Esports World Cup 2024 Counter-Strike 2 Preview

With the Esports World Cup 2024 firmly underway, Counter-Strike 2 is the next big game. The tournament features 15 teams in one of the strangest formats we’ve ever seen. Excitingly, this will be the first CS2 event of the new season. We have a few interesting storylines to follow with the player break now over.

The Format

Counter-Strike 2 at the Esports World Cup 2024 will be played in three stages. For the Opening Stage, 14 of the 15 teams have each been seeded into a single, best-of-three match. The seven winners of this match automatically qualify for the Playoffs.

The seven losers will be seeded into the Play-In Stage alongside seed 15. These eight teams will then play a single-elimination, best-of-one bracket. The sole winner of this bracket will join the first seven teams in the final stage. The playoffs consist of an eight-team, single-elimination bracket with all best-of-three matches. The winner will be crowned the EWC 2024 CS2 champion.

Zero Mistakes Allowed

Plainly speaking, this is a brutal format. Losing your opening match is basically a death sentence. Having to play a best-of-one gauntlet with no second chances for a single playoff spot is a situation no one wants to be in. Therefore, every team must be completely and utterly devoted to winning their opener. We’re looking at you, FaZe Clan.

On the bright side, this sheer volatility could breed a very unpredictable and dramatic tournament. After all, we are coming out of the player break, and teams have had plenty of time to refine and renew their playbooks. Some have even revamped their rosters, and will be completely unpredictable. Speaking of unpredictable…

The New G2 Esports

It’s not the biggest surprise that G2 decided to overhaul their roster. Despite their momentous win at IEM Dallas to end the previous season, the writing has been on the wall that it’s time for change. Reaching towards North America for the up-and-coming Guatemalan rifler Mario “malbsMd” Samayoa was an eye-opening yet understandable move.

What wasn’t understandable was G2’s acquisition of Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski to fill the now-vacant IGL role. While Snax is a successful and grizzled veteran who made a big resurgence in CS2 with GamerLegion, he’s also 31 years old and may not be the best fit for a roster with long-term title-winning potential. The obvious connection is hooking him up Snax with his former Virtus.pro teammate and now G2 coach Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas.

Speaking from an in-game standpoint, with the additions of malbsMd and Snax, G2 now has role clashes on every single map in the pool. G2 better have put in a lot of work over the off-season, otherwise their game is going to look like chaos, and not the controlled kind.

Despite this massive shift, G2 still has Nikola “NiKo” Kovac and Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov. These two can likely carry the team past early-round opponents regardless of surroundings. Whether or not G2 is up to contending for the Esports World Cup 2024 trophy is still to be seen.

The Killer V’s

The orgs with the most teams present at the Esports World Cup that have a team in CS2 are Vitality and Virtus.pro. Both orgs have eight squads at EWC, tying them for sixth most overall. With Team Falcons’ lead from the first two weeks, both organizations would appreciate their CS2 teams making deep runs.

Vitality is one of the accessible favorites to do so. Despite a sad pair of back-to-back second-place finishes at EPL S19 and IEM Dallas, Vitality is probably the most consistent team in the scene right now. Specifically, Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut is putting up some insane numbers right now. He’s one of three candidates for best player of the year alongside m0NESY and Danil “donk” Kryshkovets. Once Vitality is able to overcome their block in the Grand Finals, they’ll be hoisting their first trophy of 2024. It very likely could be this one.

Virtus.pro is much more of a long shot, but they are a solid squad that can easily get top four in their better form. VP is one of the squads that likely benefited from the player break the most. They added Denis “electroNic” Sharipov in mid-April and have been trying to refine their now stronger roster. We most recently saw them reach the semifinals at the BLAST Spring Finals.

Underdog Favored Format

As mentioned earlier, the format of this tournament could cause a lot of upsets quickly. We can look to some of the less-recognized yet quickly improving squads to deliver some of those. Basically, this segment is to talk about The Mongolz.

Asia has long been an afterthought in Counter-Strike. The days of Tyloo showing promise on the world stage are long gone. However, a new representative has risen to the challenge and has been making some waves. The Mongolz is a Mongolian un-signed roster that has been rapidly rising through the rankings.

Their recent run at YaLLa Compass, an S-Tier event in early June, saw The Mongolz take down the likes of Astralis, Ninjas in Pyjamas, ENCE, and Heroic. They’re just one rank away from being the first Asian team ever to crack HLTV’s top 10 in Counter-Strike history.

Other notable underdog squads include the Americas duo of Complexity and FURIA, the latter of which just acquired Felipe “skullz” Medeiros from Team Liquid.

CS2 at the Esports World Cup 2024 begins on July 17 at 7:30 AM ET / 4:30 AM PT.