24 of the world's best teams converge in Shanghai — but there are some big names who won't be on the flight.

Perfect World Shanghai Major is approaching. The biggest celebration of the Counter-Strike 2 calendar is just days away and qualified players and teams are hard at work preparing, while others are completely absent.

For every team that has made it to the next round, there are many more that have failed along the way. While the time will certainly come for some of them, for others, qualifying for the Shanghai Major is taken for granted.

Here's a look at the biggest names who won't be participating in the CS2 Shanghai Major in 2024.

The biggest names are absent from the Shanghai Major

s1mple, dupreeh & Team Falcons

No more s1mple. (Photo via Perfect World & PGL)

Counter-Strike master Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev is perhaps the most remembered name in Shanghai during this Major as the Ukrainian ADC was sidelined after the Falcons' embarrassing loss at EU RMR.

The 27-year-old, who has yet to appear at a CS2 Major, will be healing his wounds with the Falcons — most of whom are currently looking for work after the organization fired them following a 2-1 loss to GamerLegion .

The Falcons have shown signs of decline. The Saudi Arabia-backed CS2 team has been unable to attract attention since borrowing s1mple from Na'Vi. They were eliminated from the Thunderpick World Championship and the ESL Katowice Championship, and although expectations for EU RMR were not high, some were hopeful that s1mple would take them to the majors.

Can't forget Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen. The Danish shooter is the only player in CS:GO history to attend every major tournament, but he has never appeared at a top event in CS2. A poor performance at RMR saw him also dropped from the team, which was expected to recruit G2's Nikola "NiKo" Kovac.

Dupreeh, along with the rest of the Falcons, will wait out the big league run before getting a chance to seek new opportunities.

device & Astralis

Health issues prevent the device from participating in RMR. (Photo by Nicholas Taifalos for esports.gg)

It will be four major tournaments in a row without the all-powerful Danish brand taking part after Astralis met their end at EU RMR B last week.

Like the Falcons, expectations for the team were quite low after Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz announced he would not be able to make it to the qualifiers, meaning Alexander "br0" Bro was awkwardly brought back as a replace.

The Danish team was on the back foot immediately. Losses to 9Pandas and Sashi Esport left them facing a near-impossible task — they needed to win a best-of-four match in their next three matches to qualify for the big event. They only managed two wins; a 2-1 win over weak team B8 and a surprise win in three maps against Eternal Fire brought them back to earth at 2-2 but they couldn't take down Passion UA.

Astralis are back on the ground after failing to qualify for the main event in Shanghai, but Casper "cadiaN" Møller remains optimistic. The team had limited time as five and equipment, who surpassed expectations at the BLAST World Finals just three weeks ago, were heavily eliminated against RMR.

That being said, how long can Astralis commit to a squad that doesn't qualify for the major tournament?

ENCE

(Photo via ESL)

At least Astralis made it to the RMR round.

ENCE, once known for their strength at major events, was eliminated in the competitive RMR EU qualifiers. To make matters worse, Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander's team lost to KOI, UNiTY, and Monte — none of which qualified for RMR.

The Finnish-backed organization fought hard in multiple qualifiers and second-tier tournaments throughout 2024, but after the predominantly Polish team was defeated following the Copenhagen Major, ENCE struggled where most important.

However, their record has kept them just outside the top 20 going into the RMR qualifiers, and a win over HEROIC at Elisa Masters Espoo would keep them relevant going into the 2025 calendar.

Eternal Fire

Eternal Fire's removal from RMR was truly a shock.

The Turkish team has made progress throughout 2024, starting with a quarter-final run at the Copenhagen Major in March. Since then, things have been in flux; Either be eliminated immediately like at IEM Cologne, or appear in the final like at ESL Pro League Season 20.

Eternal Fire still relies on legendary shooter İsmailcan "XANTARES" Dörtkardeş, especially when competing on LAN, but the Turkish team will essentially be present in December at the Major.

That's not true. Eternal Fire took down Aurora but then lost to 3DMAX, Sashi and finally Astralis — all three were ranked lower than them. Along with Astralis, they are the only team in the top 10 without a sticker for this tournament.

TYLOO

(Photo by Igor Bezborodov via ESL)

TYLOO has been synonymous with Chinese Counter-Strike since the inception of CS:GO, and their domestic form leading up to the RMR qualifiers has been astonishing, leading many to believe that we would see the Red Dragons raise their foils. flags for the home crowd.

However, due to roster changes and some TYLOO did not have the necessary Valve ranking points to secure a direct invite, so they had to fight in the Chinese qualifiers for RMR. There, they made it look easy, reaching the finals and losing 11 rounds in three maps along the way.

But, for the fourth time this year, they had to stop at the final hurdle against Rare Atom. A 2-1 defeat to their bitter rivals ended TYLOO's hopes of representing China at its first major tournament across the Pacific.