Blast Rivals Fall 2025 ended on Nov. 16, 2025, with Furia bagging its third consecutive Counter-Strike 2 trophy after fighting hard map after map. Furia is looking to be one of the favorites to lift the major trophy at StarLadder Budapest Major 2025, which starts on Nov. 24, 2025.

Furia kicked off the tournament guns blazing, not losing a series in the group stage, and continued their dominance in the semifinals against paiN Gaming. It was only in the grand final that Furia suffered its first map loss. It was the very first map in Inferno, where Falcons dominated them 13-3.

What seemed to be the start of a disastrous tale for Furia’s grand final match was extinguished after the team won the second map, Nuke, 13-9. From there, both teams fought tooth and nail for any sort of advantage as both Train and Mirage went double overtime, eventually ending in a scoreline of 19-15 and 19-16 for Furia.

Ilya “M0nesy” Osipov won yet another MVP award on a loss with the Falcons. In an interview with HLTV, M0nesy said that this loss hurts even more than the ESL Pro League Season 22, where they had to fight Team Vitality in its prime, and they were cleanly beaten 3-0.

One reason why this loss hurts more is that the Falcons had multiple chances to close maps but just could not do so. M0nesy also showed concern, saying that he’s “worried if we’re going to continue losing these advantageous situations” — something that happened quite often in the grand final matches.

The next Counter-Strike 2 tournament, StarLadder Budapest Major 2025, is one of its biggest this year, where 32 teams will battle it out.

The matches start on Nov. 24, 2025, and will end on Dec. 14, 2025.

On Nov. 12, 2025, Blast Rivals Fall 2025, a Counter-Strike 2 tournament, has just kicked off, pitting four top-rated teams in the Valve Regional Standings and four regional wildcards against one another in a showdown for a $125,000 first-place prize.

The tournament format follows most of the rules of a Counter-Strike 2 tournament. The group stage will be a double elimination best-of-three. The top team in the group stage will advance to the semifinals in the playoffs, the runners-up will advance to the quarterfinals as high seeds, and the third-place finishers will advance to the quarterfinals as low seeds.

The playoffs will be a single-elimination bracket. The quarterfinals and semifinals are going to be best-of-three, with the grand final being a best-of-five.

Here are the eight teams participating in the tournament:

• The MongolZ
• Furia
• Team Vitality
• Team Spirit
• Team Falcons
• Passion UA
• paiN Gaming
• Tyloo

The event will last until Nov. 16, 2025. Liquipedia ranks this event as an S-Tier, while Valve ranks it as a Wildcard tournament. Regardless of the rank, this tournament is one of the highest-level ones this year simply because of its attendees.

In partnership with Roobet, the esports organization 100 Thieves announced on Nov. 10, 2025, that it will be entering Counter-Strike esports once again after leaving the scene in late October 2019 when it was still Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Technically, this is the first time the team enters the Counter-Strike 2 arena, but the organization has been around since 2017. “Counter-Strike has always been a cornerstone of esports, and CS2 has sparked new energy worldwide,” said Jacob Toft-Andersen, president of 100 Thieves.

“Counter-Strike has always been close to our hearts at Roobet,” said director of partnerships Allen Temiz. He added that the Roobet founding team met while playing Counter-Strike online, making them feel like the partnership with 100 Thieves was like coming home.

100 Thieves and Roobet said that details regarding the new team roster and competitive schedule will be announced in the coming months; however, there were rumors that the team has been pursuing Håvard “Rain” Nygaard, a former FaZe Clan player.

Regarding the partnership, the 100 Thieves-Roobet partnership will focus only on competitive and fan engagement. “No active gambling streams or direct betting content will be part of the promotional activities on 100 Thieves owned & operated social media channels,” the press release said.

On Nov. 1, 2025, Aurora Gaming finally claimed its very first Counter-Strike 2 LAN trophy at PGL Masters Bucharest 2025, stopping Legacy’s comeback from happening and shutting their dreams of lifting the trophy.

