Austin Major Pick’em Challenge - Format & Predictions

The first CS2 major of 2025 is just around the corner and with it comes the pick’em challenge. The BLAST.tv Austin Major will be the first major since the integration of the Valve Ranking System (VRS) into the professional circuit. The major also features a total of 32 teams as opposed to 24 teams thus, adding another stage to the major which means that instead of 3 stages there’s 4 stages now; which are also renamed. The current format for the major now is:

• Stage 1 (16 teams from the Major Regional Qualifiers)

• Stage 2 (8 teams from Stage 1 and 8 teams invited via the VRS)

• Stage 3 (8 teams from Stage 2 and 8 teams invited via the VRS)

• Playoffs (Top 8 teams from Stage 3)

The slots for the 16 invited team were based on their regions performance in the previous major (Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024). So the invites for each stage were as follows for the regions:

• Stage 1 (6 Europe, 6 Americas, 4 Asia)

• Stage 2 (4 Europe, 4 Americas)

• Stage 3 (6 Europe, 1 Americas, 1 Asia)

The highest ranked team in their respective region were placed in Stage 3 after that the rest were placed in Stage 2. There were no teams invited to Stage 1 and they had to battle their way through the regional qualifiers in order to qualify for the major however, their regions performance in the previous major affected the amount of slots that were available to qualify from.

Austin Major Pick’em Challenge - Format

The format for the pick’em challenge is the same as the last couple of majors however, there is an extra stage now so instead of having a maximum of 9 points there are 11 total points that players can obtain by taking part in the pick’em challenge for each stage. The points needed for coin upgrades are as follows:

• Bronze (Activate your coin before the tournament ends)

• Silver (Obtain 4 points)

• Gold (Obtain 7 points)

• Diamond (Obtain all 11 points)

Stage 1 follows the same swiss-stage rules as other opening stages so you need to select the 2 teams that will go 3-0 and 0-3 and 6 other teams that will end up qualifying as either 3-1 or 3-2 score. 

This leaves less room for error as the teams score needs to be correct for it to count meaning that if you pick a team to qualify in the 3-1 / 3-2 spot but they qualify with a 3-0 score then it will count as an incorrect guess. Keeping in mind that the first day usually has 2 Best-of-one matches, upsets are much likely to happen.

Austin Major Pick’em Challenge - Stage 1 Predictions

For stage 1 of the Austin Major, this could be a pretty hard pick’em stage as most teams are on an equal level and whichever team shows up on a particular day could win their match-up.

Here are my predictions for the first stage including a few extra teams to choose from to make your pick’ems for the opening stage of the Austin Major:

3-0 Teams

• Heroic

• Complexity

• OG

• Wildcard

3-1/3-2 Qualifying Teams

• OG

• BetBoom Team

• NRG

• B8

• Imperial Esports

• Metizport

• Nemiga Gaming

• Wildcard

• FlyQuest

0-3 Eliminated Teams

• Chinggis Warriors

• Fluxo

• Lynn Vision Gaming

Do keep in mind that some teams may be repeated in the 3-0 and the other bracket as they could either win or lose a game depending on the match-up or if they are not in form on any particular day of the stage. Also, these are just my predictions make sure to do your own research as well before making the picks.