How CSL works

Four things stand between a new account and a game. They only have to be done once.

1. 1Sign in

   Sign in with Steam. Your Steam account is your CSL identity.

2. 2Pick a name

   Claim a username. It is yours permanently and can be changed once every 30 days.

3. 3Accept the rules

   Read and accept the CSL regulations. Nothing else opens until you do.

4. 4Link Discord

   Link Steam to Discord on Atlas, then verify in the Discord to unlock the channels.

CSL signs you in with Steam, not Discord, because Steam is what identifies you in the game itself. Discord is linked separately at Atlas, and it is not optional: your linked Discord is how the league grants roles, runs match voice channels and reaches you when something needs an answer. After linking, press Refresh on your dashboard and then Verify in the Discord.

CSL is played by clans, so almost everything happens through a team. You can belong to one team per format — an 8v8 team and a 2v2 team at the same time is fine, two 8v8 teams is not.

There are three positions on a roster, and they decide who can do what:

• Founder — owns the team. One per team. Cash prizes are credited to the founder.
• Scrim leader — up to 4 per team. Can do everything match-related the founder can.
• Player — plays. Cannot queue or report.

Only a founder or a scrim leader can put the team into a queue, accept a match, pick the lineup, request a substitution or dispute a result. If you are waiting around for a game and nothing is happening, it is usually because nobody with those rights has queued.

There is no fixed schedule. A captain queues whenever the team is ready, and the league pairs them with another team that is searching at the same time.

1. 1Search

   A captain queues the lineup.

2. 2Match found

   Both captains accept within 15 minutes.

3. 3Lineup locked

   The roster is frozen and a server is assigned.

4. 4Connect

   Join the server from the match page and play.

5. 5Result

   The score is recorded, with 5 minutes to dispute it.

Pairing starts by looking for opponents within 150 rating of your team and widens by 75 for every minute you keep searching, up to 600. A quiet night means a longer search and eventually a wider spread of opponent, not no game at all. To keep the ladder varied you can play the same opponent at most 2 times in 24 hours.

The ready check is the part people lose games to

When a match is found, both captains have 15 minutes to accept it on the website. If a captain queues and then misses their own ready check, they pick up an escalating queue ban: 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, then 24 hours. Only the captain who started the search is penalised — the rest of the team is not — and strikes clear after 48 hours without another miss.

Once both sides accept, the lineup is frozen and a server is assigned. The match page shows a client.connect command; paste it into the Rust console (F1) to join. You then have 10 minutes to actually turn up before an absence starts counting against you.

Each format has its own map, size and win condition, fixed when the match is created so that later tuning can never change a game already being played.

Note the difference in how the two are won. 8v8 needs a two-round margin, so a match can pass its target and keep going at 10-9; 2v2 ends the moment a side reaches its target.

Substitutes sit on the locked roster and can be swapped in between rounds by a captain. A sub has to play at least 3 rounds before the match counts towards their personal record, so a one-round cameo cannot claim a win.

If something goes wrong, the result can be disputed for 5 minutes after the match ends, by a founder or scrim leader, with a written reason. After that it is final and has to go to staff in Discord.

Tournaments are scheduled events with a bracket and, often, a prize pot. A founder or scrim leader signs the team up from the tournament page. Everything then hangs off the advertised start time:

The bracket is drawn privately and published at the draw, so nobody can see the shape of the event while registration is still open. Where the number of teams is not a clean power of two, some sides get a first-round bye.

Check-in is per round, not once for the event. Each round opens its own window and your captain has to check the lineup in for that fixture. If one team checks in and the other does not, the one that did goes through. If neither does, the higher seed advances.

A single-elimination draw sends you home on your first loss, and adds a third-place match where the field is big enough. A double-elimination draw gives every team two lives: lose once and you drop into the lower bracket and can still win the whole thing. On the bracket page, hovering a team shows the route it takes from there, including where it would drop to if it lost.

Where a tournament carries cash, the prize is credited to the team founder as recorded when the result was finalised, and it is not transferable. Prize money is held for a period before it can be drawn, the founder has to complete eligibility verification first, and payouts are arranged with staff through a Discord ticket.

Those rules are a legal policy rather than a game rule, and the authoritative version — including the holding period, the minimum you can withdraw and the country and age requirements — lives on the cash prize policy page. Read it before you count on a payout. Your own balance and its status are on your prizes page.

Two separate things are ranked, and confusing them is the most common misunderstanding on the site.

• Your clan has a team rating used to pair you with fair opponents and to order the ladder. Every team starts at 1000.
• You have a personal rating built from how you actually play, not just whether the team won. Your CSR is your single combined 8v8 and 2v2 position on the player ladder, so CSR #1 is the best player in the league.

Your CSR follows you into the game: the server labels you as [#42] Name when you connect, or [Unranked] Name until you have played enough to be placed. The tag is applied as you join, so a rank that changes mid-session shows up the next time you connect.

Badges are lifetime career challenges that tier up as you play — combat, precision, teamplay and service — and you can showcase your best on your profile.

• Eliminator
• Marksman
• Devastator
• Executioner
• Lifeline
• Wingman
• Sentinel
• Sharpshooter

The short version: play fair, field the people you said you would field, and turn up when you have queued. Cheating, exploiting bugs and unauthorised third-party software are prohibited, and referees and casters must be allowed to observe a match. Sanctions run from a warning through to forfeiting a game and disqualification. Bans stop you queueing and can put a pending prize under review.

Entering a tournament also means agreeing to PC screening. We use Echo.ac, and you can be asked to screen at any point — before a match, between maps, straight after one, or once an event is over — with no notice and no reason given. Refusing, stalling past the deadline you are given, or tampering with anything is treated as if cheat software had been found: you are disqualified and banned, and your team is out of that competition.

The full and binding version is in the CSL regulations, which you have already accepted if you can read the rest of the site. If you are stuck, something looks wrong with a result, or you need a human, open a ticket in the Discord.