For the first time in a long time, we have some major CAL news to share: the league will be winding down at the end of season 51.
It’s been a wild ride, to say the least. When we created CAL, we envisioned a league where players could compete, improve, and eventually be noticed by teams. It was our small contribution to the Asian CS:GO ecosystem. CAL was thriving at the start, with a lot of activity and player interest. With time, the interest in CS:GO in Asia has seen a significant decline. To be completely honest, our own interests have shifted elsewhere as well. It’s still sad to end support for something that we’ve been working on for so long. In esports, four years is a long time.
Before inviting everyone to compete in one final season, we want to pay tribute to CAL and share some of the lessons we’ve learned along the way.
CAL At Its Best
We looked to FPL’s success in Europe and North America for inspiration when we started CAL. We made a point of inviting the best Asian players to our “Masters Division” prior to our first CAL season. Similar to FPL, the idea was that having professional players play would help market the league. This initially worked well; after all, identifying the 150 best professional players in Asia and convincing them to play in 2018 was not difficult. FACEIT was also a huge help in marketing the league. This was critical to our early-season success.
Early Lessons
With server locations in Singapore and Hong Kong, we started CAL to cater to players in both Southeast Asia and East Asia. We were ill-equipped from the start to communicate with our Mandarin-speaking players. This resulted in slow response times to their requests and issues, as well as an overall negative experience for them. In the early seasons, our Hong Kong divisions had an insane number of active players. Unfortunately, they were gone almost as quickly as they arrived.
Great Leaderboard Prizes Work
We discovered that leaderboard prizes were the most accurate metric for predicting player activity. The activity increased significantly during seasons when we had partners coming in to sweeten the prize pool. This is not surprising, but it is noteworthy. In retrospect, we should have tried harder to work with partners more frequently.
Player Pool Liquidity Versus Skill Level Concerns
We struggled to walk the fine line between player pool liquidity and skill level concerns. The more divisions you have, the more your player base will be divided. This will result in longer queue times. On the other hand, if divisions are consolidated, the player skill gap may become too large, resulting in a bad experience for everyone playing. After running CAL for more than four years, I (unfortunately) can’t say that we’ve learned what the best solution is.
CAL India Was A Highlight
Giving India’s CS:GO community a better FACEIT experience by introducing exclusive Mumbai servers was one of the best things we did while running CAL. In recent years, our India divisions have been our only active ones, demonstrating an Indian CS:GO community brimming with enthusiasm for the game.
When The Code Breaks
We invested time and resources in developing the “CAL Bot,” a Discord bot that automates tasks such as moving players to the correct voice room when their FACEIT matches started. This worked well in the beginning. But when FACEIT made changes to their code, the “CAL Bot” stopped working. We were slow to address the issues, which caused our players problems.
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One Final Season!
Everyone who has worked on CAL over the years would like to thank all of our players, admins, coders, partners, and staff for their contributions to making the league what it was. Perhaps more than ever, CS:GO in Asia requires dedicated companies and individuals to contribute to the community.
Before we close our doors, we have one more season to go. So best of luck to everyone who is taking part. Who will be CAL’s final champion?
Season 50 (November 2022) SEA Division Winners:
Division 1 Winners
No games played.
Division 2 Winners
No games played.
Division 3 Winners
No games played.
Season 13 (November 2022) India Division Winners:
Division 1 Winners
| Place | Player | Points | Prize |
| 1 | ?? WolFy– | 1,148 | ₹7000 |
| 2 | ?? reV3nnnn | 1,137 | ₹4000 |
| 3 | ?? Unifreak | 1,132 | ₹2000 |
| 4 | ?? X_Xantares | 1,116 | ₹1000 |
| 5 | ?? bloodsickx | 1,105 | ₹1000 |
Division 2 Winners
No games played.
Prizes for Season 51 (November 2022)
SEA Divisions
Division 1 - Season 51 Leaderboard Total = US$200 1st - US$ 150 2nd - US$ 50 Division 2 - Season 51 Leaderboard Total = US$150 1st - $100 2nd - $50 Division 3 - Season 51 Leaderboard Total = US$100 1st - $75 2nd - $25 India Divisions Division 1 - Season 14 Leaderboard Total = ₹15000 1st - ₹7000 2nd - ₹4000 3rd - ₹2000 4-5 - ₹1000 6-10 - Free one-month sub 11-100 - FACEIT points Division 2 - Season 14 Leaderboard Total = ₹15000 1st - ₹7000 2nd - ₹4000 3rd - ₹2000 4-5 - ₹1000 6-10 - Free one-month sub 11-100 - FACEIT points See the leaderboards for more details.
