Valve's April standings lock the ranking behind the Cologne Major

The list that decides who plays the Counter-Strike 2 Major in Cologne is final. Valve, the publisher of the game, released the April update of its Valve Regional Standings on Monday, April 6, 2026, and HLTV, the reference news site for Counter-Strike, published the table that evening. Team Vitality are first with 2063 points. Natus Vincere are second with 1903.

This monthly update carries more weight than the others. It is the one used to send the 32 invitations to the IEM Cologne Major, which runs from June 2 to June 21, and HLTV titled its report on it as the update that decides the Major. HLTV had listed the invited teams the evening before, when the last tournaments counted in the ranking ended. The April table adds the numbers behind that list: the points of each team, and how little separated the last team invited from the first one left out.

Valve Regional Standings of April 6, 2026, as published by HLTV the same day.

What the standings are and why this update counts

The Majors are the championship tournaments of Counter-Strike 2. The 32 teams of the Cologne Major are invited according to the Valve Regional Standings, usually shortened to VRS, a ranking the publisher computes itself and publishes for three regions: Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Valve describes the method in the public repository where it posts the standings. Teams play matches in tournaments run by third-party organizers through the year, and the model ranks them on a short list of factors: the prize money a team has earned, the prize money earned by the opponents it has beaten, the number of teams those opponents have beaten, and head-to-head results. The stated goal is a ranking that is accurate, not easily gamed and produced by a transparent process. Valve adds that because it uses the standings to invite teams, the ideal model is one that predicts future match results.

HLTV describes the update as monthly. The March one, released on March 2, set the invitations to three tournaments played in person, PGL Astana, BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 1 and the CCT Global Finals, HLTV wrote. It called it at the time the penultimate update before the Cologne Major. The April one is the last, and HLTV's wording is that the ranking used for the invitations is now set in stone.

Vitality first, Natus Vincere up six places

Vitality were already first in March, with 2029 points. They now hold 2063, a gain of 34, and their lead over the team in second has grown from 136 points to 160. They won PGL Cluj-Napoca on February 22.

Behind them the order has changed almost completely in five weeks. Natus Vincere were eighth on March 2 with 1686 points. They are second on April 6 with 1903, a gain of 217 points and six places. FURIA, the Brazilian team that stood second in March with 1893, are fourth with 1781. MOUZ, third in March with 1886, are seventh with 1769, level on points with Falcons, whom the table lists one line above them.

The ten names are the same as a month earlier. What has changed is how tightly they are packed. From PARIVISION in third to Spirit in ninth, seven teams sit within 77 points of each other. In March the same seven places were spread over 270 points, from MOUZ on 1886 to The MongolZ on 1616. Five of the ten lost points between the two updates, FURIA and MOUZ more than 110 each, while The MongolZ gained 131 and moved up one place, and Astralis gained 101 without leaving tenth.

The table HLTV prints also shows five columns of figures behind each total, under the headings BCOL, BOFF, NETW, LANW and H2H. For Vitality they read 548, 588, 301, 563 and 63. The last of the five is negative for several teams: Natus Vincere, PARIVISION and FURIA each carry a head-to-head figure of around minus 70, and Aurora one of minus 118, while Vitality and Spirit are among the teams in the top ten with a positive one.

A top 30 that is mostly European

Each line of the standings carries a region, and the April table shows how unevenly the best-ranked teams are spread. Of the first 30, 22 are European, six come from the Americas and two from Asia. The six are FURIA, 9z, paiN, Legacy, M80 and NRG. The two are The MongolZ and TYLOO, the latter in 27th place with 1441 points. In March The MongolZ were the only Asian team in the top 30.

The Major does not follow those proportions. Its 32 places are divided between the regions before any team is ranked, and the standings are then read region by region. HLTV's report gives the split for Cologne: 17 places for Europe, ten for the Americas and five for Asia.

The result is a field that is not simply the top 32 of the world list. Set against the list of invited teams HLTV published on April 5, the April table shows that every team from first to 22nd is going to Cologne, along with M80 in 25th, TYLOO in 27th and NRG in 29th. That makes 25 teams. The seven other places go to teams ranked below 30th in the world but high enough inside their own region: Sharks, MIBR, Gaimin Gladiators and Liquid for the Americas, and THUNDER dOWNUNDER, Lynn Vision and FlyQuest for Asia.

