Valve continue to disregard tournament organizers’ requests to remove the BO1 format

Tournament organizers have spent years trying to convince Valve to drop the BO1 format at Majors, but the company continues to stand firm. StarLadder employee pANda revealed that such requests have been made repeatedly — and from multiple organizers.

Switching to a full BO3 format in the Swiss stage adds at least one extra match day to each phase. And since Major schedules are agreed upon with Valve well in advance, changing approved dates is almost impossible.

This debate isn’t new. Yehor recalled that StarLadder proposed similar changes back during the preparation for the Berlin Major 2019. Even then, reaching an agreement with Valve wasn’t possible.

In reality, nothing has changed in 2025: organizers still want to eliminate BO1, while Valve continues to stick to its standard format.