CS2 Premier Mode Explained

Although CS2 has been rated quite bad by the community, Valve made a pretty good new game mode. The Premier mode will be the main way to play ranked Counter-Strike in CS2. The mode was introduced in December 2020 with the Operation Broken Fang and has since been growing in popularity. So you might want to know what this mode is all about, and we try to answer all of your questions down below.

Counter-Strike 2 Premier Mode Explained

The Premier Mode is a 5v5 ranked mode, 5 playing on the Terrorist-Side with the aim of detonating the bomb and killing all opponents. The other 5, the Counter-Terrorists, try to prevent the bomb from exploding with the same goal of killing all Terrorists. So, the classic CS setup. Let's look at some details of the game mode.

Rating & Leaderboards

For winning a CS2 Premier match, you will be rewarded with a Rating (you must win 10 Premier matches to calibrate your rating). The Elo is between 0-35000, with every 5k Rating points being in a different color (basically another rank). The better you play, the higher your rating points will be per match. If you play well against players with a higher Rating, you'll receive more Rating points. This eliminates the question of “when will I rank up”, you now know for sure.

Your Rating will be shown on a Leaderboard, where you can see the following three Leaderboards:

• Leaderboard World: The best players in the world will be seen here
• Leaderboard Region: The best players from your region will be listed here
• Leaderboard Friends: The best players from your friend list will be depicted here

Game Length

Here, the first changes to the CS:GO version arrive. CS:GO was always played on MR15, meaning halftime after 15 rounds. For CS2, the Premier mode will be played on MR12. This format is heavily discussed, and we outlined some pros and cons previously. In CS2, 13 rounds are enough to win a match, after 12 rounds the sides will change. A game will take you around 45 minutes on average.

Round Length

The rounds are as long as in CS:GO. 1:55 minutes to win or lose. The buy time period, where you can't move, is 5 seconds longer, meaning 20 seconds to discuss the strategies and armor up. Each team can use 4 timeouts, with a length of 30 seconds each.

If a player disconnects, the game stops for a maximum of 2 minutes. But, this technical timeout will only occur once per team. If a player of yours disconnected once and the tech timeout, that starts automatically, was used, there won't be a second one for your team.

Overtime

Yes, there is the possibility for overtime in your Premier matches. You will start with 10k cash and play 3 rounds on each side. If you win 4 out of those 6, you win. If the game is still tied after this overtime, the game ends as a draw.

Maps And Map Selection

Map selection is different from the typical ranked CS. When playing Premier Mode, there is a chance of playing any of the maps in the active map pool. The Mode starts with a Pick- and Ban-Phase. The Pick- and Ban-Phase looks like this:

• Team A bans 2 Maps
• Team B bans 3 Maps
• Team A bans 1 Map, decides the played map
• Team B selects their starting side

These following 7 maps are currently in the active map pool:

• Mirage
• Inferno
• Overpass
• Anubis
• Ancient
• Nuke
• Vertigo

You can find all maps for CS2, including the 7 above, here.

Other Features

• There is no damage information in the console after dying
• You will see at the start if your teammates queued together or not
• You can't queue as a 4-stack to prevent that the one solo-q player gets left out or kicked
• For quitting a Premier match you will lose Rating points and get a time suspension, if you used all your warnings

The Premier Mode is really fun to play, I enjoyed my first games really much. Enjoy it, hopefully with communicating teammates in a language you understand and no cheaters (Yeah ok it's CS, the chance of this happening is close to 0).