With a brand new period of Counter-Strike nearly upon us, the esports scene is making ready for a recent begin. Event organizers reminiscent of PGL, ESL, and BLAST, have obtained a request from Valve for CS2 Main proposals for 2025 and 2026.
Date Adjustments to CS2 Majors?
In addition to this, it has been confirmed that the dates for upcoming CS2 Majors have modified. The plan at present is to stay with two Majors a 12 months. Nonetheless, they’ll now happen in June and December respectively. At the moment, Majors alternate on a Might to November timeline, however the change might have huge implications for the aggressive scene.
Listed here are the dates at present penciled in for CS2 Majors in 2025 and 2026:
2025
- June ninth – twenty second
- December 1st – 14th
2026
- June eighth – twenty first
- November thirtieth – December thirteenth
These adjustments imply that CS2 Majors will now happen on the finish of the participant seasons, versus simply prior. This enables groups to construct their power all through the season, earlier than making one last push on the largest stage of all.
Whereas the response to the change has been typically constructive, Vitality CS:GO IGL apEX has been essential on Twitter:
It stays to be seen if these date adjustments are set in stone. As soon as the proposals from the event organizers change into clearer, then we’ll probably know extra about any additional date adjustments.
Valve’s Proposal
Valve’s proposal for the necessities of any potential CS2 Main is printed as follows:
We sometimes prioritize occasions that happen in areas the place a TO has beforehand held profitable occasions. Moreover, it’s useful to establish backup venues in case journey restrictions or different issues make the unique location inaccessible.
As with earlier Main Championships, our major aim is to establish an occasion that may present the best leisure worth to present CS2 prospects, so please be particular when describing companies or options of your occasion.
Observe that basically we don’t weigh closely any options which can be untested, new, or in-development. In case you are proposing novel options on your occasion, think about offering extra element explaining how these options shall be developed and examined, and what options you’ll think about in the event that they can’t be executed as deliberate.
The overwhelming majority of spectators on your occasion shall be viewing video games via streams. Your proposal ought to embrace a distribution plan together with the anticipated streaming platforms, languages accessible, schedule, and many others.
The occasion ought to be time zone handy for a big proportion of CS2 prospects (the sport has two prime-times, one at 16:00 CET and one at 21:00 CET).
To permit us to correctly consider your proposal, please embrace a hyperlink to footage of occasions you have got run lately which can be of comparable manufacturing high quality to the occasion you’re proposing.
For each the Main and RMRs, Valve will present assist for the prize pool and gamers’ journey and lodging.
It has already been revealed that PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 would be the first Main performed on CS2, the primary held by the event organizer since 2021. The final time one in every of ESL, PGL, or BLAST didn’t host a Main was in 2019, with StarLadder. It is going to be fascinating to see if this prompts any new or dormant organizers to enter the scene to suggest a brand new construction to the CS2 Main.
The proposal itself presents no actual hints a few potential location for CS2 Majors. The timezones of 16:00 CET and 21:00 CET would work for each European and American places, though it does probably rule out an Asian or Oceania CS2 Main. Hopefully, we’re not ready too lengthy for Valve to disclose what the esports scene has in retailer for us within the coming years.