The third CS2 Major will feature a brand new 32-team format, though maintaining the Swiss system from prior editions.
The three stages
The 22nd official Counter-Strike Major, starting from Dreamhack Winter in 2013 all the way until today, is just around the corner, beginning a week from today on June 3rd.
Three progressive stages make up the BLAST Austin Major 2025.
Stage 1 contains the 16 teams that progressed from the online Major Regional Qualifiers held for each region, out of which Astralis crashed out against B8 to miss their fifth consecutive Major. The 16 qualifying teams, already determined, will face off in Austin, and 8 will advance to Stage 2.
In Stage 2, 8 teams (4 European, 4 American) are already waiting based on their Valve Regional Standings (VRS), including names like FaZe Clan and Falcons.
These 16 teams will compete until 8 teams emerge once again and land in Stage 3 of the Major, where the highest ranked teams (6 European, 1 American, 1 Asian), including Vitality and Team Spirit, are waiting. These 16 teams will again face off in the same format to see which ones will make the top 8 of the world, and who will become the Major champion.
Future regional invitations to Stage 2 and 3 will be determined by how many teams from those regions reach Stage 3 and the playoffs, respectively.
Stage 3 will begin with the group stage on June 12th and culminate in the Major final, a BO3 series played on June 22nd.
How will matchups be determined in each stage?
The Major will implement the Swiss system for the group stages, as it has since ELEAGUE Atlanta 2017. This system has 16 teams at the start, which face each other based on seeding, and eventually progress or are eliminated by accruing 3 wins or 3 losses in total, respectively.
The matchups will be determined using the Buchholz system, by calculating something called “Difficulty Score”, according to Valve’s official rulebook.
“The Difficulty Score is the sum of current wins minus the sum of current losses for every opponent a team has faced.”
Teams with the same record will face each other based on their Difficulty Score, the highest against the lowest and so on.
The end result of each stage will have 8 teams that advance: two 3-0 teams (undefeated), three 3-1 teams, three 3-2 teams. And 8 teams eliminated: three 2-3 teams, three 1-3 teams and two 0-3 teams (winless).
Why three stages?
Valve recently intervened in the Counter-Strike 2 space to limit relationships between tournament organizers and teams. Valve expressed a desire to return CS2 to being an “open sport”.
Since then, it has been put into question by participating teams if Valve’s intervention has been effective in opening the circuit.
Valve also expanded the Major from 24 to 32 teams. Previously, there were only two progressive stages instead of three, and before that, the Major was limited to just 16 teams.
Previously, Major formats have also been much different, using a standard 4-group stage instead of the Swiss system and a LAN Major Qualifier instead of online play.
According to Valve’s rulebook, the goal of the Major is to “bring together the best Counter-Strike players in the world to a LAN setting,” indicating that LAN play is their priority.
Most large prize-pool tournaments run by ESL, PGL and BLAST in CS2 have smaller tournaments of 16 to 24 teams, including a group stage with only BO3 matches and a BO5 final. The Major has stuck with its philosophy to stay away from BO5 series entirely and have many BO1 matches.
However, the Major remains the most prestigious tournament for the community. The in-game stickers released for each major have made up to $110 million for the teams and players.
