All CSGO and CS2 major winners since 2013

Over the past decade, there have been 21 CSGO and CS2 majors held worldwide with 14 different winners claiming victory.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, launched in 2012, is the fourth game in the CS series. Majors began soon after in late 2023, and competitions continued to focus on CSGO until the release of CS2 in 2023. Valve and local tournament organizers usually host three majors a year, with rules and requirements evolving along the way.

From 2013 all the way to today, here’s every CSGO and CS2 major winner so far and a look forward to what’s next.

All CSGO majors winners

Before there was CS2, CSGO ruled for a decade with 20 different majors and major winners. Fans may notice some team names pop up more than once in that time span.

DreamHack Winters 2013

Location: Jonkoping, Sweden

Dates: November 28-30, 2013

Winners: Fnatic

Both playing in and hailing from Sweden, team Fnatic became the first CSGO major winner out of sixteen different competing teams. They took home $100,000 of the $250,000 prize money.

EMS One Katowice 2014 

Location: Katowice, Poland

Dates: March 13-16, 2014

Winners: Virtus.pro

Virtus.pro swept EMS One in Poland with a finals score of 2-0 against Ninjas in Pjyamas. After Dreamhack 2013, the top eight were automatically invited to the next majors as legends, while qualifying and otherwise invited teams were known as challengers. American team iBuyPower and Australian squad Vox Eminor were directly invited to compete in Poland.

ESL One Cologne 2014

Location: Cologne, Germany

Dates: August 14–17, 2014

Winners: Ninjas in Pyjamas

While this may be Ninjas in Pjyamas only win at a CSGO or CS2 major event, it maintained an early competitive streak. The team placed second four different times, twice before their 2014 win and twice after.

DreamHack Winter 2014

Location: Jonkoping, Sweden

Dates: November 27–December 29, 2014

Winners: Team LDLC

Amidst the drama of two cheating scandals in the legends rank, Team LDLC came from qualifiers to win the whole event. Valve also instituted a new format called GSL, where group matches were best of one and teams round robined to see who made it to the playoffs.

Team LDLC disbanded in 2023 and no longer competes in CSGO or CS2 majors.

ESL One Katowice 2015

Location: Katowice, Poland

Dates: March 12-15, 2015

Winners: Fnatic

Two Swedish teams and former CSGO winners, Fnatic and Ninjas in Pjyamas, went head to head for first place – and Fnatic came out on top. The 2015 major also saw the first South American team, Keyd Stars, qualifying for the playoffs in the tournament’s history.

ESL One Cologne 2015

 

Location: Cologne, Germany

Dates: August 20–23, 2015

Winners: Fnatic

ESL One Cologne 2015 was the third and final time that Fnatic won in a global major event. Until MLG Columbus in 2016, it was the first team to win back-to-back major titles. It was also the first tournament where participating team members had to be drug tested, which all came back negative.

DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015

 

Location: Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Dates: October 28 – November 1, 2015

Winners: Team EnVyUs

After placing second in the previous tournament, Team EnVyUs took home the final major title of 2o15. This gave them the chance to best Fnatic, who had knocked them out before.

After rebranding to Team Envy, the American esports team dissolved in 2022.

MLG Columbus 2016

Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA

Dates: March 29–April 3, 2016

Winners: Luminosity Gaming

Brazilian squad Luminosity Gaming became the first non-European team to win a major title. In 2016, Valve raised the prize money from $250,000 to $1 million to be split among all of the teams. In another big change, this was the first tournament not run by ESL or Dreamhack.

ESL One Cologne 2016

Location: Cologne, Germany

Dates: July 5–10, 2016

Winners: SK Gaming

Previously known as Luminosity Gaming, SK Gaming took home its second consecutive major win at Cologne 2016. One notable absence from the legends roster was Ninjas in Pjyamas, who failed to place in the top eight at the previous major for the first time in eight tournaments.

While SK Gaming no longer has a CSGO or CS2 presence, the team can still be found competing in League of Legends and Valorant among other esports.

Eleague Major 2017

Location: Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Dates: January 22–29, 2017

Winners: Astralis

Danish esports team Astralis first became major winners in 2017 after participating in nine playoffs since 2013, and it continues to compete in the CS2 age. Interestingly, Eleague also held a rematch between Astralis and second-place team Virtus.pro in June of 2017 with a cash prize of $250,000. With knowledge of their later streak, no one was surprised that Astralis won that too.

PGL Major: Krakow 2017

Location: Krakow, Poland

Dates: July 16–23, 2017

Winners: Gambit Esports

An underdog compared to teams like Astralis and Fnatic, Gambit Esports managed to defeat both and go on to win its first and only major. The runner-up team, Immortals, also defeated Virtus.pro to get to the final game in an upset.

Gambit Esports is no longer active after bans on Russian esports teams were enacted in 2022. It sold the roster to Cloud9 the same year.

