Counter-Strike 2's Possible Matchmaking Updates

Popular Valve data miners such as Gabe Follower and Aquarius have found multiple new matchmaking changes for Counter-Strike 2. These changes are primarily for the Premier mode and seem to hint at a better competitive system that could act as a sort of “path-to-pro”. There are also many more changes and interesting findings, but these are the ones I think are most important.

Firstly, CS2 will have different match lengths — it will use MR12. What this means is that the 12th round is the last round of the first half — the first to win 13 rounds is the overall winner of the match. That was the format originally, but there were economy issues with pistol rounds and loss bonuses that made Valve change it to MR15, which is what we have now. As of four years ago, these problems were already fixed, but only now Valve is changing it back to MR12. This format is the same as the one used in Valorant, which means that economy understanding will carry better between these games. Matches will naturally be a little shorter following this change. One problem with this is that huge comebacks are less likely — just in the Paris BLAST.tv major, we saw an amazing comeback that would not have happened were it MR12. Pistol rounds, regarded as the most random and least skill-based part of the game, would have a much higher impact on whether a match is won or lost. Comebacks being less likely is a huge loss, but I think that it’s a fair price to pay for these shorter matches. Slight economy changes could solve the second issue, and the MR12 format will actually increase how important it is in a match since eco rounds would be a much bigger sacrifice to make.

The game’s Premier Matchmaking is also getting a complete rework: a new ELO system, leaderboards, and something called “Match Stakes”. It’ll provide more stats about your team and yourself and will disallow 4-player lobbies from queuing. This mode will work in a seasonal format, with every season starting every six months. The new ELO system will be called “Counter-Strike Rating” or “CSR” — it will be a visible number that increases or decreases depending on the match outcome. There are seven tiers in this system, but there is no maximum threshold for the number. Match Stakes will be a small visual at the beginning of the match that will show you how much you will gain/lose depending on the outcome — an amazing addition that will make everything a lot more open and clear. There will be global and regional leaderboards and one only for friends; it’ll be possible to sort by the number of wins, win percentage, or CSR.

Now, as far as I’m concerned, none of these changes are bad. Discussing them with some friends and other people active in the Counter-Strike community, some of them did have problems with these: most of them are with reverting to MR12, with the biggest one being that it’ll most likely replace long and short matches, giving the players fewer options for playing the game. If you ask me, even with the problems that come out, that still improves on the current system and will be better for the game. There are many more changes and things found by Valve data miners, and those are just the ones I wanted to talk about. In addition, remember that everything listed here has not been confirmed by Valve and could be drastically changed before Counter-Strike 2’s full release.