When Do Major Stickers Go On Sale?
To the uninitiated, Counter-Strike 2 may come across as a highly successful online first-person shooter that has been around long enough that during its existence, other competitive franchises have released around 4-5 different iterations of their games. However, they may be surprised to learn that one of the major contributing factors to its success which has also kept the community growing after all these years, are the in-game cosmetic items, commonly referred to as ‘skins’. In some games, these skins are unlocked through certain achievements such as getting a number of kills with a certain weapon, while in other instances, may be purchasable for a few dollars.
CS2, on the other hand, is a completely different story. Prices of the in-game skins vary greatly and are determined by multiple factors such as rarity, demand, speculation, and the type of item, among others. They may start out from a few cents, and here is the mind-blowing bit, may run into thousands of dollars. The most expensive skins in the game are of course the ones for the highly sought-after knives with decent finishes running well over the 1k USD mark. But all throughout the years, a cosmetic item that has been hugely popular with the CS2 community are the stickers.
There is a huge variety of stickers available in CS2 which are always part of a particular collection capsule and are seen as a great way of further enhancing weapon skins through their application owing to their colors, text, and unique effects. Most of these can be purchased from the in-game store, some can be bought during operations, while the most sought-after ones are those released as part of a Major Tournament. In this article, our main aim is to determine how long it usually takes on average for the Major Sticker Capsules to go on sale, why these Major tournament stickers are so popular, and how you can benefit from this knowledge.
An Introduction To Major Sticker Sales
Historically, Major stickers always played an important part in the CS2 economy. The purpose of having team and individual player stickers in the game was to provide fans with a way of showing support to the participating teams, with half the revenue from sale proceeds being shared with the respective team or individual whose sticker was sold. However, more than that, these Major capsules have become probably the best option from an investing point of view, as a vast majority of the stickers have had their prices increased substantially over time.
This is due to the fact that these Major stickers are only available for a limited time. They become available a short while before the start of a Major, go on a 75% sale right around the time the Major is ending, and become unavailable for purchase as soon as the sale ends. After this, as these stickers are applied to weapons, their numbers start to diminish. When the supply begins to dry out over the months and years ahead, the prices start to increase, just like it happens in any other market.
However, not every sticker is created equal. For instance, some stickers like the Titan Holo from the EMS One Katowice held in 2014 is extremely rare with only a few left in existence, and can fetch close to USD 50k per sticker. On the other hand, stickers from the RMR 2020 are probably the most over-invested in the history of CS2 Majors, owing to currency fluctuations in some countries, and have not seen any substantial gains in price.
Then we have stickers from the IEM Rio Major held in 2022. After having beautifully designed stickers from the past two Majors, which were the Stockholm and Antwerp respectively, Valve came up with probably the worst-designed stickers in comparison to all other Majors, which as a result probably turned out to be least invested. Therefore, it also becomes equally important to know whether stickers from a particular Major are worth investing in.
However, from a holistic point of view, price trends for both RMR and Rio are exceptions and not the norm. In the majority of instances, Major stickers are a good opportunity for investment and can net substantial gains on their investment. As such, it’s important to be able to fairly predict when a Major sticker sale will start so that you have a time frame to work with for setting aside funds.
Looking At Historical Data Of Major Sticker Sales
In the table below, we compiled data for every CS2 Major starting from the EMS One Katowice held in 2014. The table lists the name of each Major, the date for the end of the Major, the date for the start of the Major sticker sale, and finally the difference in days which tells us how long it took for the Major sticker capsules to go on sale after a particular Major had ended.
| Major | Major End | Sale Start | Difference In Days |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 BLAST Paris | 2023-05-21 | 2023-06-23 | 33 |
| 2022 IEM Rio | 2022-11-13 | 2022-12-14 | 31 |
| 2022 PGL Antwerp | 2022-05-22 | 2022-06-03 | 12 |
| 2021 PGL Stockholm | 2021-11-07 | 2021-11-30 | 23 |
| 2020 RMR | 2020-10-25 | 2021-04-06 | 163 |
| 2019 StarLadder Berlin | 2019-09-08 | 2019-09-07 | -1 |
| 2019 IEM Katowice | 2019-03-03 | 2019-03-02 | -1 |
| 2018 FACEIT London | 2018-09-23 | 2018-09-22 | -1 |
| 2018 ELEAGUE Boston | 2018-01-28 | 2018-01-26 | -2 |
| 2017 PGL Krakow | 2017-07-23 | 2017-07-23 | 0 |
| 2017 ELEAGUE Atlanta | 2017-01-29 | 2017-01-29 | 0 |
| 2016 ESL One Cologne | 2016-07-10 | 2016-07-10 | 0 |
| 2016 MLG Columbus | 2016-04-03 | 2016-04-03 | 0 |
| 2015 DreamHack Cluj-Napoca | 2015-11-01 | 2015-10-3 | -1 |
| 2015 ESL One Cologne | 2015-08-23 | 2015-08-23 | 0 |
| 2015 ESL One Katowice | 2015-03-15 | 2015-03-15 | 0 |
| 2014 DreamHack Winter | 2014-11-29 | 2014-11-29 | 0 |
| 2014 ESL One Cologne | 2014-08-17 | 2014-08-17 | 0 |
| 2014 EMS One Katowice | 2014-03-16 | 2014-03-15 | -1 |
Our Analysis Of Historical Sticker Sales
Prior to 2019, there would be 2-3 Majors being held each year, which changed after the start of the COVID pandemic, leading to only 1 Major being held in the years 2020 and 2021 respectively. The resulting lockdowns as well as the deteriorating condition of economies across the world also played an influential role in negatively affecting operations. The pace picked up again in 2022 where 2 Majors took place, but understandably dipped again in 2023 with only 1 Major, since Valve’s focus has all been towards CS2.
