When is the next CS2 or CSGO Major?

Luke Warr Published July 21, 2022

With the Perfect World Shanghai Major well behind us, it’s time to look at the future and wonder: When is the next Counter-Strike 2 Major?

Sanctioned by Valve, CS2 Majors are held twice a year, with official in-game items, MRQ qualifiers, and a $1.25 million prize pool. The upcoming Major will take place in Austin, Texas, from June 3 to June 23, 2025, featuring the top 24 teams from around the world.

As the third-ever CS2 Major and the first hosted in North America since 2018, the Austin Major marks a return to familiar territory with a fresh twist. Qualification was once again decided through the RMR system, with regions split between Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Each region sent a set number of teams, who now face off across three stages in Austin.

The event takes place at the Moody Center, a newly built arena with space for over 15,000 fans. This is also the second Counter-Strike Major to be organised by BLAST.

The different stages of the CS2 Major

The Austin Major will be based on the new Major format introduced by Valve. The event will begin with the Opening Stage, where 16 teams from Major Regional Qualifiers (MRQs)  will compete in a Swiss format. Teams that win three matches will advance, while three losses will send a team home. Eight successful teams will move on to the Elimination Stage, where they’ll join eight directly seeded teams.

Here, another Swiss system is used to determine the final eight teams that move on to the Playoff Stage, a single-elimination bracket hosted in front of a live arena. Stage 3 runs from June 12 to 15 and features yet another 16-team Swiss round, narrowing the field down to the final eight once again.

These surviving teams reach the Playoffs, held June 19 to 22, where a single-elimination bracket decides the champion. All playoff matches, including the grand final, are played as best-of-threes.

That grand final will be the biggest match of the year in all of Counter-Strike. Major winners are treated as legends of the game. Whether it’s the famed Ninjas in Pyjamas roster finally breaking through and winning one of CSGO’s first major tournaments, or Cloud9 completing an upset with after multiple overtimes versus FaZe Clan in Boston, these matches and tournaments are truly the stuff that legends are made of.

Who will be the next legends of the game? The answer to that question will be determined as the next major gets underway, with CSGO having given way to CS2 and a new era of the game.