Budapest Major to feature a Bo5 grand-final

Through a post on X, StarLadder has announced that 2025's winter Major- StarLadder Budapest 2025 will conclude with a best-of-five (bo5) grand-final. In more than a decade of Counter-Strike Majors, StarLadder Budapest 2025 becomes the first-ever to feature a bo5 grand-final. Many Counter-Strike experts advocated for the move ever since the game switched to the MR12 format.

Whether StarLadder pushed for the move or Valve themselves stepped in and made the change is still unclear. The StarLadder Budapest 2025 Major will kick off later this month on 24th November 2025, hosting three Swiss system iterations before sending the top eight teams into a single-elimination playoffs which was set to conclude with a bo3 grand-final but will now feature a bo5 grand-final.

The invites have gone out and the final list of teams are locked-in. The MongolZ will start directly in Stage 3 alongside the elites, thanks to their upper-end positioning in the Global VRS. TYLOO, Lynn Vision, The Huns and FlyQuest round off the Asia-Pacific representatives at the StarLadder Budapest 2025 Major.

In a repost, Valve made it clear that this change is set stay, making all future Majors switch to a best-of-five grand-final.