A CS2 Major is the biggest event on the Counter-Strike calendar. Valve backs it, the best teams qualify for it, and it is the only kind of event that gets official in-game items. Those items are team and player autograph stickers, Souvenir packages for the maps played, and a viewer pass with a coin you upgrade through the Pick'Em Challenge. Valve shares 50 percent of tournament item sales with the organiser, the teams and the players, as it explained for the Shanghai 2024 Major and again for IEM Cologne 2026.
The way Valve sells these items keeps changing. Up to 2025 the stickers came in capsules. For Cologne 2026 Valve stopped selling capsules and sold single stickers for tokens at prices set by demand, and added a Souvenir-O-Matic that turns any weapon in your inventory into a Souvenir. The items are sold through the Major hub during the event. When the Major ends, that supply stops. This makes Majors the main clock for a large part of the sticker and Souvenir market.
How do Majors affect CS2 prices?
During a Major the event's items are on sale and supply is open. After the event the supply is fixed, and any capsule that gets opened or any sticker that gets applied leaves the market. Valve has also discounted leftover capsules well after an event: the Shanghai 2024 capsules went 75 percent off in January 2025. Prices of older Major items depend on demand, so some rise and some stay flat for years.
A Major also moves the broader market. Big events pull new players into the game and old players back to it, and skin prices as a whole often rise into the tournament and soften afterwards. That is a pattern, not a rule, and it does not hold every year.
Which items should traders track around a Major?
Team stickers for teams that might become popular later, player autographs for rising stars, and Souvenir packages for maps whose collections hold expensive skins. Viewer passes and their rewards are only sold during the event. Sticker crafts built from the event's stickers appear soon after and create demand for those stickers.
Remember that a Major's items are a bet on future demand. Many capsules stay cheap for years, and teams that miss later Majors can see their stickers stall. Diversify across events rather than betting on one.