Every 2hours.gg CS2 server in competitive mode boots with MatchZy preconfigured, knife round, ready system, MR12, overtime, tactical pauses, and auto-demo recording. There is nothing to set up. This walks through exactly what happens from the moment 10 players connect to the moment the demo is uploaded.
1. Connect and pick a team
Players join with the connect string from your dashboard. They land in warmup with team menus open, pick T or CT. MatchZy doesn't care which side you start on; the knife round decides who picks first.
2. Ready up
Type .ready in chat. You'll see a confirmation. By default the match starts as soon as 2 players are ready, even if the other 8 are not. Warmup ends and the knife round begins.
To wait for everyone, the server owner types .readyrequired 0 in chat before anyone readies up. Then all connected players must type .ready. The server owner is a MatchZy admin, so this works out of the box.
Change your mind? .unready cancels it.
3. Knife round
A one-round knives-only fight. Whichever team wins gets to choose their starting side for the main match. After the knife round ends, the winning team has 15 seconds to decide.
Any player on the winning team types one of:
.stay: remain on the side you knifed on.switch: swap sides
4. The match itself
MR12, first team to 13 rounds wins. Tied at 12-12, overtime begins (MR3, $10,000 starting money, alternating sides every 3 rounds). Standard CS2 competitive economy. Side swap at halftime.
5. Pauses and timeouts
These commands handle interruptions:
.pause: pause the match. The pause starts at the next freeze time.unpause: request to resume (both teams must agree).tech: technical pause for a problem like a crash or a lost connection (up to 5 minutes, 2 per team).tac: call a 30-second tactical timeout (3 per team per match, plus 1 in overtime)
6. The demo
MatchZy records the entire match automatically. When the map ends, the .dem file is uploaded to your account page under server history. Demos remain available indefinitely, see downloading and watching demos for playback.
Best-of-3 and best-of-5 series
Single-match competitive is the default, but tournaments and scrim nights usually run series. Bo3 (first team to win 2 maps) or Bo5 (first to 3). MatchZy supports both natively.
Series and the map veto only run when a MatchZy match config (a JSON file) is loaded over RCON with matchzy_loadmatch_url. The 2hours.gg deploy does not load one for you. Without it, each map is a single match, and you change maps yourself between games.
Common gotchas
- Match started before everyone was ready? The default only needs 2 ready players. Type .readyrequired 0 before the next ready up.
- Knife round side pick only works for players on the winning team. Anyone else typing .stay/.switch is ignored.
- A pause request needs both teams to type .unpause before play resumes. The server owner is a MatchZy admin and can type .forceunpause to resume anyway.