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EU has the best teams in CS2 by a country mile, which makes the region’s Shanghai Major RMR the one to watch.
Counter-Strike 2 started off with a bang at the Copenhagen Major, where Natus Vincere earned an unexpected victory to become the game’s inaugural champion. Now, 31 other teams will get a chance to claim the crown for themselves in China. The EU RMR for the Shanghai Major will start on November 17, 2024, and the top 14 teams will qualify to attend the prestigious event. As with previous years, the format for the European RMR is slightly different from the other regions.
With so many teams to cover, a few stand out as particular favorites to win tickets to China.
Here are all 32 teams competing in the Shanghai Major EU RMR in alphabetical order and which ones are most likely to succeed at the event.
Of these teams, quite a few stand out as practically guaranteed to advance to the major. Here’s a short list of the top 14 teams attending the RMR, as ranked by HLTV.
It would be a major shock if the top half of that list didn’t all make the event. Defending champion Natus Vincere is in great form entering the event, with a win at the Esports World Cup and silver at Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2024 under Vitality. The French squad will also be a leader at the Shanghai EU RMR, and few teams can hope to take a game under the watchful scope of Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut. G2 Esports should be a shoo-in as well, but recent roster rumors surrounding Nikola “NiKo” Kovač hint at internal trouble. Still, the team should squeeze by with a 3-1 record.
The middle of the pack is where things get interesting. Ninjas in Pyjamas is as streaky as they come, failing to qualify for IEM Rio despite earning silver at YaLLa Compass 2024 in June. 3DMAX is in a similar spot, winning a shock gold at Skyesports Championship 2024 but falling on its face earlier this month at CCT Season 2 Series #8. As previous RMRs have taught fans, consistency isn’t always the most valuable trait when fighting for a major spot. As for top teams with dumpster potential, HEROIC has yet to find its footing after a honeymoon event with Abdulkhalik “degster” Gasanov. G2 also fits the bill, but İsmailсan “XANTARES” Dörtkardeş’s recent flops put Eternal Fire’s chances down to a coin flip.
In addition, there are a few teams that could land upsets to attend the major. BIG and BetBoom Team hover just below the top 14 ranked teams attending the Shanghai Major EU RMR. Russian roster Aurora Gaming could also sneak in with a good performance from rising AWPer Denis “deko” Zhukov. Sashi Esport enters as a potential dark horse. The Danish stack earned a spot with big wins over AMKAL and OG in the closed qualifier.
The Shanghai Major EU RMR format will be a Swiss system three-wins-and-in event split into two groups.
After being split into groups of 16, each group will play eight matches according to seeding. After the first round, teams that won will be matched against other winners while losers play losers. From then on, the RMR will match teams with the same record against each other. The first seven teams in the EU RMR to earn three wins will advance to the Shanghai Major. The first two rounds will be entirely best-of-one, but advancement and elimination matches will be best-of-three. The entire event will take five rounds of competition, which will take place over three days for each group.
Tournament organizer Perfect World has not revealed the groups for the European RMR yet, but it will likely seed teams according to the ranking list above. Teams outside of the HLTV rankings will be judged at the TO’s discretion. Group A will compete first and group B will round out the event.
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