Counter-Strike Is Bringing a Major to Southeast Asia for the First Time and Singapore Gets It in November

Counter-Strike has never held a Major in Southeast Asia. That changes on 25 November, when the PGL Major Singapore opens at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang and runs through to 13 December.

The format is the current standard: 32 teams across three stages before the playoffs, for a prize pool of 1,250,000 US dollars. The Indoor Stadium seats over 12,000 for the closing weekend, which puts it among the larger venues the circuit has used.

The significance is regional rather than competitive. Majors have historically rotated through Europe and North America with occasional stops in Brazil and, more recently, China. A Singapore Major places the sport's most prestigious event inside the time zone that covers Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, all of which have substantial player bases and none of which has hosted a Major before.

In the meantime, BLAST Open Porto is running from 26 August to 6 September. The group stage is being played out of BLAST's Copenhagen studio through 31 August, with the playoffs moving to the Super Bock Arena in Porto. Sixteen teams are competing for 1,100,000 dollars, split 400,000 to players and 700,000 in club shares, across two eight-team double-elimination groups.

Group results so far have gone Team Spirit's way. They beat Dendele and then G2, with Danil "donk" Kryshkovets posting ratings of 2.14 and 1.45 in those series and an ace on Cache. Team Vitality lost 2-0 to Inner Circle before beating 9z 2-0 and Legacy 2-1. Natus Vincere had the worst of it: a 2-1 loss to M80, a 2-0 win over paiN, then a 2-0 defeat to G2, finishing between ninth and twelfth.

Final group standings and the semi-final seeding were not settled at the time of writing, and the playoff bracket should be checked before it is reported.