Draft:2024 Esports World Cup – Counter-Strike 2

The Counter-Strike 2 tournament for the 2024 Esports World Cup is a global tournament organized by ESL and the Esports World Cup Foundation, and scheduled to be held from July 17–21 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This is the inaugural appearance of the title in the tournament, with 15 teams competing in the tournament which has a $1,000,000 prize pool.

Background
The game is the second confirmed title to be played in the tournament, with Starcraft II being the first one. It was also revealed then that the champion of the IEM Katowice 2024 would secure outright qualifications to three upcoming tournaments later in the year: IEM Cologne 2024, Blast Premier World Final 2024, and to the EWC. On May 13, it was then told by esports journalist Richard Lewis that the event would not accept esports athletes to compete under the Russian flag, due to the guidance handed by the International Esports Federation. It can be recalled that 11 esports athletes in the CS2 tournament have Russian nationality, thus forcing the Russian governing body for Esports, Russian Esports Federation, to withdraw from the event (including its qualifiers) entirely due to the move called being 'illegal', with the punishment being one of the sanctions caused by the Russian-Ukraine clashes.

Qualifying Teams
Teams secure spots via different types of qualifications to the tournament. Regional and Global Rankings (as of April 1, 2024) were one of the methods to secure direct invites, the major competitions that are ongoing, as well as regional qualifiers where teams in those areas that have less viewership can still qualify for the global tournament.

Opening Stage
The tournament format were announced on May 9 through their Facebook page, in which 14 teams begin in the opening matches, with the matchups to be determined via draw. All matches in the opening stage are a best-of-three series, as winners of every opening match advance to the playoffs, while the losing teams qualify for the play-ins stage.

Play-ins Stage
The play-ins are a single-elimination stage, in which seven losing teams from the opening stage compete here, as the MENA Qualifier team is seeded at this stage. All matches in the play-ins stage are a best-of-one, and only the winning team at this phase advance to the playoffs.

Playoffs
All matches in the playoffs are a best-of-three series.