CS2 Tournaments

How the CS2 tournament calendar works

The season has no single organiser. Valve runs the Majors, and the rest of the calendar is filled by ESL, BLAST, PGL, StarLadder and a dozen smaller operators, each with their own circuit. That is why there is no one schedule page anywhere: what you see above is the live list pulled from HLTV, updated as events start and finish.

Majors sit above everything else

A Major is the only tournament Valve sponsors directly, and it is the one event the whole season is planned around. There are usually two per year, and Valve does not publish the dates far ahead: each Major gets its own announcement a few weeks before it starts, together with the in-game hub, stickers and the Pick'Em Challenge.

Why teams skip tournaments

Because the circuits overlap. A roster committed to one operator's league often cannot attend another event in the same window, and squads also drop out to prepare for a Major or to rebuild after a transfer. A tournament missing a big name usually says more about the calendar than about the team.

Where the prize pools come from

Operators put up the money themselves, so pools swing from five figures at regional events to seven at the top of the calendar. Valve adds a separate layer at Majors: half the revenue from tournament stickers goes to the teams, players and organiser, which is why sticker sales matter to rosters more than the trophy money sometimes does.