The Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 was the second Counter-Strike 2 Major and the first held in China. Team Spirit beat FaZe Clan 2-1 in the grand final on December 15, 2024, and Danil "donk" Kryshkovets, then 17, became the youngest Major champion and MVP. For FaZe it was a second straight Major final lost.
The tournament
Perfect World organised its first Major from November 30 to December 15, 2024. It used two venues. The Opening and Elimination Stages were played at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center, and the playoffs moved to the SPD Bank Oriental Sports Center. HLTV noted it was the first Major since IEM Rio 2022 with a live audience at every stage.
The format matched Copenhagen earlier in the year:
- Opening Stage (November 30 to December 3): 16 teams in a Swiss system, with best-of-three matches for advancement or elimination and best-of-one otherwise.
- Elimination Stage (December 5–8): the eight survivors plus eight invited teams, same format.
- Playoffs (December 12–15): eight teams, single elimination, all best-of-three.
The 24 teams qualified through regional RMR events. The prize pool was $1,250,000, with $500,000 for Spirit and $170,000 for FaZe.
Spirit's road to the trophy
Spirit's lineup was Leonid "chopper" Vishnyakov, Boris "magixx" Vorobiev, Myroslav "zont1x" Plakhotia, donk and Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov, coached by Sergey "hally" Shavayev.
They started in the Elimination Stage and went through at 3-1. In the playoffs they beat Team Liquid 2-0 and MOUZ 2-1. On the other side, FaZe beat Team Vitality 2-1 and G2 Esports 2-0 to reach a second consecutive Major final, as Valve pointed out. For Spirit, it was the organisation's first Major final.
The grand final
| Map | Spirit | FaZe |
|---|---|---|
| Nuke | 13 | 8 |
| Ancient | 6 | 13 |
| Dust II | 13 | 11 |
donk set the tone early, with three kills from a Desert Eagle on an eco in the second round of Nuke, as HLTV described. FaZe levelled on Ancient despite a donk ace in the fourth round. On Dust II Spirit led 8-4 at half and reached 12-5, then FaZe won six rounds in a row to make it 12-11. In the 24th round sh1ro finished a post-plant clutch to win Spirit's first Major.
Valve described the crowd at the Oriental Sports Center as sold out. HLTV called it Spirit's fourth title of 2024.
donk's records
HLTV named donk MVP and listed the records he set:
- Youngest Major champion and MVP, at 17 years and 324 days. The previous mark was Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye's at the ELEAGUE Major in 2017, at 18 years and 277 days.
- Highest-rated Major MVP, with a 1.49 rating across the Elimination Stage and playoffs, ahead of Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev's 1.47 at PGL Stockholm 2021.
- Most aces at a Major, with four, one more than Egor "flamie" Vasilyev managed at IEM Katowice 2019.
His best map came last: a 1.98 rating on the Dust II decider.
Another first came from Asia. The MongolZ went 3-0 in the Elimination Stage, and esports.gg described them as the first Asian team to reach a Major's playoffs. MOUZ knocked them out in the quarter-finals.
Stickers released before the start
Unlike Copenhagen, the stickers were ready on day one. Valve opened the Shanghai Major hub on November 27, 2024 with the Viewer Pass, Pick'Em, souvenirs, team graffiti and the full set of team and autograph capsules. The same update added a music kit by Perfect World, "Ay Hey".
The capsules followed the Copenhagen structure: one random sticker per capsule in paper, glitter, holo or gold, with the Perfect World logo in each team capsule.
| Capsule | Teams |
|---|---|
| Legends | 3DMAX, FaZe Clan, G2 Esports, HEROIC, MOUZ, Natus Vincere, Team Spirit, Team Vitality |
| Challengers | BIG, Complexity, FURIA, fnatic, paiN Gaming, Team Liquid, The MongolZ, Virtus.pro |
| Contenders | Cloud9, FlyQuest, GamerLegion, Imperial, MIBR, Passion UA, Rare Atom, Wildcard |
The Legends were the eight teams invited to the Elimination Stage. A few days after the final Valve released the Shanghai 2024 Champions Autograph Capsule, with Spirit's five autographs in paper, glitter, holo and gold. As with every Major in the capsule era, half of the proceeds went to the players and organisations; our Major sticker capsules guide explains how that money was divided.
Souvenir packages
Dust II had replaced Overpass in the map pool since Copenhagen, so the seven packages were Ancient, Anubis, Dust II, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke and Vertigo. As before, viewers with an active Viewer Pass earned extra packages by upgrading their Shanghai 2024 Coin in Pick'Em.
The new package was Dust II, drawing on the 2021 Dust 2 Collection, whose Covert skin is the AK-47 | Gold Arabesque. The others used the same collections as at Copenhagen: Ancient, Anubis, 2018 Inferno, 2021 Mirage, 2018 Nuke and 2021 Vertigo. Each Souvenir carries gold stickers of the two teams in its match, the gold Perfect World logo and the map. Grand final Souvenirs come from the Nuke, Ancient and Dust II packages with Spirit and FaZe gold stickers. Our souvenir packages guide has the drop odds.
Collecting Shanghai items
- Champion or not. Spirit's players have regular autographs from the Legends Autograph Capsule and Champion versions with "Champion" in the name. Both donk and sh1ro also have Copenhagen 2024 autographs, so check the event name.
- Glitter's last Major. Shanghai was the last Major with glitter stickers; Austin 2025 replaced them with foil.
- Check the match. On a Souvenir, the gold team stickers show which match it came from. A Dust II Souvenir with Spirit and FaZe stickers is from the deciding map of the final.
- Inspect the scrape. Wear on applied stickers changes their value; our stickers guide explains how scraping works.
- Search by sticker. The sticker filter on Buy finds guns carrying a specific Shanghai sticker.
The previous Major was PGL Copenhagen 2024, and the next was the BLAST.tv Austin Major in June 2025.
Sources
- Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 — Liquipedia
- Spirit defeat FaZe 2-1 to win Shanghai Major — HLTV.org
- donk becomes youngest and highest-rated Major MVP in Shanghai — HLTV.org
- Shanghai Major to have live audience at all three stages; venues announced — HLTV.org
- Shanghai 2024 Major — Counter-Strike 2 announcements (Valve)
- Champions of Shanghai — Counter-Strike 2 announcements (Valve)
- The MongolZ make playoffs at Shanghai Major over Heroic — esports.gg
