14 year old @zont1x977 posted looking for an ESEA Open team after getting 15 RWS in matchmaking. Now, @Team__Spirit just went 3-0 in Stage 2, and they're hunting back-to-back IEM Cologne titles.

Every time I see @tabseNcs, I remember this. ESEA Premier LAN, peak ESEA vs FACEIT era. Warming up, he spots me and says to his team loudly with a big smile: "Guys, let's all play Rank S!" Watches me walk past. Shouts after me: "NOT! Let's queue FPL."

Heading into Stage 2 of IEM Cologne, @donk1337 has climbed 892 Elo in just over 6 weeks in Season 8. At his current pace and form, he is on track to surpass the highest recorded CS2 Elo held by Mail09 (5,415 Elo) this July.

9 years ago, 18-year old @kscerato posted: "Hi, I am brazilian player. I have a dream." before even his first ESEA Open season. Now, he returns to the IEM Cologne Major as one of Brazil's most decorated players.

To better align FACEIT Rating with overall match impact, we've updated the weighting used in the calculation. Existing ratings won't be affected as the update only applies to future matches. FACEIT Rating Changelog: 🔸Reduced weighting for low-impact post-plant and exit kills 🔸Refined swing distribution to reward round-deciding kills 🔸Improved distribution in bomb plant scenarios to reward players who secured the round

After winning the UEFA Champions League, Illia Zabarnyi has been grinding FACEIT, winning 71% of his matches and averaging 1.26 FACEIT rating.

97.3% of FACEIT players now have IOMMU/VBS enabled, which helps disrupt DMA cheats. We began rolling this out in April 2025, expanding coverage as we worked with hardware vendors to resolve driver compatibility issues and support more players without requiring upgrades.

73% of pick'ems had @THUNDERdUNDERcs going 0-3. THUNDER dOWNUNDER didn't. Data from the @cs2stats Pick'Em leaderboard.

Make your move. #IEM Cologne Major 2026 Official Trailer.

Who's first to a Diamond coin at the #IEM Cologne Major 2026? 💎 The global pick 'ems leaderboard is live on @cs2stats! Every correct pick climbs you up the ladder. Link your auth code, check your position and share your picks!

Ahead of his IEM Cologne 2026 debut, @JBafps has been grinding FACEIT, playing 49 matches in the last week. He has played 69% more matches than the next most active participant, averaging 7 matches per day.

🏆😳 EL CAMPEÓN DE LA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE LEVEL 10 EN FACEIT. El jugador ucraniano Illya Zabarnyi 🇺🇦 se consagró con el PSG en la final vs Arsenal y además es jugador de Counter-Strike. Actualmente es Level 10 en FACEIT con 2256 de ELO y tiene más de 60 mapas jugados en el mes.

JUST IN: FACEIT's Anti-Cheat team spent two days at the Google office collaborating with them on detecting AI Cheats for Counter Strike 2 ‼️

Detecting AI cheats has been one of FACEIT's biggest focuses in 2026. Recently, several of our anti-cheat developers, data scientists, and staff spent two days at the @Google London office, building on that work alongside their engineers. We collaborated with Google's team to evolve two of our current approaches: 1. Training models on past matches where our anti-cheat confirmed players cheated, learning to recognize similar patterns elsewhere. 2. Modelling what normal play looks like to flag behavior that sits outside it. FACEIT processes millions of CS2 matches a month, with years of high-level gameplay on record. That scale creates a foundation our detection models can learn from. Before these techniques can be applied to the full FACEIT player base, there is still more work to do. We're running new behavioral analysis in the next months, building an automated pipeline of confirmed-cheating data for our models to learn from, and improving how we capture more supporting data for the context of kills. We will continue to collaborate with Google’s engineers and share more information as these detection methods are rolled out across the platform.

Season 8 Matchmaking data shows that A site is the most common plant location on five of eight maps. Overpass, Ancient and Anubis are the only maps where B site plants lead. What do you think drives the difference between these maps?

My favorite thing about Match Insights is calling out my friends on their comms. "They're coming fast B"

‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌@donk1337 has been grinding @FACEITcs for the last 2 weeks 👊 🔥 15W / 4L 📊 1.51 K/D 🎯 23.4 AVG 💥 112.6 ADR 📈 258 ELO

Congratulations to Legacy on being back-to-back CAC champions. At 15, @lattofps grinded to FACEIT level 10 in under 100 matches in two weeks. Now he's MVP and taking home his share of $150,000, again. Exciting to see the next wave of Brazilian talent coming through.

Check your corners. Since Cache returned in Season 8, FACEIT kill/death data shows the highest concentration of engagements at the B site entrance and forklift/NBK on A. Which spot do you hold?