When Will The Rio 2022 Stickers Be Released?
NEWS: The Rio 2022 stickers have now been released!
Tournament stickers have always been a favorite choice of investment for CS2 players, with some fans often opting to buy thousands of sticker capsules in hopes of making a profit off them in the future. Stickers from tournaments like the Berlin 2019 Major and the Stockholm 2021 Major have turned out to be amazing investments with their values increasing at a steady pace as time progresses.
However, it’s not uncommon for Major stickers to be bad investments either. In fact, some recent capsules like the RMR 2020 stickers and the Antwerp 2022 stickers have actually decreased in price since they were taken off sale due to the market supply exceeding the popular demand.
Besides purchasing these stickers as investments, a good portion of the player base also chooses to buy tournament stickers to simply decorate their weapon skins and to support their favorite CS2 pros. For the uninitiated, fifty percent of the proceeds from sticker sales during a Major go directly to the players and organizations participating in the tournament.
With under a month remaining before the heavily anticipated IEM Rio 2022 Major kicks off, the entire CS2 community is eager to know about the release date of the stickers for the upcoming tournament.
Like the previous majors, the Rio 2022 Major is expected to bring three team sticker capsules (Legends, Contenders, and Challengers) to the game alongside a few Autograph capsules. There’ll probably also be a ‘Champions Autograph Capsule’ that will be released once the tournament reaches its conclusion and the winners are decided. The team sticker capsules are generally the most sought-after among all the capsules that release at the time of a Major.
While Valve hasn’t made any confirmations on the release date of the Rio 2022 Major stickers, we can get a decent idea about it by studying the previous Majors and the release dates of their respective sticker capsules.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the start dates of all previous CS2 Majors and the release dates of their sticker capsules.
| Tournament | Sticker Release | Tournament Start | Difference In Days |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 IEM Rio | ??? | 2022-10-31 | ??? |
| 2022 PGL Antwerp | 2022-05-03 | 2022-05-09 | 6 |
| 2021 PGL Stockholm | 2021-10-21 | 2021-10-26 | 5 |
| 2019 StarLadder Berlin | 2019-08-14 | 2019-08-23 | 9 |
| 2019 IEM Katowice | 2019-02-06 | 2019-02-13 | 7 |
| 2018 FACEIT London | 2018-08-29 | 2018-09-05 | 7 |
| 2018 ELEAGUE Boston | 2017-12-19 | 2018-01-12 | 24 |
| 2017 PGL Krakow | 2017-07-07 | 2017-07-16 | 9 |
| 2017 ELEAGUE Atlanta | 2017-01-12 | 2017-01-22 | 10 |
| 2016 ESL One Cologne | 2016-06-24 | 2016-07-05 | 11 |
| 2016 MLG Columbus | 2016-03-17 | 2016-03-29 | 12 |
| 2015 DreamHack Cluj-Napoca | 2015-10-20 | 2015-10-28 | 8 |
| 2015 ESL One Cologne | 2015-08-14 | 2015-08-20 | 6 |
| 2015 ESL One Katowice | 2015-02-26 | 2015-03-12 | 14 |
| 2014 DreamHack Winter | 2014-11-21 | 2014-11-27 | 6 |
| 2014 ESL One Cologne | 2014-08-04 | 2014-08-14 | 10 |
| 2014 EMS One Katowice | 2014-03-06 | 2014-03-13 | 7 |
Taking a glance at the table, we can notice that on average, stickers are released 9.44 days prior to the start of a major, with the median difference between the sticker capsule releases and the start of tournaments being 8 days. We can also see that so far, tournament sticker capsules have been strictly released on weekdays, and never on weekends.
This information obtained from simply taking a look at previous Major tournaments can help us get an idea about the release of the upcoming Rio 2022 tournament stickers.
IEM Rio 2022 Major: Sticker Release Speculation
It has already been confirmed that the Brazil Major 2022 is scheduled to start on October 31, 2022, which is a Monday. Now if we take into consideration the fact that tournament sticker capsules generally release 8-9 days before the start of a Major event, we can come to the conclusion that the Rio 2022 stickers will likely be released on October 24th or October 25th.
The last Major that took place in Antwerp, Belgium, followed a similar pattern. The tournament started on May 9th, which is a Monday, and the stickers were released 6 days prior to the event on May 3rd. This further solidifies our speculations about the release date of the Rio 2022 stickers.
However, do keep in mind that these dates haven’t been confirmed by the developers at the time of writing. So take them with a grain of salt and don’t be surprised if Valve decides to switch things up by releasing the capsules a few days before or after the speculated dates.
When Should You Buy Rio 2022 Stickers?
While there’s a good chance that the Rio Major stickers will release on the aforementioned dates, it might not be the best idea to grab them as soon as they hit the in-game store. In fact, you may want to wait several weeks before purchasing these stickers. This is due to the fact that CS2 tournament stickers are generally put up for a hefty discount for a few weeks before they’re taken off sale. The discount is generally fixed at 75%, which means that you’ll be able to get the tournament stickers at just a quarter of their original price.
Once the Rio Major 2022 stickers are released, fans will be able to take a look at them on our website, where you’ll also be able to find their price, variants, and much more. While waiting for the Rio capsules to drop, you can check out a list of all the stickers currently available in CS2 by clicking here.
