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The New Legends stage at the PGL Stockholm Major has come to an end. Those who will take a place in the Champions Stage was determined of the 16 contending teams. Playoffs of the tournament will consist of 8 teams that will fight for survival in the Single Elimination bracket.
Who are The New Legends?
Only 8 teams made it to the tournament’s playoffs – The New Champions Stage. Some of them were quite unexpected for the audience. And there was the teams that seemed to have a good chance left the tournament. Here is the list of teams that made it to the Champions Stage.
Teams, that didn’t meet the expectations
Astralis
Of course, first of all we’ll talk about Astralis. The Danes made substitutions when they played online. The golden roster is a thing of the past since the team’s sniper dev1ce moved to Ninjas in Pyjamas. The Astralis suffered a string of setbacks in several tournaments in a row and immediately lost their lead in the HLTV rankings. Since the Astralis magic dried up, several teams began to fight for the top in the world rankings. For now, this position is confidently held by Na’Vi.
Astralis no longer show the level of shooting and team interaction that they had before. Perhaps these metamorphoses are related not only to the dev1ce’s transfer, but also to changes in the map pool. New maps such as Ancient and Vertigo was added to the teams arsenals. Astralis needed to rebuild the game with new players. Also an important factor is that zonic has been coaching the team since 2016. The players haven’t gotten a fresh perspective on their game in a long time. On the other hand zonic has shown himself to be effective in the coaching position all these years.
Anyway, the Astralis won FURIA in a bo1 match. On the second day, they lost Inferno to team NiP with a fantastically devastating score of 16:1. Symbolically, Nikolai Reedtz was the one who destroyed his former team with such a crushing score. Further Astralis games were not so devastating. In the decisive bo3 against Team Vitality, Astralis fought hard, but not enough to make it to the Champions Stage. It was clearly seen that the Danes had lost their former greatness. You can read more about how it happened in our article.
MOUZ
Mousesports is now succinctly called MOUZ and the team logo is also changed. But the main changes in MOUZ in the 2 years without the majors were in their roster. I think we can immediately note the most stable players are ROPZ and Bymas. The Estonian looks really stable. He’s the only one left from the old lineup. Ropz is always confident and this is not the first big tournament for him. As for Bymas – the Lithuanian player is another young talent of European Counter-Strike scene. The guy is only 18 years old and he performs at a very high level. Maybe after the Major, some strong team will want to change the roster and will fight to buy Bymas into their team.
MOUZ lost to every team they have faced in the Swiss system. The only exception was ENCE, who finished the tournament with a worst score of 0:3. Most likely MOUZ really needs a changes in the roster after the Major in Stockholm. Perhaps even the team will decide to hire an effective, big-name coach.
FaZe Clan
FaZe Clan showed a good fight. Of course, they also won two teams that are in fact outsiders of the New Legends Stage – Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid. However, the last bo3 series FaZe Clan played against Virtus.Pro. With the naked eye you can see that VP is one of the strongest teams in CIS region now and the substitution they made before the tournament only benefited them. I would like to take a closer look at this particular series, because there FaZe Clan were very close to win and make the playoffs.
FaZe finished the first half with a score of 10:5 on Inferno, playing on the defensive side. It seemed that FaZe scored the right number of rounds and just needed to finish off their opponent. However, VP showed resilience and made a comeback on their pick. A series of rounds allowed Virtus.Pro to strengthen their position and finish the game with a score of 16:13.
But in the second game the score was even closer. FaZe Clan decided to take the Ancient map, because VP had mediocre results on it. In fact, this map was simply absent from the Virtus.Pro pool. Playing for the T-side FaZe took 8 rounds and had a minimal advantage. However, on defense, FaZe allowed themselves a lot of mistakes, which led to giving up several important rounds. FaZe players lost shootouts at positions time and time again. FaZe also gave up several important clutches. This all came down to the third decisive map of Overpass, on which the VP felt much more confident.
I don’t think FaZe Clan should make any big changes in their roster. Maybe they need more young blood. Although if you look at the performance of the old guys, olofmeister is still a very cool shooter. Especially I would like to note the play of karrigan in this tournament. Finn Andersen showed not only good captain’s decisions, but also a great shooting. It is not typically for captain. However, it was not enough for FaZe Clan to get into the New Champions Stage.
Outsiders
If you look at the outsiders of the tournament, you can see that North American Counter-Strike is literally at rock bottom. Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid are among the worst New Legends Stage teams. The Finnish team ENCE was the worst team of the stage finished 0:3. However, there it can be explained by the changes in the roster, the presence of a large number of young players and the lack of a bright captain. Team Liquid and EG have all of that. EG has great shooters like CeRq and Brehze. Team Liquid is made up of world stars like FalleN and Stewie2k. Perhaps this is an excuse for other North American teams to get back into competitive Counter-Strike?
Anyone else missing C9 CS? ?
— Jack Etienne (@JackEtienne) November 1, 2021
The North American teams didn’t show the level of CS that was required to play against such formidable opponents as FaZe, FURIA and Team Vitality. They, along with ENCE, are leaving the tournament.
