Who can still make the Counter-Strike 2 Budapest Major?
Last week’s Fissure Playground 2 and StarSeries Season 19 tournaments saw decisive moments in the race to make the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025, with more to come in the coming days as the October 6 invite date looms large.
VRS (Valve Regional Standings) may be a system which gathers data over the season to establish Major invites, but that does not prevent certain decisive moments from arising and changing the course of a season.
Where do EU teams stand for Budapest Major invites?
For Liquid, that moment came at Fissure. As Liquid announced the departure of Twistzz, they announced their arrival at the Budapest Major as a semi-final run propelled them up the rankings.
According to EPIC.LAN administrator and statistician Finn ‘Mischief’ Farrer, Liquid sat at a 20.7% of making the major on September 2, but are now within touching distance of starting the major in Stage 2 having essentially secured their spot in Budapest.
Organisations have fundamentally changed their relationship with Counter-Strike in order to maximise their chances of making the major, chief amongst them Ninjas in Pyjamas, who started 2025 with no VRS points due to assembling a new core.
As such, the organisation has had to be pragmatic and calculated in constructing the team’s schedule.
That pragmatism saw NiP be one of the early European attendees of NA LAN, Fragadelphia, winning the April Las Vegas event and finishing runner-up during the September Fragville event.
Following another runner-up placement, this time in StarLadder’s relatively fallow eight-team field, NiP have one leg in the Budapest Major.
Looking at NiP’s historic rivals, Fnatic, we see a diverging pattern.
Fnatic have tanked their chances of appearing at the major due to highly impactful losses online against relatively low-ranked teams ESC, Alliance, and Ecstatic.
Fnatic currently have a head-to-head adjustment (an Elo style modifer on VRS) of -156 due to such losses, hugely damaging their standing.
The roster is due to attend two LANs before the Major invite cutoff: Birch Cup and Blocktober LAN. They will need outstanding results, potentially at both, to make it to the Major.
BetBoom sits in a similar position. The roster have suffered recent losses to ESC and Partizan that have damaged their standing, and thinned their vanishing chances at the major.
But the Russian roster, led by PGL Stockholm Major 2021 winner Kirill ‘boombl4’ Mikhailov, are due to attend LanDaLan 3, an eight-team LAN in which they will be one of the favourites for the event alongside Parivision, who also have an outside chance at the major.
As for B8, the talented young Ukrainian roster are attending the first stage of Pro League Season 22.
The event has huge upside potential for the roster, as wins against strong opposition, combined with the $500,000 of ‘Event Weight’ (essentially prize money for the event, which is allocated to the first stage), means progressing here could book B8 a ticket to the major.
The downside is that the field is much more competitive than StarSeries, where B8 finished third, losing to Parivision and NiP in the process.
A similar upside can not be explained for Gentle Mates. The Spanish roster, who won EPIC 45 as Iberian Soul, most likely lost their last chance in their StarSeries defeat to B8.
They will have to play online matches for Elo and hope that their opponents slip up.
SAW are currently the most likely to fall out of a Major slot, but are attending Blocktober LAN in NA.
NA prepares for climactic Frag Blocktober in the race to the Major
Similar to NiP, Passion UA (ex-Complexity) essentially booked their spot at the major with the 101 VRS points earned at StarSeries Season 19, despite a disappointing 5th-6th finish.
While the headlines surrounding Frag’s ‘Blocktober’ event surrounded the European attendees, the event was eventually expanded to 48 teams, 44 of whom are known.
The list includes more than a few rosters with an outside chance of making the Major, namely Sharks, Marsborne, and a Wildcard who are attempting to recover from a managerial disasterclass.
Wildcard are the most likely to climb into major contention of the three, potentially usurping Bestia or 9z in the process, both of whom are attending the event.
Bestia missed the BLAST.tv Austin Major, despite qualifying, due to Visa issues. As such, progression would mean a lot to a roster that missed a vital opportunity and an organisation that lost valuable sticker money.
Budapest Major picture: Can Mongolia nab another Asia VRS spot?
There’s no doubt that at least one Mongolian team will be at the Major. The MongolZ, the number 1 team in the current VRS, are, of course, guaranteed to be there.
Happily, there will likely be another Mongolian roster again, with The Huns in a strong position alongside Tyloo, Lynn Vision, and FlyQuest.
Rare Atom are the lowest team projected to qualify, with a third Mongolian roster in Chinngis Warriors benefiting from Mongolia’s strong LAN event culture to be within touching distance.
Will Mongolia make it a 1,2,3 for Budapest? Unlikely, but it would be a historic achievement for a country of only 3.5 million people.
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