Four professional CS2 players attending the Shanghai Major didn't receive their stickers — here's why
CS230-11 01:01

These players won't make five to six figures each because of Valve's rules for Major stickers.


Part of the excitement of qualifying for a Major is having your nickname immortalized in the game thanks to a sticker, but four professional CS2 players did not receive this honor at the Shanghai Major.


The players in question are Swedish AWPer Tim "nawwk" Jonasson (Fnatic), Russian ADC Timofey "interz" Yakushin (Cloud9), Danish ADC Sebastian "Tauson" Tauson (GamerLegion) and Brazilian Lucas "Lucaozy" Neves (MIBR).


This is why none of them received a Shanghai CS2 Major sticker despite qualifying for the competition with their respective teams at RMR Europe.


Update November 29: This article has been updated after Perfect World announced that Lucaozy received his sticker by mistake. Valve will remove Lucaozy's sticker and replace it with brnz4n's signature.


Why don't nawwk, interz, Lucaozy and Tauson get Shanghai Major stickers?

This time there is no sticker for interz (Photo by PGL)


Nawwk, interz, Lucaozy and Tauson did not receive stickers because they were all registered as reserve players for Fnatic, Cloud9, MIBR and GamerLegion. According to Valve's regulations, only official players of the team at the time of roster submission will receive stickers.


So despite playing in RMR and helping their team qualify for the Shanghai Major, they did not receive a sticker. Instead, their stickers are given to players who no longer play for Fnatic, Cloud9, and GamerLegion. Here are those names:


Aurélien "afro" Drapier (Fnatic)


Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy (Cloud9)


Breno "brnz4n" Poletto (MIBR)


Andreas "aNdu" Maasing (GamerLegion)


Due to this Valve rule, revenue from sticker sales will go to afro, Perfecto, brnz4n and aNdu. This is a big blow to nawwk, interz, Lucaozy and Tauson because sticker money is very high — five to six figures — but especially for Tauson.


After all, the Shanghai Major was Tauson's first Major. Naawk has qualified twice with his former team Apeks and interz has qualified another three times with Gambit and Cloud9.


At the very least, this could be the last time the players have to endure this injustice. From 2025 onwards, there will be no more RMR, so teams will not have to sign active players as replacements to avoid roster deadlines.


Perfect World Shanghai CS2 Major will kick off on Saturday, November 30 with 16 teams competing in the Opening Round.