Taking into consideration a now commonly known fact that the Blast Paris Major held this year will be the last one for this particular iteration of the game, and henceforth, the next Major will be held after the release of CS2, there have been a total of 19 Majors so far organized during the course of CS2’s existence since its release in 2012. Before we move ahead with our analysis, however, we will provide you with a brief pointer on the last column of the table titled difference in days. The positive values in the data refer to the number of days it took for the sticker sale to start after a Major had ended, while negative values represent the number of days prior to the end date of a particular Major that the sticker capsules went on sale.
From the data, we were able to determine that the average number of days it takes for the commencement of sticker sales is 13 days after the end of a Major tournament. The median value between the start of the sticker sale and the end of a Major stands at 0 days, which means the Major Sticker Capsules mostly went on sale the same day a Major ended. It is also important to note though, that the 2020 RMR is an outlier in the data, with the sticker sale for this major starting 163 days after its end. This is totally unprecedented, which makes it important to ignore this particular Major from our analysis since its value will greatly misrepresent the average outcome. Having done that, the mean value for the difference in days now comes down to 5 days.
So now the question is, do the values we have derived above paint a realistic picture of Major Sticker sale commencement, and can we accurately use this information to predict when a sale will start going forward? Well, the answer, unfortunately, is not anymore. There used to be a time up until 2019 when you could have easily ascertained the start of the Major sale, where it would most likely start either a day before the end of the tournament, on its last day, or just a day or two after it had ended. Furthermore, the tournament would also be organized in a manner where its last day would fall on a weekend, and the sticker sale would go up around the same time as well.
How then do we make sense of everything and come up with a more accurate guess on Major Sticker Capsules sales? An alternate approach is to divide the data into two groups, one for each major starting from the first one which was the 2014 EMS Katowice till the Starladder Berlin held in 2019, while the other group comprising all Majors held after the RMR in 2020, with RMR itself not being excluded since it is a huge outlier.
Our Final Prediction For Future Majors
For the first group comprised of the initial 14 Majors, the average comes to 0 days, which is an accurate value that suggests that the sticker sales usually started right on the last day of the major, or just a day before in certain cases. But since Valve completely changed the pattern of sticker sales after 2019, we cannot use this data to make predictions for the future.
So, for the second group covering the last 4 majors, the average comes to 25 days, which is a slightly more accurate prediction compared to the one derived earlier in the general analysis, and except for the Antwerp Major, can fairly predict the sale start time to +/- 7 days.
When we shift our attention to the days on which the sticker sales started, we can decipher that from 2014-2019, Valve focused on introducing these sales on weekends, with 6 of them going up on a Saturday, 7 on Sundays, and 1 on a Friday. However, from 2021 onwards the focus has shifted away from this trend and the sale commencement has been initiated on regular weekdays.
Coming to a final conclusion after analyzing all the data from previous majors, we can confidently say that you can expect future sticker sales to start between 2 to 4 weeks after the Major tournament has ended, with 3 weeks currently being the average.
Available Major Sticker Capsule Categories
Major Capsules are divided into different categories, such as the following:
- Contenders Sticker Capsules
- Contenders Autograph Capsules
- Challengers Sticker Capsules
- Challengers Autograph Capsules
- Legends Sticker Capsules
- Legends Autograph Capsules
- Champions Autograph Capsules
The Sticker capsules contain stickers for each team in a particular group which are categorized as Contenders, Challengers, and Legends. Similarly, the Autograph capsules contain signature stickers of each player from these teams in their respective groups. A further categorization of these capsules is done in the form of sticker rarities. As an example, we’ll take a look at the capsules from the Paris Major. In the various capsules of this Major, the following sticker rarities are found:
| Sticker Type | Rarity |
|---|---|
| Paper | High Grade Sticker (Blue) |
| Glitter | Remarkable Sticker (Purple) |
| Holo | Exotic Sticker (Pink) |
| Gold | Covert Sticker (Red) |
Finally, the Champions Autograph Capsules contain player signatures from the winning team of the Major, with varying rarities as specified above.
How Long Do Major Sticker Sales Last?
The duration of Sticker Sales can greatly vary. However, we also covered this topic in our in-depth analysis of sticker sale durations.
When Do Major Stickers Get Released?
If you’re curious about the initial release dates of Major Stickers, we have an article about when Major Stickers are first released as well.
Concluding Remarks
We hope our analysis has provided you with a realistic idea of when Major Sticker Capsules can be expected to go on sale, and going forward, you can utilize this understanding to predict the time frame available for you to save up and invest in these stickers. However, before putting in your money, always remember that there is an inherent risk to any investment, so make sure you have done extensive research beforehand to determine how best to go about it. For in-depth investment advice on investing in Major Stickers, make sure to read our guide.