Eleague Major: Boston 2018

Location: Atlanta, Georgia (group stage) and Boston, Massachusetts (playoff stage), USA

Dates: January 12–28, 2018

Winners: Cloud9

Cloud9 came from the bottom eight at the 2017 PGL tournament to win the entire Eleague Major. Notably, it is the only North American team to take home first place at a CSGO or CS2 major.

The 2018 Eleague Major is the only CS tournament to take place in two different locations. Additionally, Valve increased the number of qualifying teams from 16 to 24 and revamped the format into a Swiss-style challengers round, group stage legends, and playoffs champions.

FACEIT Major: London 2018

Location: London, UK

Dates: September 5–23, 2018

Winners: Astralis

After its core team failed to make it to Boston in January 2018, Astralis regained their returning legend status and took home the gold. Valve and FACEIT also added in the Buchholz system for seeding in the Swiss stage, where teams with more wins earned higher seeds.

IEM Katowice Major 2019

Location: Katowice, Poland

Dates: February 13–March 3, 2019

Winners: Astralis

Astralis became the third team in CS majors history to win two consecutive tournaments. ESL returned to host its first major since 2016 and removed the Buchholz system for Elo rating along with making all progression or elimination methods best of three.

StarLadder Major: Berlin 2019

Location: Berlin, Germany

Dates: August 23–September 8, 2019

Winners: Astralis

Astralis ends its four majors era at Berlin 2019. It is the only team to win more than three times so far, as well as the only team to win three majors in a row. Player Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz also earned a record as the second person to win MVP twice.

PGL Major Stockholm 2021

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Dates: October 26–November 7, 2021

Winner: Natus Vincere

Natus Vincere dominated Stockholm 2021, not losing a single map during the entire tournament. For this major only, Valve combined the prize money that would have been given out in 2020 and 2021 for a total of $2 million. The previously scheduled IEM Rio Major 2020 was canceled due to the global pandemic. Additionally, organizers switched to using Regional Major Ranking points to seed in the new challengers Stage, followed by the Buchholz system.

PGL Major Antwerp 2022

Location: Antwerp, Belgium

Dates: May 9–22, 2022

Winners: FaZe Clan

Long-time competitor FaZe Clan dethroned Natus Vincere and won its first major since it debuted in 2015. MVP Håvard “rain” Nygaard is the longest-lasting CS team member of any team, having been with FaZe Clan from the beginning. Furthermore, FaZe Clan is the first team to win with an international player base. Many of FaZe’s major winners remain on the team in the CS2 era.

EM Rio Major 2022

Location: Rio de Janiero, Brazil

Dates: October 31–November 13, 2022

Winners: Outsiders

Previously operating under the name Virtus.pro, the Outsiders organization took on all the organization’s teams in 2022. Created to get around sanctions against Russia in 2o22, the squad team disbanded shortly after winning the Rio Major.

Valve raised the prize money to $1.25 million during the Rio Major and has kept consistent with that number since. The price of some recent stickers mirrors the overall increase in major prize money,

BLAST Paris Major 2023

Location: Paris, France

Dates: May 8–May 21, 2023

Winners: Team Vitality

In its first win, Team Vitality is the last of the CSGO major winners before Valve switched to CS2. The previous winners Outsiders became the only previous champion not to qualify for the following majors.

Paris also marks a special event for player Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen. The event was his fifth major win since the tournament began. Previously a member of Astralis, he competed with Team Vitality for 2022 and the first half of 2023. Dupreeh now plays for Team Falcons.

CS2 major winners

After CS2 came out on September 27, 2023, tournament organizers switched focus away from CSGO. All following major winners earned their titles in CS2.

PGL Major Copenhagen 2024

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark

Dates: March 17–31, 2024

Winners: Natus Vincere

Natus Vincere became the first winners of a CS2 major tournament. This is the company’s second win in the history of CSGO and now CS2, having come in as runner-up four different times since 2015.

Valve announced that it would be renaming the stages to opening stage, elimination stage, and playoffs Stage. Additionally, the developer began including global rankings for seeding that prioritizes consistency over underdog wins.

Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024

Location: Shanghai, China

Dates: December 1–15, 2024

Winners: TBD

Ahead of competitions for the next majors in Shanghai, Valve has canceled open qualifiers for North America, Europe, and South America. Notably, this means that new teams won’t be able to participate in majors since they would have to place on the CS2 leaderboards. Natus Vincere and Team Vitality remain favorites to go to the Shanghai tournament. However, only one can become the latest CS2 major winners, and plenty of other squads are vying for the throne.

The most recent scheduled CS2 major event is hosted by BLAST and set in Austin, Texas. Tournament games will take place from June 9-22, 2025. With the event this far out, it’s impossible to place any certain bets on future CS2 major winners. But after looking at a decade of tournaments, players are likely to catch a few familiar names.