Only two teams remain in the StarLadder Budapest Major!

Team Vitality has yet to drop a map in the Playoffs, defeating The MongolZ in the Quarterfinals and Team Spirit in the Semifinals 2-0.

On the other side of the bracket, FaZe Clan defeated MOUZ in the Quarterfinals and needed all three maps to defeat Natus Vincere in the Semifinals, 2-1, to book their ticket to Sunday's Grand Finals.

Team Vitality are trying to win back to back Majors, a feat which hasn't been accomplished since 2019. FaZe Clan are trying to win their second Counter-Strike Major after being runners up in 2 of the last 3.

Counter-Strike's first ever best of five Major Grand Finals begins tomorrow, December 14th at 18:00 CET.

As we enter the final day of the StarLadder Budapest Major, tournament stickers are still available, with 50% of the proceeds going to the players, teams, and participating organizations.

See you tomorrow for the biggest Major Grand Finals yet!

Only 8 teams remain in the StarLadder Budapest Major, which means the Playoffs are upon us.

FURIA and Team Spirit finished Stage III with perfect 3-0 records. MOUZ, The MongolZ, and Vitality advanced at 3-1, and Falcons, FaZe Clan, and Natus Vincere survived with 3-2 records.

Playoffs begin tomorrow, December 11th from the 20,000 seat MVM Dome with the following Quarterfinals matchups:

• Team Spirit vs. Falcons
• Vitality vs. The MongolZ
• MOUZ vs. FaZe Clan
• FURIA vs. Natus Vincere

As the Playoffs get underway, there's still time to support your favorite teams. Team and player stickers are available, with 50% of the proceeds going to the players, teams, and organizations participating in the StarLadder Budapest Major.

And don't forget, there's still time to submit picks for the Pick'Em Challenge. All Playoff picks must be submitted prior to the start of the first Playoff match.

Good luck to the 8 remaining teams!

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• Improved shadow fidelity on view models.
• Added local client icon cache for inventory items.
• Fixed a case that caused a small number of users to receive an erroneous VAC ban. The bans will be removed.

Today we are introducing optional Supplemental Terms for releasing Counter-Strike 2 items in-game, found here, which allows the Counter-Strike 2 team to license items for a flat fee, found below:

• Weapon finish: $35,000.00 USD
• Sticker: $6,000.00 USD
• Charm: $6,000.00 USD

If a Steam account agrees to these new Supplemental Terms, all of the account's Workshop items can now be distributed where Community items were previously not available, such as The Armory. A Call to Arms-oryAs part of a future update, we are looking for weapon finishes inspired by two themes:

• Arabesque Art and Arabian Mythology
• Spy/Tech

We are also looking for stickers inspired by two different themes:

• Auto Racing
• Fruits and Vegetables

To submit weapon finishes and/or stickers to the Call to Arms, select the appropriate option using the updated Counter-Strike 2 Workshop Tool:If you already have Steam Workshop submissions you believe fit into these themes, you will need to re-submit the items and tag them using the options above.Finally, today we're releasing the Dr. Boom charm model, which can be painted and submitted for a future community charm collection. And we're adding a new Paint Kit type, Custom Paint Job Extended, which includes options for iridescence and other features.We're excited to see what you come up with!

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• Fixed a case of observers experiencing incorrect post-processing effects when switching observer targets.
• Disabled TrueView while watching a live playcast to match on-server observing experience.
• Fixed a wiggle at the end of SG 556 deploy animation.
• Stability improvements.

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• Fixed ability to plant C4 while standing on top of a teammate.
• Fixed a rendering bug on transparent charms attached to planted C4 or dropped weapons.
• Fixed a bug where Budapest 2025 Coin sometimes wasn't showing up in the scoreboard.
• Fixed a replay bug causing infinite shell casing effects.
• Updated the Budapest 2025 Imperial Esports sticker artwork.

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• The StarLadder Budapest Major Hub is now available. Visit the hub to purchase tournament items, play the Pick'Em Challenge and more.
• Purchase a Budapest 2025 Viewer Pass to receive an upgradable Budapest 2025 Coin. With an active pass, you can upgrade your coin and earn extra souvenir packages by playing the Pick'Em Challenge. Additionally, you will show up on the Active Pass Leaderboard where you can compare your Pick'Em Challenge performance to your friends.

