Counter-Strike 2

The 2021 Stockholm Major is almost here and you can start supporting your favorite teams now!

The 2021 Viewer Pass, Team Sticker Capsules, and Team Patch Packs are now available for purchase. 50% of the proceeds go to the teams and organizations taking part in the 2021 Stockholm Major.

Viewer Pass​

With a Viewer Pass, you’ll get a Stockholm 2021 Event Coin, Pick’em challenges to complete, all-you-can-spray team graffiti, Steam.tv flair, and exclusive access to Stockholm 2021 Souvenir Packages.

Every time you upgrade your coin, you can redeem a Souvenir Package of the match of your choice. Souvenirs will feature gold stickers of the teams and map of the match, so watch the Major and make your choice!

Want more? Purchase the ‘Viewer Pass +3’ to start off with three Souvenir Tokens, or purchase as many Souvenir Tokens as you’d like once you’ve activated your Pass.

Team Stickers and Patches​

Team Sticker Capsules and–for the first time ever–Team Patch Packs are now available for purchase. Team Sticker Capsules feature paper, holo, foil, and gold stickers, while team Patch Packs feature regular and gold patches.

Finalist and Champion Capsules​

Introducing the Finalists Autograph Sticker Capsule and the Champions Autograph Sticker Capsule, containing the autographs of the champions and of the other teams that make it to the playoffs! These capsules will be available for purchase after the Major, so make sure to root for your favorite teams and give them the fan support they need to make it to the playoffs!

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Today we are shipping a new Music Kit from bbno$ featuring the song “u mad!” from his new album “eat ya veggies”—out tomorrow!

So eat ya veggies and pick up the new bbno$ Music Kit in standard or StatTrak versions, available now!

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Introducing Operation Riptide, featuring new maps, an overhauled mission system, new ways to play your favorite game modes–from Private Queues to shorter Competitive matches–and more! Complete your weekly missions and choose from a variety of rewards including new agents, weapon collections, stickers, and patches.

Dive into Operation Riptide!

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Today we are shipping the 2021 Community Sticker Capsule, featuring 21 unique stickers from various Community Workshop artists.

Whether you are trying to make it look “EZ” or telling your teammates “This Is Fine”, there’s a sticker for everyone.

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Today we’re shipping the Tacticians Music Kit box, featuring six new Music Kits from Austin Wintory, Chipzel, Jesse Harlin, Laura Shigihara, Leonard Paul (Freaky DNA) and Sarah Schachner.

There’s no better tactic than sharing your new MVP anthem with the rest of the server!

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On July 22nd we are launching the $1 Million Dreams & Nightmares Workshop Contest.

We are looking for 10 original dream or nightmare-themed weapon finishes for CS:GO. Each of the 10 winning entries will earn $100,000. Beyond submitting your original weapon finish to the CS:GO Workshop, all you need to enter is a non-limited Steam account. And yes, teams of more than one person can also enter.

To help content creators get a better feel for what we’re looking for we’ve launched a dedicated web site for the contest. Here you will find more info on the types of finishes we’re looking for, examples of the Dreams & Nightmares theme, info on how to enter, details of the contest, and more. We’ve also created a sub forum in CS:GO’s Discussions for artists, technical artists, and others to collaborate on contest-themed submissions and ideas.

We launched the Workshop on Steam almost 10 years ago in the hopes of creating a centralized hub for community created content. Since then, over five million content creators have submitted and published over 20 million new items for a variety of games on Steam, making them available to millions of gamers around the world. And, as everyone who plays these games knows – including CS players – many of the most iconic in-game items, maps, and more have been authored by members of the community. The Dreams & Nightmares Content Contest is designed to help further support this community.

If you have any questions or comments about the contest, please email us at [email protected] using the subject “Dreams & Nightmares.”

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CS:GO went free to play over two years ago and is still going strong. We see new players entering CS:GO all the time, and it’s as important as ever that anyone in the world can pick up and play the game for free.

Along with all the gameplay that we made available for free, new players had access to drops, Ranks, Skill Groups, and a free path to Prime matchmaking. Unfortunately, over time, those benefits have become an incentive for bad actors to hurt the experience of both new and existing players. So today we’re revising the offering for new players.

New players can still play every game mode, play on community servers, and play workshop maps. However, they will no longer receive XP, Ranks, drops, or Skill Groups; those features are now exclusively available to Prime Status players.

New players can still upgrade to Prime by purchasing the Prime Status Upgrade from the Steam store, however there is no longer a free path to Prime. And if you purchase the upgrade in the next two weeks, your current Skill Group and XP progress will carry over.

Introducing ‘Unranked’​

When new players play Competitive, Wingman, and Danger Zone, their matches will still use skill-based matchmaking, but players will not earn a Skill Group.

Prime players can also play Unranked matches, where their Skill Group will not be affected and where there are no lobby Skill Group restrictions.

Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a new arrival, GL and HF!

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Today Operation Broken Fang comes to an end, but some of its more popular features will live on. Note that if you have unspent stars, you will have until May 15th to spend them, after which they will expire.

