Who Is Projected to Win The First CS2 Major: Copenhagen 2024 Major Favorites

The Opening Stage of CS2's first Major has come to a close, and now we are entering the Elimination Stage, where 16 of Counter-Strike's greatest and most iconic teams will battle it out for a chunk of the $1,250,000 prize pool. In the opening stage, we saw heartbreaks and underdog stories, but now it's time for the big boys to enter the picture. In a few days, we will finally see the following teams play their first games of the tournament:

FaZe

Spirit

Vitality

MOUZ

Virtus.pro

Natus Vincere

G2

Complexity

These CS2 giants will be facing each other as well as the qualifying teams from the Opening Stage:

Heroic

Cloud9

Eternal Fire

paiN

ECSTATIC

TheMongolZ

Imperial

FURIA/SAW

However, as we enter the Elimination Stage, lots of fans are wondering: who are the favorites of the Copenhagen 2024 Major? Who is projected to win the first CS2 major? Luckily for you, we have put together a list of 3 of the tournament's biggest favorites!

Team Spirit

After years of struggling in majors and sub-par performances, Team Spirit has broken through and put together one of the strongest rosters they have ever had, focusing on their 17-year-old prodigy: donk. Donk might just be one of the most incredible young Counter-Strike players, and the rookie is making it clear that he is going for the GOAT title. At just 17, he set records in IEM Katowice 2024, carrying Spirit to a convincing win over FaZe Clan in the final with an inhuman HLTV rating of 1.93 and a KD of over 2.

Coming into IEM Katowice, there were some concerns that donk wouldn't perform as well on a stage as he did in the previous games, but he dispelled those concerns quite quickly. However, that doesn't mean that Spirit is out of the woods quite yet. The Major is the premier CS2 event, and the pressure is unimaginable. We have seen it countless times, players play incredibly throughout the year but they crumble on the stage of a Major with tens of thousands of fans booing them. If Team Spirit can handle the pressure of the Major, it wouldn't be surprising if they won the whole thing, and they may make quick work of the tournament.

Vitality

It's been almost a year since Vitality won the Blast.TV Paris 2023 Major in front of their French home crowd, and they are strong contenders for a back-to-back win. Though they will have some serious competition in Spirit, FaZe, and G2, their roster of champions, anchored in history by ZywOo, who is already in the GOAT conversation at 23 years old, has a strong chance at making a long run in the major, and may just end up lifting the trophy at the end.

Their current roster has changed slightly since the Paris Major with the addition of flameZ and mezii, but the core, major winning roster of apEX, ZywOo, and Spinx isn't going anywhere. Plus, the two new players have helped Vitality to win both the Blast Premier Fall Final 2023 and the Blast Premier World Final 2023, meaning they know what it takes to lift a trophy with this squad.

FaZe

Currently ranked #1 in the world, FaZe is in the midst of quite the era. Since the start of 2022, the team has won 10 trophies, including the prestigious IEM Grand Slam, the PGL Antwerp 2022 Major, and more. The squad recently let go of one of their core riflers, Twistzz, but the team hasn't faltered one bit since replacing him with frozen. They quickly qualified for the first CS2 major, taking just one loss to G2. In the last three months, the team has boasted an impressive win rate of over 71%, and despite their loss to Spirit in the final, their performance at IEM Katowice 2024 was commendable, as was their impressive run in the BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2024.

FaZe will have to overcome some obstacles in teams like Spirit, Vitality, and G2 to get to the Major Final, but a win would not be very surprising considering the squad's experience on the big stage. With the veteran IGL Karrigain leading and veteran riflers ropz and rain popping heads alongside top AWPer Broky and young star frozen, the superteam has one of the most experienced and accomplished squads appearing in the Major.