The Shanghai Major is scheduled to start on November 30 and will last until December 15. This event promises to be epic and will end a glorious year for CS2 and its esports scene.
The prize pool is $1.25 million and the number of participants is 24. Every single team had to survive a challenging qualification tournament, which guarantees that the teams don’t just have big names or famous players. They are actually the most skilled competitors in the world.
Elimination Stage Teams
This category features 16 teams that will start the tournament in the first stage and compete in a Swiss System format. The top eight of them advance to stage 2, which will use the same format to determine the eight playoff teams.
- FURIA Esports
- Virtus.pro
- Team Liquid
- Complexity
- BIG
- Fnatic
- The MongolZ
- paiN Gaming
- GamerLegion
- MIBR
- Cloud9
- FlyQuest
- Passion UA
- Wildcard
- Rare Atom
- Imperial Esports
These are the eight matches that will be played in the first round:
- FURIA vs. GamerLegion
- VP vs. MIBR
- Liquid vs. Cloud9
- Complexity vs. FlyQuest
- BIG vs. Passion UA
- Fnatic vs. Wildcard
- The MongolZ vs. Rare Atom
- PaiN Gaming vs. Imperial
It’s worth noting that some of the teams, such as Wildcard, MIBR, BIG, The MongolZ, and Rare Atom were required to start in stage 1 despite winning their qualifiers.
Meanwhile, teams like Spirit and others, who struggled to qualify for the Major, were offered a spot in the Elimination Stage. This situation caused some dissatisfaction among the participants.
Opening Stage Teams
Here are the eight teams that were granted the privilege to start the Shanghai Major in the second stage:
- G2 Esports
- Natus Vincere
- Team Vitality
- Team Spirit
- MOUZ
- FaZe Clan
- HEROIC
- 3DMAX
Usually, many fans start watching a Major only after the end of stage 1. But in this particular case, almost every match will be exciting to watch from the beginning.