1. Sourcing hierarchy
For every fact we publish — roster, score, qualification path, prize distribution, schedule — we use the following hierarchy of sources, in descending order of authority:
- Primary tournament sources: ESL announcements, ESL Pro Tour pages, Valve announcements, official team press releases.
- Liquipedia Counter-Strike: CC-licensed wiki actively maintained by the community, with citations to primary sources for most claims.
- HLTV.org: the de-facto reference for CS rosters, world rankings, and event coverage.
If primary and secondary sources disagree, we publish the primary source's version and add a note explaining the discrepancy.
2. Roster and player data
Active rosters are scraped from HLTV team pages and verified against Liquipedia at the time of publication. Each player profile cross-links to the original HLTV player page so readers can independently verify nationality, age, and team. When a roster move occurs, we update the relevant team page within 48 hours of the move being reported by either HLTV or Liquipedia.
3. News coverage
News articles on this site cover IEM Cologne Major 2026 specifically. Each article aggregates a story originally reported by HLTV — we credit HLTV in both the article footer and the JSON-LD isBasedOn field, and we link to the original HLTV piece. We do not republish the entirety of HLTV articles; we publish a structured summary so search engines can index the event-related news on a single domain. Readers who want the full report should follow the source link.
4. Photography and logos
Team logos are hot-linked from HLTV's image CDN. Player bodyshot photographs are similarly hot-linked from HLTV. We do not host or redistribute these images. Should HLTV or any rights holder request removal of a specific image, we will replace the link or remove the asset within 72 hours.
5. Corrections policy
If we publish an error, we correct it on the affected page and add a dated note at the bottom of the article. Substantive corrections (factual errors) are noted explicitly; minor edits (typos, broken links) are not. Submit correction requests via the Contact page.
6. AI-generated content
Player profile prose and team-summary paragraphs are partially generated from structured infobox data (founding date, country, total winnings, in-game leader, coaches). The underlying facts are scraped, not invented; the sentence structure is templated. News articles are not AI-rewritten — they reproduce the headline, lead, and key paragraphs from the original HLTV report with attribution. We disclose this in the JSON-LD via the isBasedOn property.
7. Conflicts of interest
The only paid commercial relationship on this site is the partnership with CS2Predict.gg, disclosed on the homepage in the dedicated partner section. No team, player, sponsor, or organizer pays for editorial coverage, ranking placement, or favourable wording.
8. Independence
This site has no affiliation with ESL Gaming GmbH, Intel Corporation, or Valve Corporation. We do not receive press credentials, advance access, or financial support from any party connected to the event.