Both of the teams that met in the grand final were barely able to qualify for the playoffs, having 3-2 scores in the group stage. This meant that they had to run the gauntlet, playing all the possible matches that they had to in order to be able to compete in the grand final.

When Aurora and Legacy met in the grand final, Aurora took a quick 2-map lead, putting Legacy on its back foot. However, Legacy was able to bounce back, pushing the third map, Train, to overtime and taking the fourth map, Inferno, convincingly.

The final map, Nuke, was as close as it could’ve been with the teams trading rounds in the first half. The streak was only broken by Legacy when they tied together a five-win thread, but was eventually shut down by Aurora, taking the map, the tournament and the title.

Counter-Strike 2’s next biggest tournament is currently happening. Intel Extreme Masters Chengdu 2025 started on Nov. 3, 2025, with the tournament being attended by the best Counter-Strike 2 teams in the world, including FaZe Clan, Team Falcons and Team Vitality.

On Oct. 26, 2025, Counter-Strike 2 tournament PGL Masters Bucharest 2025 is kicking off, pitting 16 teams against each other for a week of professional Counter-Strike gameplay. The tournament is considered a Tier 1 event by Valve.

The participating teams are as follows:

• Aurora Gaming
• 3DMAX
• Astralis
• HEROIC
• GamerLegion
• paiN Gaming
• Legacy
• BetBoom Team
• Fnatic
• SAW
• B8
• Ninjas in Pyjamas
• FlyQuest
• Gentle Mates
• Team Liquid
• MIBR

As the tournament’s name suggests, the event will happen in Bucharest at a PGL Studio. The total prize pool of the tournament is $625,000, with the first-place winner receiving $200,000 and the rest of the $425,000 being distributed to the rest of the teams.

During the group stage, the teams will fight each other in a Team Swiss System Format, which is how Counter-Strike 2 tournaments are usually opened.  However, instead of Best-of-1’s, it will be Best-of-3’s.

The top eight teams in the group stage will proceed to the playoffs, where they will once again play each other in a Best-of-3 series. Only the grand final of the tournament is Best-of-5. The Finals day will be on Nov. 11, 2025, and the tournament will be available to watch on PGL’s YouTube and Twitch, among other streaming services.

Legacy managed to edge out 3DMax in the grand final of the Counter-Strike 2 tournament CS Asia Championships 2025. The series quickly went in 3DMax’s favor until Legacy was able to pick itself up and mount a reverse sweep to take the whole tournament.

The whole CS Asia Championships 2025 tournament was filled with 2-1 scores when the best-of-three format kicked in; all of Legacy’s and 3DMax’s games were 2-1s.

In the grand final, Legacy won the first map, Nuke, 13-6. This was quickly answered by 3DMax with a two-map win, even destroying Legacy in Inferno with a 13-5 score. Legacy had to dig deep to mount a comeback. The grand final ended with a 13-6 score in Ancient and Legacy taking the trophy.

The third-place match was the only time during the playoffs when the games were very one-sided. Team Liquid took the series convincingly with a 2-0 finish and didn’t even let Heroic breathe during the games. The highest round wins Heroic had in that series was five.

CS Asia Championships 2025 is a tournament that was held in Shanghai. It’s an A-tier event attended by 16 teams, including FaZe Clan, GamerLegion and Fnatic.

On Oct. 19, 2025, Furia reverse-swept Navi in the grand finals of Counter-Strike 2’s Thunderpick World Championship 2025, ending the series 3-2 and awarding Kaike “Kscerato” Cerato his first tournament MVP award.

Throughout the tournament, Furia dominated the competition. The team did not lose a series in the group stage, and the first day of the playoffs against Aurora Gaming ended with a decisive 2-0 for Furia.

It was during the grand finals that the team showed some cracks in their gameplay. The first map against Navi was Mirage, which Navi took convincingly with a score of 13-6. The second map, Inferno, was more of the same, with Furia ending the match without even reaching double digits on the scoreboard.

However, momentum shifted during the third map, Nuke, where Furia found its footing against Navi. Despite going 0-2, the team quickly won eight rounds thanks to Kscerato and Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo. The team won this map 13-8.

