StarLadder have announced that the upcoming Budapest Major will be the first Counter-Strike 2 Major to feature a best-of-five grand final.

The change is one of the most requested upgrades to the Major format in recent years, and now brings the biggest events in line with the rest of the CS2 calendar.

Big Upgrade to Major Format

The Major format has undergone numerous changes over the past few events, from the removal of the Challengers, Legends, and Champions names applied to each stage to the addition of a fourth stage and the elimination of RMR events.

A hotly debated subject within Counter-Strike, recent Majors have come under fire due to being the only Tier One event to still use a Best of 3 (BO3) final and Best of 1 (BO1) group stages.

Although BO5 finals were always requested due to the other two biggest events of the year, IEM Cologne and IEM Katowice, also having BO5 finals, the need for the change became greater when CS2 switched from MR15 to MR12.

Fewer rounds in a map means – in theory – less Counter-Strike, but can also be seen as problematic when actually trying to find the better of two teams. Each team has a smaller amount of time to react and adjust to the other’s game plan, whilst the issues with the CT economy can also have a greater impact on the game as a result. 

BO5s are also just a better indicator of who the stronger team really is. Given that Counter-Strike uses a map pool of seven maps, a good team might be able to beat anyone across three maps, but a great team will – more often than not – beat them across five. By making this change, winning a Major now means more than it ever has.

The StarLadder Budapest Major is set to kick off on November 24th and will run until December 14th. Big names will join the competition throughout, but the first stage is headlined by a FaZe team who have struggled in recent weeks and the returns of legendary CS organizations Fnatic and NIP, who have been absent from the last few Major events.