Singapore Major Preview: 32 Teams, s1mple's Return and FalleN's Farewell
The first Counter-Strike 2 Major in Southeast Asia starts on November 24. Dates, format, tickets, the full field and the five stories to follow before the final on December 13.
The last time a Counter-Strike Major came to Asia, a 17-year-old from Tomsk called donk won it and became the youngest MVP in the game's history. That was Shanghai in December 2024. Two years on, the Major returns to the continent, and this time to a region that has never hosted one.
The PGL Major Singapore 2026 begins on Tuesday, November 24 and ends with a best-of-five grand final on Sunday, December 13 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium. It is the second CS2 Major of the year, the first ever held in Southeast Asia, and the fifth Major run by Romanian organiser PGL. 32 teams play for a $1.25 million prize pool.
Dates and format
The event follows the three-stage Swiss format used since 2025:
- Stage 1: November 24-27, 16 teams
- Stage 2: November 28 to December 1, the 8 Stage 1 survivors plus 8 invited teams
- Stage 3: December 2-6, 16 teams, best-of-three matches
- Playoffs: December 10-13 at the Singapore Indoor Stadium, eight teams in a single-elimination bracket
The arena seats more than 12,000. Sessions start at 5pm local time (6pm KST, 09:00 UTC) from December 10 to 12, and the final day starts at 2pm (3pm KST, 06:00 UTC). Tickets went on sale on February 25 through Ticketmaster Singapore, priced from S$144 for the quarterfinal day to S$369 for the final, before booking fees.
Who is in it
All 32 places were decided by Valve Regional Standings (VRS) rankings, with the final cut-off in early November. Our VRS explainer shows how that works.
- Stage 3 (straight into the last Swiss stage): Team Spirit, Team Vitality, FURIA, MOUZ, Aurora Gaming, Team Falcons, Legacy, BetBoom Team
- Stage 2: FUT Esports, Natus Vincere, 1win, MIBR, Nemiga Gaming, G2 Esports, Astralis, The MongolZ
- Stage 1: Ninjas in Pyjamas, HEROIC, Eternal Fire, Team Liquid, M80, Imperial, BC.Game, FlyQuest, PARIVISION, FaZe Clan, 100 Thieves, 9z, DENDELE, Wildcard, Chinggis Warriors, Lynn Vision
Fnatic, NRG and paiN are among the notable absentees. 100 Thieves, 1win, BC.Game and DENDELE are making their Major debuts.
Five storylines
1. Can Falcons defend? Team Falcons won the IEM Cologne Major in June by sweeping FURIA 3-0, giving NiKo his first Major after years of near misses. The last team to win back-to-back Majors was Vitality, in 2025.
2. Vitality's revenge. Team Vitality won both Majors of 2025 and three of the five Majors before Cologne, where Falcons knocked them out in the quarterfinals. ZywOo, the record three-time Major MVP, has kept winning trophies since. Read our ZywOo profile.
3. s1mple is back. Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, the Ukrainian star who led Natus Vincere to the 2021 Major, returns to the Major stage with BC.Game, which qualified through the Asian region of the rankings.
4. FalleN's last dance. Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo, who won two Majors in 2016, has announced he will retire at the end of 2026. Singapore, with FURIA seeded straight into Stage 3, may be his final Major.
5. Spirit and donk. Team Spirit arrives in strong form: third in Cologne, then champion of the Esports World Cup in August. Its star donk, the 2024 Shanghai MVP, is the obvious favourite for individual honours.
Who we think wins
Our pick, for what it is worth, is a final between Team Spirit and Team Vitality, the two most consistent teams of the second half of the season, with Falcons the team most likely to spoil it. The format rewards depth: Stage 3 is all best-of-three, so a single bad map no longer ends a run.
What it means
Singapore is a test of Counter-Strike's reach. The only previous Asian Major was in Shanghai, in a country where the game has a long history. Singapore has to draw fans from across Southeast Asia, a region where mobile games dominate esports viewing. A full Indoor Stadium for a PC shooter would be a strong signal for Valve and for organisers planning the 2027 Majors in Buenos Aires and Shanghai.
For history buffs, our Majors history covers every winner since 2013. Counter-Strike 2 is free to play on Steam if you want to warm up before the first map on November 24.