Organizers can now waive some tournament rules with Valve's approval

Tournament operators can now waive some of the official Counter-Strike 2 tournament rules that came into effect in early 2025 with Valve's approval. The new document from the developers states:

We allow events to operate outside of [the tournament operation requirements] in some cases, provided the exceptions are known to us and explicitly approved.

The following are exceptions we have explicitly made, because they give the tournament operator some flexibility, tend to produce more sorting data than the minimum requirements of our guidelines, and most importantly, do not go against the spirit of the requirements.

The list of TOs that Valve has allowed to operate outside of the rules includes ESL, BLAST, PGL, and a few other companies. The exceptions mostly concern the rules for inviting teams to the events.

The developers have also allowed several smaller competitions to be held, despite the fact that their organizers made announcements after the deadlines (not that tier-1 tournaments must be announced a year in advance; for tier-2, this period is three months). The full list of events and their allowed exceptions to the rules can be found via the link below.

Origin: github.com