After that, Navi ran out of steam. The team’s score dwindled as more maps were played. Dust II’s score was 13-5 in favor of Furia, and the final map, Train, ended 13-1, with a single round win coming from the T side.

The offline Counter-Strike 2 tournament, Thunderpick World Championship 2025 Finals, kicked off on October 15, 2025, at the Malta Fairs & Conventions Centre and will run until October 19, 2025.

The event started with a group stage, with two double-elimination (GSL) groups, each consisting of four teams. All matches in this stage are best-of-three, and the top two teams from each group will advance to the playoffs.

The playoffs (Semifinals, Grand Final and the Third Place Match) will use a single-elimination bracket, with all matches also being best-of-three.

Eight teams, including The MongolZ, Natus Vincere, FURIA, Aurora Gaming, Imperial Esports, Team Venom, 9z Team, and OG, are competing for a total prize of $850,000 at the Thunderpick World Championship 2025 Finals.

According to the tournament’s official website, the Thunderpick World Championship 2025 Finals will feature two updates to its financial distribution structure, approved by Valve. A $150,000 participation fee will now be added for teams receiving direct Valve Regional Standings (VRS) invitations, while the previously announced $850,000 prize pool will be split between player and club shares.

The total prize pool remains unchanged, and both player and club shares will continue to count toward the VRS. The participation fee, however, will serve as an additional financial incentive and will not affect VRS points.

The prize pool is now divided with 60% allocated to the club share and 40% to the player share. For example, the first-place team will receive a total of $500,000, split into $200,000 for players and $300,000 for the club, while the eighth-place team will receive $20,000 in total, with $8,000 for players and $12,000 for the club.

The $150,000 participation fee will be awarded to the top eight teams directly invited by VRS to the TWC Finals, based on their team ranking at the time of invitation rather than their performance in the event. Each of the top four global VRS invites will receive $25,000, while the top four European VRS invites will each receive $12,500, totaling $150,000.

On Oct. 12, 2025, Team Vitality finally won its first S-tier Counter-Strike 2 trophy after four months at ESL Pro League Season 22. Vitality destroyed Team Falcons in the grand final and quickly took the title home with a clean 3-0.

While Team Falcons had a great tournament, no losses during the group stages and only one map loss against 3DMAX during the playoffs, Team Vitality proved that they are still one of the best teams around by completely demolishing them in the grand final.

Team Falcons fought hard during the first map, which was Inferno. The final score was 13-10, in favor of Team Vitality, but the first half was equal. It was in the second half that the disaster started for Team Falcons.

From there, the team couldn’t recover and only had dwindling performances in the grand final. The next map, Train, had a score of 13-9. The worst one of all was Dust II, where Vitality ended the tournament with an exclamation mark by winning 13-5.

Counter-Strike 2’s next S-tier tournament is going to be Intel Extreme Masters Chengdu 2025. The tournament will run from Nov. 3 to Nov. 9, 2025.

Jonathan ‘EliGE” Jablonoswki has officially returned to Team Liquid’s Counter-Strike 2 competitive team roster. The return was publicized when Team Liquid registered for the Fragadelphia Blocktober event, listing the 28-year-old veteran alongside the remaining four players: ultimate, NertZ, siuhy, and NAF-FLY. Team Liquid gave FaZe Clan Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken on Sept. 20, five days before acquiring EliGE. 

EliGE represented Team Liquid from 2015 to 2022, achieving numerous tournament victories in 2019. The player was acquired by FaZe clan in early 2025, but was later reacquired by Team Liquid on Sept. 25, 2025. The professional player’s return to Team Liquid was rumored after he was benched by FaZe Clan; EliGe is scheduled to compete with Team Liquid at the Birch Cup, taking place from Sept. 26 to 28. 

Team Liquid has been struggling to push past payoffs for numerous Tier 1 events. Esports Insider believes that EliGe’s return to Team Liquid’s Counter-Strike 2 roster will help the team make it out of the top 32.