The last and biggest event of the CS2 calendar year, the Perfect World Shanghai Major, kicks off on November 30. Twenty-four of the game’s best teams will travel to Shanghai to vye for the most prestigious prize Counter-Strike has to offer. With a $1,250,000 prize pool on the line, who has what it takes to win the first ever Valve Major in Asia?
Perfect World Shanghai Major Schedule & Format
The Perfect World Shanghai Major will run from November 30 through December 15. and is split into three stages.
Opening Stage
The Opening Stage begins on November 30 and ends on December 3. The bottom 16 seeds will be sorted into a Swiss bracket where the top eight advance and the bottom eight go home. A team needs three wins to qualify for the next stage.
Teams will be reseeded every round based on their initial seeds and the strength of their opponents to determine their next matchup. Advancement and Elimination matches are best-of-three, all other matches are best-of-one.
Elimination Stage
The Elimination Stage runs from December 5 to December 8. Here, the eight advancing teams from the Opening Stage will meet up with the top eight seeds (who won’t have played any games by this time) from qualification for another Swiss bracket.
We’re keeping things simple here and the rules are the exact same, with the top eight teams advancing to the Major Playoffs.
Playoffs
The Playoffs Stage begins on December 12 with the Grand Finals taking place on December 15. This stage features a single elimination bracket where every match is a best-of-three. The team that wins three in a row will be crowned the Shanghai Major champions.
All Perfect World Shanghai Major Qualified Teams
Asia-Pacific
- The MongolZ
- Rare Atom
- FlyQuest
Americas
- Wildcard
- MIBR
- Team Liquid
- Complexity Gaming
- paiN Gaming
- Imperial Esports
- FURIA Esports
Europe
- Team Vitality
- MOUZ
- FaZe Clan
- Natus Vincere
- Cloud9
- Fnatic
- GamerLegion
- BIG
- 3DMAX
- G2 Esports
- HEROIC
- Virtus.pro
- Passion UA
- Team Spirit
What are RMR Events in CS2?
Teams qualify for the Perfect World Shanghai Major through the RMR (Regional Major Rankings) events. These are a series of regional qualifier events held throughout the month leading up to the Major. The formats vary a bit by region, with each region narrowing their field down to the amount of seeds given by Valve based on previous performance. Currently, the breakdown looks like this:
| Elimination Stage Seeds | Opening Stage Seeds | |
| Europe |
8 |
6 |
| Americas |
0 |
7 |
| Asia-Pacific |
0 |
3 |
Who will Win the Perfect World Shanghai Major?
Barring a huge collapse from all three, the Perfect World Shanghai Major will in all likelihood be won by NAVI, Team Vitality, or G2 Esports. These squads have won the last six main circuit CS2 events with no one else coming close to consistently competing for trophies.
NAVI lead the conversation as the current world number one team and the defending Major champions. They’ve shown time and time again that they have what it takes to win at the highest level. Sweeping both Majors in a year is the biggest accomplishment a team can make in this game.
G2 and Vitality are not far behind. Both have seen success this year and have beaten NAVI on occasion. Showing up to Shanghai prepared and in-form could easily propel one of these squads to the Major trophy.
