Valve Cancels Qualifiers for StarLadder Budapest Major 2025

Valve has officially announced that it will cancel the Major Regional Qualifiers (MRQ) for the upcoming StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 in Counter-Strike 2 (CS2). The information was shared on the official website of the tournament organizers.

According to the announcement, all 32 slots for the next Major will be determined based on the Valve Regional Standings (VRS). Team invitations will be sent out on October 8, 2025. StarLadder also published Valve’s official statement on the decision.

"One of the goals of VRS is to standardize community tournaments so they can integrate seamlessly with Majors. At this stage, we believe that a separate Major qualifier cycle is unnecessary and disrupts the seasonal flow. Therefore, we have decided to cancel the Fall 2025 MRQ. Instead, the 32 teams participating in the Budapest Major will be directly invited based on the VRS rankings."

The StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 is scheduled to run from November 24 to December 14, featuring 32 teams and a $1.25 million prize pool. The event will take place in Hungary. Initially, it was expected that 16 of the best teams from the Valve Regional Standings would receive direct invitations, while the remaining participants would qualify through regional qualifiers in Asia, the Americas, and Europe.

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