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• Added new "Sticker Slab" item, a charm that seals any sticker and can be attached to weapons. The sealed sticker can be returned to your inventory at any time by cracking open and discarding the slab.
• Newly purchased Name Tag and StatTrak™ Swap Tool items can no longer be traded or listed on Community Market.

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• Increased the maximum effective sv_maxvelocity to 16,384 units per second. The default value of 3500 is unchanged.
• Fixed a case where clients would mispredict jump button presses.
• Fixed a case where clients would mispredict jump apexes.

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• Fixed skybox on Inferno that was blocking grenades.

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• Increased default bullet decal rendering distance.
• Glove models and animations in the UI/inventory now use Animgraph2, matching first-person in-game gloves.
• Enabled the pulsing light on the C4 view model.
• Updated the color scheme of Counter-Strike items in Steam Community Market and Web Inventory to match item quality colors.
• Performance improvements.

As 2025 comes to an end, the StarLadder Budpest Major 2025 is set to begin. Join us as the first stage begins on Monday, November 24th!All three stages of the StarLadder Budapest Major will be played in front of live crowds at MTK Sportpark, and for the first time at a Counter-Strike Major, the Grand Finals will be best of five. Now more than ever, the Major Champions will need to prove their quality by winning three maps in the Active Duty Map Pool.Make Your PicksYou can begin supporting your favorite teams participating in the Major with the Budapest 2025 Viewer Pass.Your activated Budapest 2025 Viewer Pass includes a coin that can be upgraded by playing the Pick'Em challenge. Pass holders gain access to unlimited team graffiti for the duration of the event and can earn and purchase Souvenir Tokens, which can be redeemed for a Souvenir from the match of your choice.And back by popular demand, Playoff Souvenirs for the StarLadder Budapest Major come with Souvenir Charms, featuring highlights from the match! Get Your StickersWith the release of the Viewer Pass and Pick'Em Challenge, we are also releasing StarLadder Budapest Major tournament stickers, featuring logos of every team and signatures of every player participating in the Major.
Slab Your StickersNot ready to apply your favorite sticker? We got you! Today we are introducing Sticker Slabs—charms that let you show off a sticker with no commitment. Later, just break the slab to return the sticker to your inventory.

Today we're adding a new feature to demo playback called TrueView. With TrueView, demo playback will match the player's original experience much more closely.Previously, demo playback showed the server's view of the world, without accounting for network latency. This could be confusing because shots would hit that didn't look like they should have, and vice versa. TrueView provides a more accurate representation of the observed player's experience by re-running their client-side prediction.The video below shows the difference between the old demo playback and the same playback with TrueView.A few caveats:

• By default, TrueView is deactivated when the version of the game you are using to view the demo does not match the version of the game used to record the demo.
• Even with TrueView active, there may still be some differences between what you see in the demo and what the player originally saw (especially with slow-motion playback). For example, damage effects will have different timing during demo playback due to the way CPU and GPU work are pipelined.
• In addition to performing clientside prediction of the observed player, TrueView will also perform Damage Prediction on enemies, if Damage Prediction was used by the observed player at the time.

Additionally, we're shipping movement changes that we made available last week in a beta branch. All that and more and today's update!

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• Fixed a case where air acceleration was clamped incorrectly while surfing.
• Fixed a case where slowly surfing up a ramp was handled incorrectly due to misidentification as a jump apex.
• Fix a bug causing "Delay Sniper Rifle Un-Scope after Shot" to be inconsistent.

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• Added TrueView demo playback, which reconstructs the observed player's original experience more accurately by re-running client-side prediction.
• TrueView playback will show the effects of Damage Prediction, if it was enabled by the observed player at the time.
• TrueView does not reconstruct the precise timings of rendered frames, so some differences between the original player's experience and TrueView playback will remain, especially in very slow motion playback.  The player's frame at the time when the mouse was clicked, which is used for hit registration, is shown accurately to the nearest demo playback frame. However, reaction effects such as recoil, muzzle flash, blood splatter, and ragdoll are delayed while playing the game by one or two frames due to the way CPU and GPU work is pipelined, and will not appear at the same time during demo playback.
• TrueView demo playback might not work properly on old demos and is disabled by default if the playback client version does not match the client version when the demo was recorded. You can set cl_demo_predict 2 to override this.
• Fixed a bug causing third person models to not animate smoothly.
• Fixed a bug causing time to lurch forward by one tick when unpausing a demo.

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• Animation fixes for G3SG1 bolt.
• Fixed developer console scrollbar to accept mouse clicks.