Event coverage as it runs: seeding, group draws, format quirks, upsets, and the standings after each stage, with schedules listed in usable local time.
Play-ins, a Swiss stage and an eight-team knockout: the Worlds format is a month-long funnel that turns twenty qualified teams into one champion — here is how each stage filters the field.
Circuit points — the qualification currency that decides who makes the season finale — turn a year of scattered tournaments into one league table, and every major title runs a different version of the machine.
Round robin measures a whole season, GSL compresses a weekend, Swiss sorts a big field in a single week — the three group formats optimize for completely different jobs.
Four teams, two advance, two losses and you are out — the GSL group format took StarCraft's Korean league structure and turned it into the default way esports sort small groups.
Two losses to go home, one bracket for the winners and one for the survivors — double elimination became esports' default playoff format because it fixes the cruelest flaw of single elimination.