StarLadder has announced the long-awaited details of its new StarSeries CS2 Major tournament, which will take place from September 13-21, 2025 in Budapest, Hungary. The event promises to be one of the biggest Counter-Strike 2 tournaments ever.

The organizers are starting by using the Valve Ranking System (VRS) to distribute invites. Importantly, this is also one of the first major tournaments from StarLadder in CS2, which creates huge expectations among fans and professionals alike. The transition to a new format of the game is always exciting, and here the tournament structure itself promises to be exciting and tough.

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The backstory

StarLadder has long established itself as a leading Counter-Strike tournament organizer, hosting major events such as Berlin Major 2019 and a string of prestigious StarSeries & i-League events through Season 8. In addition, they organized StarSeries tournaments from Season 4 to Season 14, where top teams battled it out, as well as the StarLadder ProSeries, which featured lesser-known teams with prize pools ranging from $1,500 to $2,000.

Key details

The tournament will be held in two stages: a qualifier and the main event. Direct invitations to the tournament will be issued based on Valve's global ranking system (VRS), starting with the top 16 teams as of the day of the invitations. From these teams, the top 4 teams will automatically advance to the main event and the other 12 will advance to the closed offline qualifiers.

In addition, 4 teams will be determined through online qualifiers that will take place in two regions - North and South America, and Europe. These teams will join the qualifiers in the offline group stage, which will take place from September 13-17, 2025 in the GSL Group format, where the winners and second-placed teams will meet in Play-in matches to earn a trip to the main event.

The Main Event will take place from September 18-21, 2025 and will include 8 teams: 4 directly invited through the VRS system and 4 qualifying teams. The format will be classic for major tournaments - Double Elimination and Best of 3 (Bo3). The minimum prize pool will be $500,000, but its final size and distribution will be announced later.

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Conclusion

StarSeries CS2 Major 2025 promises to be one of the key events in the world of eSports, attracting attention not only due to its transparent invitation system and impressive prize pool, but also due to the return of the legendary tournament operator StarLadder.

Source: StarLadder