We're rolling out a new section on CS2PREDICT: Pickem Predictions. Each CS2 Major has an Pickem Challenge — pick the team that goes 3-0, the team that goes 0-3, and the 7 teams that advance through the Swiss stage. Max 15 points (4 + 4 + 7). Hundreds of thousands of fans play it every Major. Now you can see what AI thinks before locking in your own pick.
What's live now: IEM Cologne Major 2026 — Stage 1
The Stage 1 (Challengers) page is up: /pickem/iem-cologne-major-2026-stage-1/
- AI Consensus — a quick "which team has the most model votes" view for each of the 9 Pickem slots. Pick the consensus choice if you want the safe play.
- Per-Model Picks — 27 AI models, each running 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations of the Swiss bracket and choosing its own 3-0/0-3/advance picks based on its match-level priors. Models ranked by their top-tier historical accuracy.
- Per-model deep-dive — click any model card to see the full 16-team probability matrix and confidence bars for that model's picks.
Coming soon: Stage 2 (Legends)
Stage 2 — the Legends stage with the 8 invited top-seeds joined by the 8 Stage-1 advancers — gets its own Pickem page as soon as the field is finalized on HLTV. Same format: AI consensus on top, per-model breakdown below. Watch this space.
What's next: user Pickem contest
We're planning a community Pickem challenge right alongside the AI: log in, submit your own 9 picks, and compete against the 27 models after the Major wraps. Final leaderboard will show user scores intermixed with AI scores — beat the algorithms and prove your CS2 sense.
Details (sign-up, prizes, timing) coming in a follow-up post. If you want a heads-up when entries open, log in and watch the Pickem section.
How AI predicts the Swiss bracket
Each model has its own per-match win-probability logic (ELO, recent form, head-to-head, tactical metrics). For Pickem we run 10,000 Monte Carlo simulations of the full 16-team Swiss bracket per model — every potential pairing flipped by a biased coin weighted by that model's match-level probability. The 3-0 pick = the team that finished without a loss most often, 0-3 = the team that finished winless most often, advance = top-7 by P(3-1 ∪ 3-2).
The simulation re-runs every time Cologne's seeding or team-strength data changes, until lock time (24h before the first Swiss match).