Most popular CS2 esports events in 2025: Competitive Counter-Strike explained

Building upon the legacy of its predecessor, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO), Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) has made waves in the esports world since its launch in 2023. With IEM, PGL, and ESL leading the charge, this tactical shooter has a packed monthly line-up of Tier-1 CS2 esports events. 

With plenty of exciting CS2 tournaments, the competitive scene is thriving in 2025. It rivals esports titans like League of Legends, Valorant, and Dota 2 in terms of viewership, prize pools, and sheer talent on display, with incredible teams and pro players. 

Let’s take a look at the most popular Counter-Strike events and tournaments this year. 

For 2025, Valve, the creator of Counter-Strike, has streamlined the CS2 ecosystem, ensuring that “professional Counter-Strike remains an open sport, where teams are only limited by their ability.” Valve’s intervention has brought back many familiar tournament organisers, creating an action-packed schedule of nearly 30 Tier-1 events—almost one every two weeks. 

Here are 10 of the most highly anticipated tournaments in the 2025 CS2 events calendar.  

Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) events are among some of the biggest CS2 events of the year, under the aegis of ESL and long-time sponsor Intel. There are typically five of these each year, as part of the broader ESL Pro Tour. This year, we have: IEM Katowice, IEM Melbourne, IEM Dallas, IEM Cologne, and IEM Chengdu. 

We also have the CS2 Major Championships, better known as CS2 Majors, to look forward to. Majors have been a cornerstone of the Counter-Strike scene since their inception in 2013, making them some of the year’s most anticipated events. 

The former marks the first Valve Major held on U.S. soil for over seven years, featuring 30 participating teams, while the latter, with 32 teams, will bring the year to a close. 

One of the year’s major talking points is the September Skyesports Championship. With Asia’s booming esports marketing, this CS2 tournament is positioned as the region’s crown jewel, bringing competitive Counter-Strike to a broader, global audience. 

Following the transition from Global Offensive, Counter-Strike has gone from strength to strength. In 2025, most CS2 esports events are pulling in hundreds of thousands of peak viewers, with IEM Dallas 2025 reaching 800K just two days into the event, according to Esports Charts. 

Despite stiff competition from other esports, CS2 remained the most-watched esport on Twitch in Q1 2025, collecting an impressive 99.16 million hours watched. This success is thanks to an almost non-stop tournament calendar, with multiple top-tier events every month. 

Among the main events were ESL Pro League Season 21 and IEM Katowice – one of the best-known standalone esports tournaments in the world, single-handedly putting the Polish city of Katowice on the world esports map. The IEM Katowice Grand Final, held on February 9, surpassed the 2024 viewership with 1.3 million unique viewers. 

The official PGL Bucharest viewership statistics were also impressive. This marked the organiser’s second international CS2 event of the year after PGL Cluj-Napoca. With data drawn from Esports Charts, each match broadcast averaged 198K viewers, with peak viewership just over 510K concurrent watchers. 

While the second CS2 Esports World Cup (EWC) is still a few months away, we can look to last year’s numbers for context. The inaugural event recorded 756K peak viewers, hitting multiple key metrics as a viewership success for esports. There’s little doubt that the CS2 EWC will reach even greater heights this year, with more teams set to compete. 

Esports betting sites go hand-in-hand with streaming platforms like Twitch to further boost those viewership numbers. Thanks to online sportsbooks, fans can back their favourite teams or place their faith in an underdog, adding a layer of excitement to each CS2 match. There’s a huge selection of dedicated esports betting platforms available, including BetWhale, BetOnline, BetUS, MyBookie, and BetNow, where players can find CS2 live odds, betting markets, bonuses, and other features tailored specifically for tournament wagering. 

It’s no secret that CS2 is one of the highest-paying esports in the world, and 2025 proves it tenfold. Many CS2 events on this year’s schedule – like IEM Katowice, IEM Cologne, and IEM Dallas – each bring $1 million prize pools. 

Adding even more incentive, these IEM events are stops on the road to the Intel Grand Slam, a prestigious reward that grants $1 million in bonus prize money to any team that wins four ESL-organised events within a ten-event window. The latest team to secure the ESL Grand Slam title was Team Vitality at IEM Melbourne earlier this year, with legendary players ZyWoO and apEX leading the charge. The Grand Slam race resets at IEM Dallas. 

This summer, the Esports World Cup in Riyadh has completely redefined what it means to go big in esports. The total prize pool across all 25 esports titles is $70 million, with $1.25 million earmarked for the CS2 Esports World Cup event alone, according to Liquipedia. This puts it on par with both PGL Bucharest and the BLAST. Tv Austin Major in terms of payouts. 

In addition to this impressive prize fund, the EWC has introduced a unique Club Championship system, where organisations can earn performance-based rewards across multiple games, incentivising dominance beyond just CS2. For top-tier organisations fielding teams across multiple disciplines like Dota 2, CS2, and League of Legends, this means there’s even more money up for grabs. 

Even second-tier tournaments like Skyesports Championship in Asia and the Thunderpick World Championship are pushing impressive prize pots, with half a million and close to $850K, respectively. With prize pools like these, it’s clear that CS2 isn’t just thriving competitively – it’s setting the gold standard for financial rewards in esports.

The CS2 scene is dominated by big names in the esports space, as well as some lesser-known squads, with literally hundreds of different esports organisations. As seen on Liquipedia, these CS2 teams are dotted across the globe, but are mostly concentrated in Europe. Many of these teams have become synonymous with the game itself, like FaZe Clan, Team Liquid, G2 Esports, and MOUZ, to name a few. 

To find the best CS2 teams, you can take a look at the Valve Regional Standings (VRS) rankings, which paint a picture of how the world’s top teams are positioned. The VRS is the primary factor that decides which teams attend CS2 Majors each year, with four sets of CS2 ranks: one global standings and three regional standings – Europe, the Americas, and APAC. 

According to the official VRS rankings in May 2025, here are the top ten CS2 teams and their current points: 

But let’s take a closer look at some of the teams that make up the CS2 pro scene we all love so much: 

Current roster

Team Vitality, from Europe, is one to watch. It is headed by long-time captain apEX. Alongside ZywOo, these two players have been at the heart of the roster ever since the team was established in 2018, achieving remarkable success. 

As you can see from the VRS rankings, Vitality stands best of the rest as of May 2025, having lifted not one, but two IEM trophies already this year, while claiming the Intel Grand Slam award. They’ve secured $6.2 million in prize money throughout their tenure and have won 17 S-tier trophies, including a CS2 Major. 

Current roster

Currently ranked fourth globally, Team Spirit has been a mainstay of competitive Counter-Strike for almost a decade. However, 2024 was the real turning point for the Russian squad at IEM Katowice 2024, where they bested the legendary FaZe Clan with a dominant 3-0 at the Spodek Arena. 

From there, Team Spirit claimed their first-ever Major win at Perfect World Shanghai, triumphing over Counter-Strike legends like Team Liquid and MOUZ. They have since been crowned the PGL Astana champions in 2025.

Current roster

MOUZ, formerly known as mousesports, are anything but timid. They’ve been a staple of the pro-CS scene since 2002 and have recently been stringing together multiple top-10 performances across multiple competitions.