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Esports: 5 things to look ahead to in 2023

From DRX defying expectations to win the League of Legends World Championship to juggernauts FaZe Clan and Natus Vincere faltering in the latter stages of the Counter Strike: Global Offensive season, it has been an exhilarating and tumultuous year of Esports.

And as the dust settles on the last significant events of 2022, attention is starting to turn to what lies in store for 2023.

Here is a look at five things Esports fans can look forward to next year.

Ground-breaking CS:GO Major in Paris

The 2022 CS:GO season did not disappoint and there is already plenty of promise from the Esport for 2023.

Typically the CS:GO calendar is split between three organizers - ESL, Intel Extreme Masters and BLAST - and they coordinate and run the Esport's pro leagues and majors each year.

There will once again be the usual helping of the ESL Pro League seasons as well as the IEM Katowice, IEM Dallas and IEM Cologne in 2023, but one tournament is exciting fans more than any other.

The BLAST.tv Paris Major is set to take place in May next year and will be significant for a couple of reasons.

It will not only be the first ever Major event to be organized by BLAST but it will also be the first Major event to be held in France.

France's president Emmanuel Macron had even been at the forefront of bringing a Major to the country and it is likely to be another huge success.

The IEM Rio Major in Brazil was one of the standout events in 2022 and bringing big CS:GO events to other areas of the world can only be a good thing.

VALORANT Masters event taking place in Seoul

VALORANT is still the new kid on the block when it comes to the world of Esports but its popularity has exploded in the last couple of years and it is especially popular in South Korea.

And to expand the reach of the Esport in 2023, Riot Games have confirmed there will be a VALORANT Champions Tour Masters tournament taking place in Seoul next season.

It will be the first offline VCT event to take place in the Asian region and home advantage is sure to play a key part in the event.

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A jam-packed season of Call of Duty League

The 2023 Call of Duty League season has already begun but there is plenty more to look forward to from it next year.

Major One, a LAN event which took place in Raleigh in North Carolina, took place earlier this month and went the way of New York Subliners, who finished eighth in the overall standings last season, suggesting it could be another competitive and unpredictable campaign.

The new season of Call of Duty League is being played on Modern Warfare II and this season's remaining four Majors will be hosted by Boston Breach, OpTic Texas, New York Subliners and Toronto Ultra.

Another star-studded edition of The International

The International is another staple of the Esports calendar and is the concluding event of the Dota Pro Circuit.

Next year will be the 12th iteration of the event, which is renowned for the huge prize money it has on offer.

In 2022, the prize pool was just shy of $19 million with champions Tundra Esports taking home just over $8 million of that.

After four years of taking place across the globe, the 2023 edition of Dota 2's The International is set to take place in Seattle in the USA.

The battle between China and South Korea at the 2023 Worlds

League of Legends still ranks among the most popular and significant Esport in the world and it does not get much bigger than the League of Legends World Championship.

Europe's LEC, North America's LCS, China's LPL and South Korea's LCK never disappoint with their Spring and Summer seasons but Worlds is the pinnacle of Esports events and will once again be at the forefront of the minds of teams and fans going into 2023.

The 2022 World Championship, which was hosted by Mexico and the United States, was won in stunning fashion by South Korean side DRX.

It was not a result many would have predicted but showed once again why Worlds is loved around the globe.

An intriguing element of Worlds was the domination of the Asian regions once again with seven of the eight quarter-finalists hailing from South Korea's LCK or China's LPL - European outfit Rogue were the exception.

Three of the four semi-finalists, meanwhile, were from the LCK with JD Gaming the last Chinese representatives at that stage and the rivalry between the regions should only intensify next season.

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