Weighing up the positives and negatives of best-of-three finals and best-of-five finals is an age-old debate in Counter-Strike. Both have had some incredible finals, although there is no debate that a great BO5 final has a higher level of tension the deeper into the final you get.
The old drawback of BO5 finals was that they were always too long, especially if it went to all five maps, and that it was hard for both players and spectators to maintain concentration for that period of time. However, with Counter-Strike 2 switching CS to MR12 instead of MR15, does that criticism still stand?
Given that BLAST have recently announced that all BLAST Premier grand finals will be switching to BO5, joining the likes of ESL Pro League and both IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne, we thought this was the perfect time to go back over the debate and see which finals are better.
The question of time
Even without playing a BO5, games in CS:GO were always long. In fact, as found out by HLTV, a BO3 with a 2-1 scoreline is, on average, longer than any other Major Sport, and even a 2-0 is longer than a fair few of them.
However, the data they used was from when CS games were still MR15, the introduction of MR12 means that they are now shorter. Of course, they will still be quite long compared to a lot of other sports, but it has alleviated some of the concentration concerns.
Time is a funny thing to debate within this article because there are multiple perspectives to look at.
If we look at the players, although many people in the community will expect them to effectively be robots who can play for eight hours straight because ‘it’s just the same as FACEIT PUGs’, ultimately, that isn’t the case. Professional games are incredibly mentally draining, especially grand finals with trophies and hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line.
In a recent interview with BLAST.tv, NAVI captain Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen had this to say on the matter:
“Because the calendar will be more hectic next year, it will be good to have some BO3 finals in there as well because when it goes to all five maps the final can still go for five or six hours if you give the players a food break and that obviously isn't the most ideal thing because there are then other factors that come into play and it isn't the nicest for spectators either.” - Aleksib, via BLAST.tv.
This brings us to the next perspective we have to consider, the spectators. There are two types of spectators, those who are present in the arena and those watching at home.
As Aleksib states in his answer, a long final can also be negative for spectators in the arena. Seats are often uncomfortable, food is often poor, and these two factors combined can lead to a negative experience.
However, people who pay to go to Counter-Strike events aren’t your average fan, and a longer final typically means that the game has been of an exceptional standard, so that is likely to be offset by the quality they are witnessing. As well as that, they have also paid money to be there, and who is ever going to complain about getting their money’s worth?
As for the fans who are watching at home, this is a trickier one. In essence, it comes down to the same issue as rolling schedules versus set schedules: how much time does a spectator have? It’s hard to allocate time to things, especially when you don’t know how long that thing will go on for.
The argument is that because of this, fans at home are less likely to watch the games, or at least watch less of them. However, we spoke to StarLadder’s Chief Strategic Partnerships Officer Andrew Yatsenko who suggested the opposite is true, especially now that the game is MR12.
In my opinion, the difference between BO3 and BO5 would be more significant in CS:GO, where a larger number of rounds were played - then the overall time of the finals could be very long if the game dragged on to scores of 3:2 or even 3:1.
With CS2, this issue is not as important because even if all five maps are played in bo5, it takes less time. This does not pose a threat of prolonging the tournament day (for example, when you need to start dismantling at 23:00, and the game is still ongoing). Or tire the viewers: because watching one match for over five hours, even top-level CS, is only for hardcore fans.
Another plus of BO5 is for TOs in terms of viewership: the longer the final match lasts, the more good numbers and views the tournament will ultimately gather. And this is always good for sponsors and tournament partners, who will get more coverage and sponsorship displays. Well, and for the bookmaker, the presence of a greater number of maps in the final is also an obvious advantage.” - Andrew Yatsenko, StarLadder.Chief Strategic Partnerships Officer
So, if MR12 limits the impact of time as a negative factor in BO5 finals and doesn’t impact viewership as people may suggest, what are the other potential positives to BO5 finals?
Living up to the hype
The Valve Majors are the pinnacle of Counter-Strike. They are the biggest events of the year and every player dreams of winning one. However, for the past few years, the grand finals of Majors have been relatively dull.
One of the biggest factors towards this is because there has only been one full BO3 Major grand final since Cloud9 beat FaZe at the ELEAGUE Atlanta Major. What makes that even crazier is that the only other one was at the most recent Major, the PGL Major Copenhagen. And even that wasn’t particularly long or exciting considering maps two and three were blowouts.
Given that ESL Pro League, IEM Katowice, IEM Cologne, and now BLAST Premier events all have BO5 finals, it’s hard to see why the Valve Majors don’t. BO5 is a better indicator of who is a better team, as the strength of a team in a BO5 comes down to the strength of their map pool. For example, although FaZe were the favourite in Copenhagen, they would have been much more favoured against NAVI in a BO5.
“When you go to a tournament and you know there is a BO5 final coming you set yourself up for a longer match and you might get two finalists with deep maps pools and you know it will be exciting.” - Aleksib, via BLAST.tv
Off the top of your head, if you try to think of great finals in the last few years, it’s far harder to find a good BO3. Even the two Vitality versus FaZe finals at the end of 2023 were disappointing, and they were the two best teams in the world at that point.
On the other hand, even a BO5 final that ends 3-0, just as IEM Katowice 2024’s final did, is often more exciting because of the narrative it tells. It is far easier to get a great final in BO5 because the existence of BO5 creates a greater narrative.
The balance of the economy in CS will always have its issues, but MR12 has exposed some of its bigger issues with how punishing it is towards the CT side in the current meta. This is enough reason why the current MR12 BO3 finals can fail to live up to the hype, another issue which was brought up by Aleksib in his interview with BLAST.tv.
“The thing is, when it was MR15, BO3 finals were decent and now it's MR12, BO5 finals make a bit more sense. There could be a map where one team wins both pistols and an important gun round and you don't actually know if the other team had the chance to show what they're capable of.” - Aleksib, via BLAST.tv
All this is to say that in the current state of Counter-Strike, there is no better judgement of who is the better team than BO5. For that reason, we think it’s a good thing that BLAST have decided to make their finals BO5, and we hope that Valve follow suit with Majors, too.
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