Major Regional Qualifiers, 32 Team Majors outlined in Major Rulebook update

Valve has published an update to the Major Supplemental Rulebook for 2025. The update confirms the expansion of Majors to 32 Team events alongside the introduction of the Major Regional Qualifiers, replacing the existing Regional Major Ranking (RMR) events. Here's everything outlined in the new update.

The imminent expansion of CS2 Majors was first reported in October, outlining the 32-team major structure. Despite a lack of any official confirmations so far, BLAST's tweet counting down to the Austin Major all but confirmed the change. Now Valve has finally confirmed the expansion thanks to the update in the Major Supplemental Rulebook.

The update not only confirms the expansion, but also shares the details of the format that the Majors will now use. The initial reports suggested that RMR events may be scrapped altogether. Instead, Major Regional Qualifiers will replace the RMRs. MRQ events will then qualify teams to the Major, featuring three stages of Swiss play. This puts to rest the speculation about a potential return of GSL groups to the Majors. Instead, the Buchholz-seeded Swiss will remain the prevailing standard.

The Regional Major Ranking events were originally conceived as a series of qualifying events that would earn teams RMR points. These RMR points would then be used to qualify teams to the Major. However, following the introduction singular RMR events starting in 2022, the name lost its meaning. Thus, while the events remain the same in spirit, Valve has decided to rename the RMRs to Major Regional Qualifiers. The change neatly drops the "Ranking" from the name, separating it from the VRS-system that will dominate CS2's circuit.

Major Regional Qualifiers will follow the same format as the outgoing RMRs, but with size-able slot redistribution. Instead of qualifying all 24 teams to the Majors, MRQ events will now qualify just the 16 Stage 1 teams. The 16 teams comprising Stage 2 and Stage 3 will instead be directly invited to the event based on the VRS.

All in all, the changes essentially follow the pattern of changes we observed back in 2018, when the Majors first expanded from 16-24 teams. What was once the Major Qualifier (RMR) now becomes the first stage of the major, with RMR Closed Qualifiers now renamed to MRQs. Still, the expansion will result in 8 more teams earning a portion of the Major sticker revenue, possibly bolstering Tier 2 finances as CS2 continues to grow further.

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