Matches
Whether it's a casual scrim or a tournament final, 5Stack runs the whole match flow, from picking a server to vetoing maps to the live game, from the panel.
Creating a match
Match organizers and above create a match from Schedule Match on the Matches page. It's one page:
- Match Settings: the match type, map pool and veto, rules, and region. See the sections below.
- Teams: for each side, pick a saved team or switch to Individual and add players one by one.
- Kickoff Time: Now, In 30 Min, Tonight, Tomorrow (both 8 pm), or Pick a Date…. Now starts as soon as a server is free.
A Match Summary beside the form shows the format, the kickoff, and whether each side has a team and enough players, next to the Create Match button (Schedule Match when the kickoff is later).
Pick-up games with a draft or a lobby to fill go through draft lobbies instead, and matchmaking creates its own matches. See Play & Matchmaking.
Servers, your way
Pick how the match is hosted:
- On-demand: provision a fresh server in a chosen region automatically.
- Dedicated: use a server you manage in 5Stack.
- Third-party: point the match at an external server.
Players join with a passwordless connect link. Organizers can change the match server from Assign Match Server in the admin dock's menu, and reboot the server straight from the match page if something needs a reset during setup.
Lineups, check-in & substitutes
Each lineup has a captain, and can have substitutes (Number of Substitutes, 0–5 extra slots per lineup) and a coach (Allow Coaches).
A check-in step makes sure everyone's actually present before the match starts. Check In Settings decides who checks in:
| Setting | Who checks in |
|---|---|
| All Players Required to Check In | Each player; a lineup is ready once a full side has checked in. |
| Captains | Only the captains; a lineup is ready when its captain checks in. |
| Admins | Only administrators; players wait for an organizer to start it. |
The match moves on once both lineups are ready, or when an organizer starts it from the admin dock. The rule is enforced by the server, not just by which buttons the page shows, and anyone outside the lineups is refused.
Check-in has a deadline. With Match Cancellation on (the default), the match page counts down Check in within, and if everyone required hasn't checked in before it runs out, the match is canceled automatically. The time allowed is the instance's Auto Cancel Duration, 15 minutes unless an admin changes it, and a match or tournament can override it.
Map & region veto
- Map veto: an interactive pick/ban flow; once a map is chosen, teams pick their CT / T side. The exact ban/pick sequence is generated deterministically from the pool size and best-of. See Map Veto for the full rules and worked examples.
- Region veto: teams can veto server regions so neither side is forced onto unfavorable latency.
- Veto board: both vetoes run on one board that lays out the whole order of play, and stays up while the match server starts. See The veto board.
- Veto scouting: during a Competitive, Wingman, or Duel map veto, the board shows each side's record on every map and the other side's usual bans and picks. See Veto scouting.
A match is played on the LAN or online, never both. Turn on LAN Match and the region list holds only LAN regions, with no region veto; the server refuses a region list that mixes the two.
Match rules
Tune the match to the occasion: knife round, overtime (rounds and bomb timer), best-of-X, tactical/technical timeouts per team (.tac and .pause), Pause at Halftime for broadcasts, Ready Settings, coaches, default player models, and more.
A Game Mode loads a custom mode's plugins and console variables on the server. Matches with a custom game mode never count toward ELO or the leaderboards. See Game Modes.
Rush
Rush is CS2's 3v3 mode, fought room by room on its own map pool, with its own ELO. Its rules are fixed: one map, no map veto, played to 8 round wins, with no overtime, no knife round, and no side swap.
Player cameras
A match can require a webcam from every player: they connect one from their PC or by scanning a QR code with a phone, the server details stay hidden until they do, and the match pauses automatically if a feed drops. Officials watch the feeds from the panel, and the spectated player's camera can appear on the broadcast. See Player Cameras.
Your turn, wherever you are
Players in a match get a toast on any page when they need to act:
| Toast | When |
|---|---|
| Match Check-in | Check-in opens and you haven't checked in. |
| Region Veto | It's your turn to ban a region. |
| Map Veto | It's your turn in the map veto. |
Each has one Open Match button that takes you to the match (or its draft room). A toast clears itself when the turn is over and stays hidden on that match's own page, and dismissing one doesn't silence the next turn. See Notifications.
The match-ready popup and redirect are remembered per player across reloads and tabs, so a reload doesn't send you back to a match you already handled, while each new match status still gets its popup.
The match page
- The header and highlights are one stage: a scorebug in each map's score colours (with the T/CT split on a single-map match) above a theater player for the match's highlights, with an Up next list of clips beside it.
- Your team is marked with an amber ring on its crest in the header, and its header in the scoreboard and stat tabs gets the same amber rail as your own row.
- Players who queued together are marked Queued together.
- After a map veto, the header keeps the veto's order of play, under Veto, for the rest of the match.
- The tabs hold the scoreboard and analysis. See Match Analysis.
- Once a match has ended, moderators and above get a Chat Log tab with its all-chat and team chat. See Match chat log.
Running a match
Organizers run the match from the admin dock at the bottom of the match page. It's built to show what to do next rather than every control at once.
Match steps
The dock starts with the match's steps:
Check-in → Veto → Warmup → Live → Finished
Veto only appears when the match has a map or region veto. The current step is highlighted, and Live and Finished read Paused and Canceled when that's where the match stands. Hover a later step to see what Unlocks here for you.
One main action per step
| Step | Main action |
|---|---|
| Check-in | Start Veto, or Skip Check In when there's no veto to run |
| Veto | Veto Override |
| Warmup | Force Ready |
| Live | Skip Knife during the knife round, then Pause Match / Resume Match |
| Finished | Set Match Winner |
Cancel Match and Delete Match sit beside the main action, and both ask first. Tournament bracket matches can't be deleted from the match page.
More actions holds the rest: Assign Match Server, the current Winner, live streaming, Create Player Highlights, Reparse Match Demos, and a Coming up list of what unlocks later.
Controls your role can never use are left out instead of shown disabled: Force Ready, Skip Knife, and pausing need a moderator, and highlights and reparsing need an administrator.
Setting a winner
Set Match Winner shows each team's map results (2 won · 1 lost) before you pick. Set Map Winner, on a map card, asks for confirmation and tells you when the change also decides the match: This also makes Team A the match winner., or This also clears the match winner.
Disconnects
- If a player in a lineup disconnects mid-match, the match pauses at the next freeze time.
- When they reconnect, the match resumes on its own once the whole roster is back, counting lineup players only, so a caster or an admin on the server can't stand in. A tactical or technical pause is still left to the teams.
- If they aren't back within 3 minutes, their team gets a 30-second surrender vote, and the leave is recorded as an abandoned match. One leave is recorded once per match, however many times the player drops or however many maps the series has.
- A player who reconnects onto the wrong side is moved back at the next round start.
When a series is decided
Once the deciding map is won, players are free straight away: they can queue or join another game while the last map's TV delay and demo upload finish.
Forfeits and surrenders
A match won by a forfeit or a surrender keeps that status, Forfeit or Surrendered, and counts as a result everywhere a finished match does: it shows its winner, counts toward the leaderboards, and can't be canceled or started again.
A match nobody played, such as a forfeit at check-in or a winner set by hand before any map went live, only changes the Elo of its no-shows, the players recorded as having abandoned it. Everyone who turned up, on either side, keeps their rating.
Watching live
While a match is live you can follow the score and action in real time, jump in to spectate, or broadcast it. When it's over, the demo is uploaded automatically and turned into replays, highlights, and stats.