The PW Shanghai Major 2024 is just a few days away, marking the final premier CS2 tournament of the year. The Major is Counter-Strike’s biggest prize, and all teams come in looking to secure their place in history. Who will stake their claim when the action on the server kicks off? We’ve put together our list of PW Shanghai Major 2024 power rankings to see who we think will come out on top.
Credit: Perfect World
PW Shanghai Major 2024 Favorites
Let’s kick things off with some favorites. NAVI are the CS2 betting favorite to win the event, and it’s really hard to look past them. They’ve been the most consistent team throughout 2024, winning the first CS2 Major earlier this year. If you’d back any one team to go all the way, it would have to be NAVI, if you can put aside their concerning BLAST World Final earlier this month.
Don’t count out the “last dance” factor of G2, though. It’s pretty well publicized by the org itself that this is going to be NiKo’s last tournament with the team, and who knows if anyone else will follow him out the door. He wants that elusive Major title, and given G2’s standing in the scene right now, it could be the perfect opportunity for him to get it at the PW Shanghai Major 2024. If m0NESY keeps up his form from the rest of the year, this team can beat anyone.
Our final favorite is Vitality. It’s been a very inconsistent 2024 for this team, with high highs and low lows. But most importantly of all, it’s still a team capable of winning trophies when the stars align. Those stars being ZywOo and flameZ, of course. Vitality are reliant on individual level more than most teams, often falling apart when one player falls flat. Still, we can’t rule them out of the running to win the PW Shanghai Major 2024, even if they’re not guaranteed victors.
These are our full CS2 power rankings for the teams at the PW Shanghai Major 2024:
- NAVI
- G2
- Vitality
- MOUZ
- Spirit
- FaZe Clan
- Team Liquid
- Heroic
- The MongolZ
- FURIA
- Virtus.pro
- Complexity
- BIG
- Cloud9
- paiN Gaming
- 3DMAX
- Imperial
- MIBR
- Fnatic
- FlyQuest
- GamerLegion
- Passion UA
- Wildcard
- Rare Atom
Credit: Helena Kristiansson | © ESL
PW Shanghai Major 2024 Underdogs
It can be equally interesting to follow an underdog throughout the tournament. Our first in this category is Team Liquid. Twistzz’s IGLing hasn’t looked as strong as it did initially, ultimate has had to reinvent himself a tad after his initial explosive entrance to Tier 1 CS, and YEKINDAR still looks utterly finished in most matches. Yet, you always get the sense they can beat anyone, which is why we’ve got them as ones to watch here.
Credit: Igor Bezborodov | © ESL
Also keep your eye on GamerLegion. We’ve got the Paris 2023 Major finalists as low as 21st in our power rankings, but that doesn’t mean we don’t think they can pull off a shock result. It’s such a young roster, which comes with two things: fearlessness and inexperience. One positive, one negative. There’s a lot of firepower on this squad (watch out for FL4MUS in particular) and if they can unlock it without buckling under a new level of pressure, GamerLegion can be a real pain at the PW Shanghai Major 2024.