Underdogs are one step away from the playoffs
Entropiq
The New Legends Stage gave us a lot of games with the underdog teams. Perhaps the brightest of these was Entropiq. The Czech organization with the Russian-Kazakh roster and the legendary Russian coach Dmitriy “hooch” Bogdanov beat Team Liquid and even managed to defeat such a formidable opponent as Gambit Esports. However, later they were defeated by G2, who showed a truly champion’s game. By the way, despite the score in the series 0:2, the score in the series was not bad. On the first map Mirage Entropiq lost with a score of 16:14.
It was obvious that Entropiq didn’t finish the game in the micro-moments and made many minor mistakes. This gave their opponents an opportunity to pick up the rounds they should lost. Losing a few games often happened because Entropiq threw away the winning rounds.
Of course, Vertigo in the game against FURIA was a surprise for Entropiq, because it was their best map. However, the Brazilians showed real class and destroyed Entropiq on their own pick. Nevertheless, the CIS team got their revenge and reduced everything to a decisive third, which they soon lost anyway.
In general, it is obvious that Entropiq lacks just a little bit to win, but they are already playing at a level with the top teams in competitive CS:GO. I think it would be a sensation if they made it to the New Champions Stage. It’s frustrating to lose, but I think Entropiq will learn their lesson, keep their roster and come back stronger than they were.
Copenhagen Flames
The Danish team also showed their teeth. Copenhagen Flames in Challengers Stage and New Legends Stage have already shown how they can beat the favorites. The young players act very aggressively. This team is mesmerizing with their quick aggressive actions and audacity shown in the games.
You can see that these guys have a problem with long-range games like Entropiq. They can win bo1 with confidence, but bo3 series is not easy for them. That doesn’t mean they lose without a chance every bo3 series. All bo3 series at the New Legends Stage Copenhagen Flames played with the score 2:1. This means that the team can show hard fight and show their character when playing against top level teams.
The CIS domination
Perhaps 2021 can certainly be called the year of CIS esports. After Team Spirit’s victory at The International 10 in Dota 2, CS:GO fans expect the same from another CIS team. By the way, Team Spirit also participated in the PGL Stockholm Major, but left the tournament before the New Legends Stage. Their CS:GO squad was disbanded.
However, this tournament has a lot of teams from the CIS. One of them is Na’Vi, who are undoubtedly the main contenders to win this tournament. They came out of first place with no problems with a 3:0 score.
The team Gambit Esports also defeated their opponents confidently. Only Entropiq was in trouble. Of course, we can see that Gambit is still a head below Na’Vi, but their CS is also at a high level. Confirmation of this fact will be the victory over Ninjas in Pyjamas with a score of 2:0.
The situation of Virtus.Pro is a little worse than their colleagues, but VP also managed to reach the playoffs, winning a slot from FaZe Clan in a hard fight with the comebacks. VP’s sniper Jame is still able to win unreal clutches. The team looks cohesive and even despite some mistakes VP shows that it is possible to win series through persistence and character.
As a result, CIS has as many as three teams that are already New Legends. Yes, there could have been more if Entropiq hadn’t given up a few important rounds, but this is one of the best results for the region in recent years.
Brazil Defenders
FURIA is the only team representing Brazil in this championship. Even the legendary FalleN stayed out of the PGL Stockholm Major, but not FURIA. These guys defended their right to be called one of the strongest teams in the world. The young players show an unreal performance at the championship, especially yuurih. Watching the matches where he kills his opponents one by one, you get the impression that yuurih is capable of winning any clutch, no matter how many players are against him.
Of course, you can see that at important moments, the youngest player on the team – drop may be a little nervous. But come on, he’s only 17 years old. Otherwise, these guys keep a high tempo of the CS. They show rounds with aggressive attacks and grenades. I think a lot of analysts underestimate them. Let’s look forward to see what FURIA will show us in the New Champions Stage.
Make way for the new favorites
There’s a noticeable shift in the balance of power among European teams. Team Vitality, the best hope of the French Counter-Strike, lost their title of the main championship contender. They were almost left out of the PGL Stockholm Major in their last game against Entropiq. Their game looks tentative in places, but this team can accelerate in the playoffs, because they have a player who greatly energizes the team – it’s apEX. I would like to point out that ZywOo is still a great shooter with a sniper rifle. I think he will be a stumbling block for the other teams.
The Danish team Heroic, on the contrary, showed a championship game. In my pick-em on the Challengers Stage, I rated Heroic quite highly. Yes, they didn’t make it through that stage with a 3:0 score, but they gained momentum as the tournament progressed. You can see that their main scorers cadiaN and refrezh finally turned on. I think Heroic will have something to show in the playoffs.
Ninjas in Pyjamas unpleasantly surprised their fans by the fact that they barely managed to snatch the victory from the young team Copenhagen Flames. Many analysts say that NiP have the potential to become the champions of the PGL Stockholm Major. It is unlikely that they will succeed with the kind of play they showed in the New Legends Stage.
On the contrary, G2 surprised very pleasantly. I have nothing to add to that. The guys are played, in a very good form, they are ready to win. They showed a lot of cool moments in the game. They have good teamwork. A prime example of this was when NiKo gave the grenade to nexa through the shot to another position. Later, nexa threw an instant flash and NiKo did a quadro-kill. The G2 game is rich with such moments. This makes them really strong competitors.