Premier Competitive and Retakes were popular and are sticking around. Premier Competitive is still an option in the Competitive tab and Retakes has a new home among the Wargames.

For those of you that want to continue collecting your official Competitive and Wingman stats (or those of you that didn’t participate in Operation Broken Fang but want to try out the stats feature), you can now subscribe to CS:GO 360 Stats for $0.99 per month. It includes access to the CS:GO 360 Stats page as well as your team’s Round Win Chance report in Competitive and Premier game modes. Additional information can be found in our CS:GO 360 Stats help article.

Map Pool Changes​

As part of today’s update we are making changes to the Active Duty Map Pool. Train is leaving the station, and Ancient is taking its place with a revamped A Site and minor changes to B site.

We’re also updating the community maps available in the game. Mocha and Grind are now available to play in Competitive Scrimmage, as well as in Defusal Group Sigma in other game modes.

Additionally, Calavera and Pitstop are now available to play in Wingman.

New Weapon Cassssse​

The Snakebite Weapon Case features 17 community-designed weapon finishes, and includes the Broken Fang set of gloves as rare special items!

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As we enter the 2021 RMR season, we’ve decided to revisit some of our event guidelines.

Up until today, players were ineligible to participate in Valve-sponsored events if they had ever received a VAC-ban in CS:GO. These guidelines had not seen an update since the game was new and all CS:GO VAC bans were relatively recent. But VAC bans can now be more than 8 years old. So we’ve decided to update them.

Moving forward, a VAC ban will only disqualify a player from an event if it was either received less than 5 years prior, or if it was received at any time after their first participation in a Valve-sponsored event (e.g., after participating in a qualifier for an RMR event). Note that VAC bans stay in place with all of their other effects; the only change is how they influence your eligibility to play in Valve-sponsored events.

There are other reasons a player may not be eligible to participate in Valve-sponsored events. These remain unchanged.

We hope you’re as excited as we are for the upcoming 2021 RMR events. Stay tuned for more information as we head toward the Stockholm Major this Fall!

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We’re gearing up for the road to Stockholm 2021, starting with the first series of RMR events! Over the next several days we’ll announce events for each region, so stay tuned.

If you’d like to learn more about the RMR events, visit our FAQ.

And with the 2021 RMR events fast approaching, it’s time to move on from last year’s results. All 2020 RMR sticker capsules are now on sale–if you’ve been waiting, now is a great time to take another look!

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Today we are opening up Broken Fang Premier to everyone.

Broken Fang Premier, which introduces a pick/ban phase to the start of a competitive match, allows players to test their mettle across the entire Active Duty map pool. Pick and ban maps, choose your starting side, and work together to win 16 rounds.

Operation Broken Fang ends April 30th, so now’s the perfect time to queue for Broken Fang Premier with friends. And if you’re an Operation Pass holder, you have one month to complete missions, collect stars, and redeem rewards from the Operation Shop.

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All 16 Operation Broken Fang mission cards have been released, including the final Strike mission! But don’t worry if you can’t get everything done this week, you still have until April 30th to earn your stars.

Music Kits​

Today we’re shipping three new Music Kits. Scarlxrd (CHAIN$AW.LXADXUT) and Neck Deep (The Lowlife Pack) are now available for purchase.

If you’re a fan of Supergiant Games’ Hades, you may already own the Music Kit. If you own the game on Steam and have more than 5 hours of play time you’ll find the Hades Music Kit in your CS:GO Inventory.

Poorly Drawn Stickers​

Hand-crafted by HH110011HH and Hoxton with a bit more love than skill, the Poorly Drawn Sticker Capsule is now available for purchase in-game.

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2020 RMR Sticker Capsules​

Over the past year, the top CS:GO teams in the world competed in regional ranking events for invitations to a Major Championship. Ultimately there would be no Major in 2020, but it is important that fans have an opportunity to celebrate and recognize the hard work of the best teams of 2020. So we’re excited to announce 2020 CS:GO RMR Capsules.

These capsules represent the teams that would have received invitations to the 2020 Fall Major, broken down by their invitation status (Legend, Challenger, Contender). You can find the final RMR scores and standings here.

For these stickers, 50% of the proceeds directly support the teams.

2021 RMR Events​

We will continue to hold regional RMR events to identify the 24 teams to invite to the 2021 PGL Stockholm Major. In the link below you can find all the details and updates to the 2021 RMR event system, but here are some highlights:

• RMR points are reset for 2021, however the 2020 RMR Legends will start with 600, Challengers with 300, and contenders with 100 points.

• Teams can now specify a substitute player (any player who is not registered to participate or substitute for another team) that is separate from their coach.

• A team incurs a penalty when they substitute out a player in an event, but there is no penalty when that player is brought back in.

• During online matches only players are allowed in the room and on the server. Neither coaches nor any other team staff will be allowed in the room, on the server, or to otherwise communicate with the team during an online match.

The full details of the 2021 RMR system can be found here.

Coaching Integrity​

In September of 2020 we were alerted to the fact that many professional coaches were exploiting a coaching-feature bug to gain an unfair advantage during matches. You can read about our initial response here.

Since then, ESIC has published the findings of their investigation and the resulting sanctions. You can read about them here.

