It's that time of the year again: a time of celebration and a time to enjoy the biggest, crowning Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) event of the year. We are, of course, talking about the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, a tournament that no esports fan should miss out on. Here's what you need to know.

The Perfect World Shanghai Major takes place in Shanghai, China...obviously. A total of 24 teams are competing for their share of the massive $1.25 million prize pool. At the current Dollar to Rand exchange rate, that's roughly R22.6 million to fight for.

The action begins with the Opening Stage this weekend, running from 30 November to 3 December 2024. Then, the Elimination Stage will take place from 5 to 8 December. Finally, the Playoffs Stage will run over the weekend of 12 to 15 December, and we'll see a champion get crowned that Sunday. The first two stages both feature 16 Team Swiss System Format, with the top eight teams moving on. The Playoffs Stage features a single-elimination bracket, where all matches are BO3.

• Wildcard
• The MongolZ
• Complexity Gaming
• FlyQuest
• BIG
• Rare Atom
• Team Liquid
• MIBR
• FURIA Esports
• paiN Gaming
• Imperial Esports
• Fnatic
• Cloud9
• GamerLegion
• Virtus.pro
• Passion UA

• G2 Esports
• NAVI
• Team Vitality
• MOUZ
• FaZe Clan
• Team Spirit
• HEROIC
• 3DMax

Thanks to their standings on Valve's leaderboards, eight teams have qualified directly to the Elimination Stage. You can watch all the Perfect World Shanghai Major main event matches via the PGL Twitch channel. Stay tuned, as we'll bring you the results throughout the next few weeks.

Header image via Perfect World.