone competitions in the tournaments list.

Proposed Championship Structure
- Championship – Legends (The major)
  – Auto-qualified teams
  – Stage 3 group winners
- Championship – Challengers  (Formerly "The Minor")
  – Stage 3 group losers
- Championship – Contenders  (New)
  – Teams eliminated in Stage 1 and Stage 2
  – Excludes C-Tier teams
- Rookies (Unchanged)
  – C-Tier only

Benefits of this structure
- Strong teams that narrowly miss the Major remain in meaningful, high-quality competition
- Reduced skill disparity within each tournament
- Clear seasonal progression path between Championship divisions
- Stronger identity and prestige at every level of play

This system preserves the exclusivity of the Major while ensuring that every competitive team has a tournament that feels earned, relevant, and worth fighting for.

We are super excited about these changes, feel free to leave your feedback as we are aiming for this to be the final structure before going live with the game.