The second Major in 2024 has been announced and you’ve got until December next year to learn Chinese. Jk, there’ll be English streams. We think. No, definitely.

Perfect World (Valve’s Chinese partner publisher) confirmed the Shanghai Major four months after it as initially rumoured in front of a crowd during the CS Asia Championships. We thought China worked fast.

We don’t know any specific dates for the event just yet, and we also don’t know which TO they’ll tap for the actual production.

But we do know that this’ll be the first ever Major ever to be held in Asia, probably because it’s a tough timezone to deal with. Especially for those of us who are European, and there are quite a few of us after all.

With uncharted territory comes big questions.

Getting visas are obviously one of those. Historically there have often been visa issues with Chinese events and just now during CSAC, both Liquid and dycha cited visa troubles for not being able to make it. Imagine getting to the Major only to get owned… by an immigration officer.

There’s also the usual discussion around the ethics of holding a tournament in China with its various human rights violations. But you can’t blame Valve for wanting to bring CS to a market that big. And you definitely can’t blame the fans, who seem to have been great throughout CSAC.

Anyway, as fans there’s nothing for us to do but enjoy the show when it comes around. If you can stay awake, that is.

Other roster moves

NRG are looking to bring in oSee and have told us all they want an NA team for their return to the game. Fortunately, a whole lot of them are apparently about to become free agents.

Speaking of which, WolfY at M80 has been benched with the NA team looking to Europe to find an AWPer - and landed on former Sprout sniper slaxz-. The German is… look, he was mediocre at tier one level, but he should be a solid upgrade on WolfY for M80’s current level.

paiN’s replacement for the Liquid-bound skullz is n1ssim of Sharks; but perhaps more excitingly, they’ve added domestic prodigy nqz in place of cass1n. nqz is an uber-reliable, expertly talented AWPer who looks like the next big thing in Brazil.

Wildcard have announced their new roster that includes Sonic and stanislaw. Yes, really. In 2023.