Liquid are a case of their own. In the March table they were listed as a European team, in 23rd place with 1400 points. On March 13 they traded NertZ to G2 for malbsMd, and HLTV wrote that day that the swap made Liquid an American team again and put them back in a qualifying position in the Americas list. They are absent from the April top 30 and present in the Major.

Ten points at the European cut line

Seventeen European places means that the 17th-best European team is the last one invited. On April 6 that team is SINNERS, 22nd in the world with 1480 points. The next European team is Alliance, 23rd with 1470. Ten points separate the two.

FaZe are the best-known name under the line. They were 12th in March with 1552 points and are 26th with 1454, a loss of 98 points and 14 places in five weeks, and they finish 26 points behind SINNERS. Two more European teams of the top 30 are also left out: Ninjas in Pyjamas, 28th with 1429, and K27, 30th with 1410.

HLTV reported on April 5 how the last place was settled. FaZe had entered HLC Belgrade PRO, a tournament in Serbia, as a last attempt, forfeiting two matches at PGL Bucharest to play it. They reached the grand final and lost it 1-2 to BIG, a best-of-three in which they won Dust2 13-3 and then lost Overpass 11-13 and Anubis 3-13. The last available place went to SINNERS, whose invitation is the first Major appearance in that organization's history, HLTV wrote.

Who gained ground in the final month

The weeks before a cut-off are when smaller tournaments matter most. HLTV describes the period since the March update as a month of tier-two LANs, meaning tournaments below the top level that are played in person rather than online. Its report of April 5 names two of them, Urban Riga Open Season 4 and HLC Belgrade PRO, as the events that shaped the last invitations, and four teams that spent the final two weeks at such events to make sure of a place: BIG, HEROIC, SINNERS and Gaimin Gladiators. All four are invited.

The points show who made the most of that month. BIG were 30th in March with 1340 points and are 18th with 1526, a gain of 186. Two teams of the Americas list rose further still: 9z went from 25th with 1382 to 13th with 1603, a gain of 221, and Legacy from 27th with 1350 to 16th with 1530, a gain of 180. Both enter the Major in Stage 2, together with paiN, 14th with 1590.

Others slipped and stayed in. GamerLegion went from 13th to 17th and HEROIC from 16th to 21st, and both start in Stage 1. NRG fell from 17th to 29th, from 1434 points to 1412, and keep a place through the Americas list. Gentle Mates, 15th in March with 1476 points, are no longer in the top 30, and HLTV lists them among the teams that just missed a place, with Alliance, BESTIA, Passion UA, K27, SemperFi and FaZe.

Three entry points for 32 teams

A team's place in its regional list decides more than whether it is invited. It also sets where it starts. The Major opens with three successive stages before the playoffs, and the 32 invitations are spread over them: sixteen teams start in Stage 1, eight join in Stage 2 and eight more in Stage 3.

In the April table, the best-placed teams of each region enter last. The six best European teams, Vitality, Natus Vincere, PARIVISION, Aurora, Falcons and MOUZ, go straight to Stage 3, where they are joined by FURIA, the one Americas team at that level, and The MongolZ for Asia. The next five Europeans, Spirit, Astralis, G2, FUT and Monte, start in Stage 2 with 9z, paiN and Legacy. Asia has no place in Stage 2: its four other teams, TYLOO, THUNDER dOWNUNDER, Lynn Vision and FlyQuest, all begin in Stage 1.

That is how Spirit, ninth in the world with 1721 points, come to start a stage earlier than The MongolZ, who are one place above them with 1747. Spirit are the seventh European team, and Europe has six places in Stage 3. The MongolZ are the first Asian team, and Asia has one.

What else the April update decides

The Cologne Major is the main event drawing on this update, and two smaller ones use it as well, according to HLTV. LORGAR Rankings Season 1, on April 25 and 26, gives four places in its main event to European teams from the list. Stake Ranked Episode 2, from May 27 to May 30, takes twenty teams from the global list, six for its main event and fourteen for its closed qualifier.

For the Major itself, the next steps belong to the organizer. ESL has said that the tournament will be played by 32 teams for a prize pool of US$1.25 million. The first match is 57 days after the release of the standings. The invitations to Cologne rest on the table of April 6.

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