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Team Liquid 
has been on an incredible run in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) in the last three months, winning major tournaments such as Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Sydney, DreamHack Masters Dallas 2019 , the ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals, and ESL One: Cologne 2019. Those four wins alone earned the team $575K USD in prize winnings—along with a $1M bonus for its efforts.
That bonus came from the Intel Grand Slam, a promotion introduced in 2018 by the tech company in partnership with ESL. Under the original rules, a team must win four major CS:GO tournaments out of 10 held by ESL or DreamHack (both companies are owned by MTG). It was introduced as a challenging promotion for the game’s top teams, and according to Intel esports marketing manager George Woo, the Grand Slam is meant to provide some cohesion to the splintered CS:GO ecosystem.
“We control that narrative. We want to make sure that in the leagues that we sponsor, that they are a true champion.
“ESL are the leaders in this space with CS:GO, besides the Valve majors. There are a lot of different properties between IEM, ESL One, and the Pro League, and one winner wins [each]. It was really fragmented,” he told The Esports Observer at this weekend’s second annual IEM Chicago tournament. “The Intel Grand Slam provides us that narrative, that common thread that ties everything together, so there’s a purpose. And people understand that once they win, it’s meaningful.”
The CS:GO competitive calendar is crowded, and ESL and DreamHack aren’t alone in filling it up. In addition to Valve’s own majors, FACEIT’s Esports Championship Series (ECS) is another big draw, along with RFRSH Entertainment’s BLAST Pro Series . Woo, who has been with Intel since the very start of the IEM program, said that the $1M Grand Slam prize offered an opportunity to mark a team’s dominance upon that backdrop of a scattered competitive ecosystem. It’s a lot of cash, and it’s indelibly linked to the Intel brand.
“We control that narrative. We want to make sure that in the leagues that we sponsor, that they are a true champion. They’re going to be remembered in history,” said Woo. “The Valve major is great, but it’s only twice a year, right? We need something that’s a little bit more meaningful. I know I’ve seen it: a team wins a Valve major, and two months later, it’s like, ‘OK, who won that?’ They won’t remember. But the Grand Slam, they do.”
Upping the Ante
Since the introduction of the Intel Grand Slam, CS:GO has seen dominant runs from a pair of teams. Astralis was the first to claim the Intel Grand Slam in 2018 by winning four events out of seven attempts. It took the Danish team about eight months to complete, and it helped contribute to its enormous tally of $3.65M in prize winnings in 2018. Team Liquid then completed the second Grand Slam this year by winning four straight tournaments in 63 days.
Credit: ESL
Season three of the Intel Grand Slam began this past weekend with IEM Chicago, and with its victory, Team Liquid has begun another attempt to claim that $1M prize. However, the team—and any others that win an ESL or DreamHack CS:GO competition going forward—will be playing under different rules this time around.
Related Article: Intel’s Frank Soqui Says IEM Katowice is a ‘Company Commitment’
Last week, Intel unveiled tweaks to the season three format. It now requires that teams win one of two “designated” tournaments—which will be IEM Katowice and ESL One Cologne for the 2020 season—out of four total wins (still out of 10 attempts) to claim the Grand Slam prize. Otherwise, teams will have to win six non-designated events out of 10 to win the Grand Slam. Winning one of those designated tournaments is ideal, Woo said, but he believes that taking six of ESL and DreamHack’s events out of 10 total is still a major feat. “It’s still a good story,” he added. “It’s a big achievement.”
Ultimately, both Astralis and Team Liquid would still have earned the Intel Grand Slam prize under the new rules: Astralis won IEM Katowice 2019 shortly after claiming its Grand Slam under the original rules, while Team Liquid won ESL One Cologne 2019 as part of its record-breaking run. Now that part of the feat is formalized and required for a four-win Grand Slam victory, which Woo said is meant to keep the feat from feeling ordinary. He said that the plans were in the works before Liquid’s win, too.
“I don’t think any other company could do this besides Intel, in my opinion. “
“I love it that Team Liquid won in dramatic fashion. I don’t think we had any expectation. It’s not like we were rooting against Team Liquid to win four matches in a row,” he said. “It is what it is, but we already were thinking about elevating it and make it more special. What [Liquid] did didn’t really influence what the new rules are. It was already in process.”
The Intel Grand Slam will continue on, and for Woo, the promotion is an opportunity for Intel to continue asserting itself in esports as a longtime backer that remains a prominent one.
“It’s really important that Intel is in a leadership position: that we are able to deliver a cohesive story, and that we can crown a real champion so that the community will know that these guys are the best in that particular time period,” he said. “I don’t think any other company could do this besides Intel, in my opinion. To be an integral part of the foundation of esports, it just makes a lot of sense to continue that—to evolve and continue to be in that leadership position with ESL.”
