CS2 Majors: How the Championships Work

What a Major is

A Major is a Counter-Strike championship sponsored directly by Valve. It is the only tournament category the developer funds and supports in-game, which is why it sits above every other event on the competitive calendar, including tournaments with larger prize pools.

Core parameters of a modern Major:

• Frequency: two per year, roughly one every six months
• Field: 32 teams, all invited, no open qualifiers
• Prize pool: $1,250,000, unchanged since 2023
• Duration: about three weeks, from the first Swiss match to the grand final
• Structure: three Swiss stages followed by a single-elimination playoff bracket
• In-game support: team and player stickers, souvenir items, a Viewer Pass and a Pick’Em Challenge

The current champions are Team Falcons, who defeated FURIA 3–0 in the grand final of IEM Cologne Major 2026 on June 21.

How teams qualify

Valve discontinued the RMR system at the beginning of 2025. Qualification now runs entirely through the Valve Regional Standings (VRS), the developer’s official ranking, and the process works as follows:

1. Teams accumulate VRS points at Valve-sanctioned events throughout the season.
2. Points are weighted by opponent strength, prize money, event tier and roster continuity, so results are devalued when a lineup changes.
3. The standings are recalculated weekly and cover three regions: Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific.
4. Valve announces a cutoff date ahead of each Major. For PGL Major Singapore 2026 the cutoff is 2 November.
5. The rankings published on that date determine all 32 invitations, along with the stage each team enters.

There is no qualifier of any kind to compensate for a poor VRS position. Consistency across the season is the only route into the tournament, which raises the stakes of every mid-tier event on the calendar.

Tournament format

The 32 teams do not all start together. Higher-ranked teams are seeded directly into later stages, while the rest begin from the opening stage:

• Stage 1: 16 lowest-seeded teams. The top 8 advance.
• Stage 2: the 8 survivors join 8 higher-seeded teams. The top 8 advance.
• Stage 3: the same structure repeats with 8 more seeded teams. The top 8 reach the playoffs.
• Playoffs: 8 teams, single elimination, best-of-five grand final.

Match formats within the Swiss stages:

• Opening matches: best-of-one
• Advancement and elimination matches: best-of-three

Half the field is eliminated at every stage, so a team’s entry point carries real competitive value. A side seeded into Stage 3 plays a fraction of the matches required of a Stage 1 team to reach the same bracket.

Prize pool distribution

All 32 participants receive prize money. The breakdown for a $1,250,000 Major:

Stickers, souvenirs and revenue sharing

For most organizations the prize pool is the smaller half of the income. Valve shares 50% of all revenue from the Major Shop and the Viewer Pass with the tournament organizer, the teams and the players.

Valve restructured this system on 21 May 2026, immediately before the Cologne Major. The main changes:

• Capsules were removed. Stickers are now purchased individually in the in-game Major Shop.
• Token-based pricing. Players buy tokens at roughly 100 tokens per $0.99 and spend them on specific stickers.
• Demand-driven prices. A sticker becomes more expensive as purchases increase and cheaper as interest falls. At Cologne, one of each of the 100 most expensive stickers reportedly totalled around $19,447.
• Price protection. If a sticker falls by more than 25 tokens within 24 hours of purchase, the difference is refunded automatically.
• Souvenir-O-Matic. Rather than opening a souvenir package, a player selects a weapon from their own inventory, a completed match and a player, then converts the item to Souvenir quality with gold team stickers, an autograph and a map sticker applied.
• Performance-linked royalties. Revenue enters a shared pool and each organization’s share is calculated from its VRS position and its result at the Major, rather than from sales of its own capsule.

Reported figures from Cologne place a Stage 1 exit at approximately $60,000 for the organization, or around $120,000 including the players’ share, with a Stage 2 finish paying slightly more.

Majors in 2026

• IEM Cologne Major 2026, 2–21 June, Cologne, Germany. Organized by ESL, playoffs at the LANXESS Arena. Won by Team Falcons.
• PGL Major Singapore 2026, 25 November to 13 December, the first Major held in Southeast Asia. The closing four days (10–13 December) take place at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, and PGL has introduced a third-place decider match, new to the Major format.

Background in brief

• The first Major was DreamHack Winter 2013 in Jönköping, with a $250,000 prize pool.
• Valve raised the pool to $1,000,000 at MLG Columbus 2016 and to a one-off $2,000,000 at PGL Stockholm 2021, then fixed it at $1,250,000 from 2023.
• Astralis hold the team record with four titles, won between 2017 and 2019, three of them consecutively.
• dupreeh holds the individual record with five Major titles, four with Astralis and one with Team Vitality.
• Natus Vincere are the only organization to have attended every CS:GO Major.