Luci Kelemen Profile - Dot Esports

From 2025 onwards, the Counter-Strike Majors will feature 32 teams as opposed to the previous 24, with an extra Swiss Stage to accommodate the expansion. Other changes are also coming into play as we get nearer to the BLAST Austin Major—here’s everything you need to know about it.

New CS2 Major format, summarized

For the first time since 2018, a change is being made to the Counter-Strike Majors, growing the event from 24 teams to 32 and adjusting the way teams can qualify for the showpiece esports event. The basics of the existing Swiss format remain, but an extra stage is tacked on to make room for the eight extra teams involved.

Three maps, 13-11 on the decider. It was as close as it could have been between the two teams that contested the first big final of 2024 to conclude the Counter-Strike year, and in the end, youth triumphed over experience as Spirit barely edged out FaZe in a fantastic series.

The professional Counter-Strike year really truly began with IEM Katowice and the emergence of donk, with the grand final pitting Spirit and FaZe against each other. That time, it was a 3-0 romp in favor of the CIS squad, but the dominance it augured didn’t come to pass. Ten months later, after a topsy-turvy year, both teams defied expectations to make it to the grand final of the Shanghai Major, and they put on an incredible show.

There is no better way to round up a season of professional competition than with the most pivotal tournament. That’s why everyone’s beyond excited about the Perfect World Shanghai Counter-Strike 2 Major, the first Valve-sponsored event in the franchise to take place in Asia.

In the past, Majors usually took place in the late spring and in the middle of fall. Valve decided to give a twist to the calendar by scheduling Perfect World Shanghai CS2 Major right before the winter break, finishing the season with a bang. And it will truly be a blast, since the strongest teams in the world have made it to the tournament by competing in the RMRs.

After years of holding the CS:GO and Counter-Strike 2 Majors in Europe or the Americas, Valve is finally bringing the tournament to Asia. Shanghai, one of the biggest cities on the continent, will be the first to host the CS2 tournament.

The Chinese Major will feature 24 teams from all over the world. With the RMRs currently taking place in Shanghai, we have a list of all the squads who have already booked their flights to the event.

For the first time in three years, grandmaster Ian Nepomniachtchi won’t play a part in the world chess championship match. Don’t worry, though, he’ll keep himself busy: for the next few days, he will occupy himself by participating in a streamer-focused Dota tournament, and he’s got quite the MOBA credentials.

Eagle-eyed redditors spotted yesterday that the eighth edition of BetBoom’s Streamers Battle Dota 2 will feature a player familiar to a different clan of nerds: playing under the Goodwin Team banner is none other than the world’s eight-highest-ranked chess player and back-to-back challenger for the classical world championship title, Ian Nepomniachtchi.

Today’s Connections puzzle in the New York Times features a tricky word in the easiest group, and while the puzzle is solvable even if you have no clue what it is, it is still worth asking—what does “cask” mean, and how does it fit the solution? We’ve got you covered with the answers and hints you need.

What is ‘Cask’ in Connections hints and answer (Nov. 10)

Per Merriam-Webster, a cask is “a barrel-shaped vessel of staves, headings, and hoops usually for liquids,” or the quantity contained within a cask. Odd and rarely-used the word may be, it is actually part of the yellow group of words in today’s Connections puzzle, the easiest of the bunch. Unsurprisingly, many players today ended up finding other groups first in this one. I personally got the purple one first because of how much the words involved stood out in their sheer oddity, figuring out the yellow group in third place.

The international squad of G2 quickly got over their disappointment in Rio to produce an impressive showing in Singapore, setting themselves up well for the upcoming CS2 Major RMRs.

The final BLAST event of the partnered era ended with the convincing victory of a much-maligned international squad as G2 continued to prove the doubters wrong with another impressive result since they brought in Snax to replace HooXi in the IGL position. Not a bad way to prepare for what is to come.

The chess world has its eyes on the upcoming classical World Chess Championship match between title holder Ding Liren and young challenger Gukesh Dommaraju in a titanic clash that will decide who the best chess players in the world not named Magnus Carlsen.

All joking aside, the world chess championship is always a momentous occasion and there have been many other times in the history of the royal game when it wasn’t the clear number one and number two contesting the title. (Anand-Gelfand, anyone?) It still remains the crown jewel of the chess world and it is a must-watch event of epic proportions, with a huge impact on the community.

NAVI’s Major win may have seemed like a fluke back in March, but the team is now looking like one of the generational greats, capping another tournament run with a victory after mighty struggles in the playoffs, with a huge comeback on Ancient to score a 3-1 win against MOUZ.

After an impressive display of resilience in the semifinals against Heroic, NAVI had to dig deep once again in the grand final. It may not have seemed like it would come to this considering how Aleksib’s squad raced to a 2-0 lead over MOUZ, courtesy of wins on Inferno and Dust2, with the second being a 13-2 trouncing, but it’s a testament to their young opponents’ mettle that they battled back with a 13-6 win on Mirage and got a monstrous 10-2 CT half on Ancient, which seemed to all but set up a decider on Nuke.

As Deadlock‘s a multiplayer title that pits players against other players, many naturally want to know where they stand in the global rankings. Valve hasn’t yet put together a ranked leaderboard, so third-party sites were filling the gap with their own MMR systems—until they were allowed to, that is.

Here’s what we know about your MMR in Deadlock and Deadlock Tracker right now.