As our follow up, we have decided that coaches that exploited the camera bug will be ineligible to participate in some number of future Valve-sponsored events–that number to be determined by the extent of the abuse.

The following table translates ESIC demerits into Major ineligibility:

ESIC Demerits	Number of Majors to Miss
3	2
4	3
5	5
6+	All

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In addition to consequences for individuals, we have also thought about how commonly coaches exploited the bug, for how long it went unreported, as well as how common coach stream-sniping accusations have been.

To avoid the diminished integrity of coaching from casting a shadow on the integrity of Valve-sponsored events, we’ll be changing the restrictions on support staff in the following way:

During online matches only players are allowed in the room and on the server. Neither coaches nor any other team staff will be allowed in the room, on the server, or to otherwise communicate with the team during an online match.

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CS:GO’s next Major Championship will be hosted by PGL, and will take place in Stockholm at the Ericsson Globe, October 23rd-November 7th, provided it is safe to hold live competitive events by that time.

Join us in Sweden, or watch all of the matches online with the CS:GO Major’s first 4K 60fps stream!



Twenty-four teams will battle for their share of a $2,000,000 prize pool. Those teams will be identified through a series of Regional Major Ranking (RMR) events throughout the year, initially taking place online and culminating in at least one offline RMR per region prior to the Major. We’ll provide more detail about 2021 RMR events soon.

It has been a long stretch since CS:GO last crowned a Major Champion. Who will rise to the top and claim the title?

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Donating weapons to a teammate in need? Today’s update includes some quality of life upgrades.

2021 Service Medal​

When you reach Global General (Rank 40), you’ll have the option to reset your Profile Rank and earn (or upgrade) a Service Medal. After January 1, 2021 you’ll be able to receive the new 2021 Service Medal, an inspectable display item that will be visible wherever your avatar is shown.

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Majors


When we announced the Rio Major, we were excited to bring a CS:GO Major to one of Counter-Strike’s most passionate fan bases. At the time, we couldn’t have imagined the global challenges that have limited live events throughout 2020.

We’re not going to ask players and fans to risk their health in order to attend a Major while the pandemic still poses a threat to travelers. Therefore, we have made the painful decision to cancel the November Major.

So, what’s the plan? First, we’re going to hold off on scheduling Majors until, at a minimum, Regional Major Ranking (RMR) LAN events are safe to hold around the world. Until then, we expect to continue to hold online RMR events to keep track of the best teams in each region.

Coaching


Recently we’ve been made aware that several coaches of professional CS:GO teams exploited a bug in the game in order to gain an advantage over their opponents. It is unfortunate and frustrating that we did not respond to this bug sooner. But bugs are the reality of software—and until they are resolved, we need to be able to trust players and coaches.

We won’t spend much time here reiterating our stance on the importance of integrity in CS:GO matches. At a minimum, we expect that players and coaches will play by the rules, and immediately pause the match and alert tournament admins if they know of an issue that may give them (or an opponent) an unfair advantage.

Any teams that were disqualified for exploiting this bug during an RMR event will have their RMR points reset.

As for taking action against individual coaches, we’re going to wait until we get a complete picture of the extent of the bug abuse and the punishments handed down by third parties. Regardless of those penalties, mid-match coaching will always be a tempting opportunity for some teams to violate the integrity of the match. So we may also consider limitations to coaching.

We’re looking forward to getting LAN events started again, and hope that we can all find a safe way to do it soon.

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Today’s update includes some networking improvements, updates to Swamp, Mutiny, and Anubis, and an all new weapon case!

The Fracture Collection


Introducing the Fracture Collection, featuring designs from over 17 different community artists, and including the Shattered Web Knives as rare special items!



































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Today we’re introducing two community maps: Swamp and Mutiny. Check them out in Casual or Deathmatch to get your feet wet, and then jump into a Scrimmage for a full match!

There’s more in today’s update, check out the release notes [URL='https://blog.counter-strike.net/index.php/2020/07/30991/']here.
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Today we’re shipping changes to CS:GO that are part of our continuing fight against cheating.

CS:GO now significantly restricts the types of programs and files that can interact with the game.

By default, players will launch CS:GO in Trusted mode, which will block third-party files from interacting with the game.

If you would like to play while using third party software that interacts with CS:GO, launch with the -untrusted launch option. Note that in this case your Trust score may be negatively affected.

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Today we’re shipping an optional beta branch of CS:GO with changes that are part of our continuing fight against cheating. To help out, you can opt in to the beta by following the instructions here.

CS:GO now significantly restricts the types of programs and files that can interact with the game.

In the unlikely event that you launch the game with incompatible files, you will receive a warning indicating the incompatible file and may be blocked from joining VAC-enabled servers. To resolve the issue, you can disable the ‘Trusted Launch’ in your game settings, however this may temporarily impact your trust score.

For developers of third-party programs that interact directly with the CS:GO executable process, we have added requirements that will impact your software. Moving forward, all DLLs that interact with CS:GO will need to be digitally signed with an Authenticode signature. Additionally, we will block signed DLLs if their functionality interferes with the game in any way.

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