ptkovsky
The PGL Major Stockholm 2021 championship, with the total $2,000,000 prize pool, is arguably considered one of the biggest and most long awaited CS: GO tournaments ever.
Besides that said and also given the Major status of the Swedish event, it should not surprising that PGL’s event almost instantly and automatically obtained a sort of unique exclusivity status on the Counter-Strike‘s competitive scene.
The ongoing Swedish Major event is the sixteenth CS: GO championship of this elite kind. As the parent company standing behind the whole Counter-Strike franchise since its original inception in 1999, Valve started officially sponsoring CS: GO events and organizing major tournaments around the year of 2013.
Speaking of the championship’s legacy, the current PGL tournament may as well be counted as the seventeenth major event in history, if we also take into consideration last year’s elusive ESL One: Rio 2020 championship.
The formally previous major CS: GO tournament was initially planned to be held in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro, but then it was forcibly cancelled due to multiple organizational issues which were mostly occurring due to the global pandemic of the COVID-19.
How did things initially start?
The official countdown of the Valve CS: GO major championship history started in November 2013, when the legendary DreamHack Winter 2013 event was set to take place on LAN in the Elmia Exhibition and Convention Centre venue in Jonkoping, Sweden.
The $250,000 prize pool DreamHack series tournament featured 16 best CS: GO teams from around the world. At the semifinal stage of the playoffs bracket of the Swedish event, some of the most famous CS teams were battling it out in the form of the Ninjas in Pyjamas vs VeryGames and Fnatic vs Complexity Gaming matchups.
In the first semifinal match of the DreamHack Winter 2013 event the legendary NIP team were able to defeat their strong French opponents with the 2:1 score in a full Bo3 series. In turn, Sweden’s strong Fnatic squad also won their semifinal match against one of the best CS: GO teams coming from the United States.
In the epic Ninjas in Pyjamas vs Fnatic final matchup of the two Swedish CS: GO teams at the DreamHack event, Fnatic were the ones who became victorious with the 2:1 score.
The team who were coached by Patrik “cArn” Sattermon were able to win the whole tournament and grab a significant chunk of the event’s total prize pool — $100,000. The Orange Swedes also earned one of the slots for at the time upcoming and arguably even more spectacular ESL‘s Katowice 2014 major championship.
The Ukrainian Major
The true latest Valve’s Major was organized by the Ukrainian esports content provider and tournaments organizer known as StarLadder. Before the whole global pandemic thing started happening and marked the beginning of the online era in CS: GO, one of last big offline CS tournaments and the previous major CS: GO championship was held on LAN in August-September 2019.
There, 24 best CS: GO teams were competing at the $1,000,000 StarLadder Berlin Major 2019 event which was organized in Berlin, Germany. The CS tournament’s New Champions stage matches were broadcasted straight from the Mercedes-Benz Arena venue.
Some of the absolute giants such as Team Vitality, Natus Vincere, and Team Liquid dropped out of the event in the quarterfinals stage of the playoffs. The first semifinals were the Renegades vs AVANGAR matchup.
During the semifinal match the Kazakh team were looking quite solid, and in the end they were able to defeat their Australian opponents, who were playing with Norway‘s Joakim “jkaem” Myrbostad in the lineup, with the clean 2:0 score.
Looking at the other side of the bracket of the StarLadder Major, there were the underdog NRG Esports team who interestingly previously managed to pick off the Ukrainian Na’Vi squad with the 2:0 score. The NA squad was set to compete against the likes of the Astralis team coming from Denmark.
The Astralis squad overcame their North American opponents in the semifinals of the StarLadder Berlin Major 2019 with a confident 2:0 record and then moved on to the finals to play against the formidable AVANGAR squad.
One of the most famous Danish CS: GO teams were able to win the entire German major tournament with the 2:0 score in a Bo3 final match against the Kazakh roster led by the experienced Dauren “AdreN” Qystaubaev.
Format
The overall format of the Swedish PGL Major Stockholm 2021 championship, when explained in simple words, looks pretty much identical to the format of some of the previous Majors that were played earlier.
Since one of the most exciting tournaments in the CS history — the North American ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018 event with $1,000,000 prize pool, which was won by the Cloud9 squad in the beginning of 2018 at the ELEAGUE Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, today we still face more or less the same segregation of the starting New Challengers stage, then the following New Legends phase, and also the concluding New Champions part of the Valve’s major tournament.
All of these three pretty much marketing gimmicks are simply indicating the traditional and quite usual presence of the almost every big event’s parts such as the preliminary qualifiers, the main tournament’s group stage phase, and the classic knockouts or the playoffs of the event, respectively.
One of the peculiar and the attention catching details of the Challengers stage’s format of the Swedish major event was that only the first half of the championship’s stage, unlike StarLadder’s HLTV CS: GO world rankings system used at the previous major tournament, was now played out using the more usual type of the ranking system which is based on the Regional Major Rankings rating of the participating teams.
And interestingly enough, the subsequent seeding of the teams in the few of the next remaining rounds was done by the Romanian organizers using the Buchholz ranking system, which was first developed and implemented by the famous chess player Bruno Buchholz in 1932.
This alternative and definitely more agile ranking system simply sets a particular dynamic entity for every attending team. The Buchholz score is fundamentally based on the team’s personal performance and also takes into account the parallel results of their opponents obtained throughout the event.
New Challengers Stage
The New Challengers stage of the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 tournament started on October 26, and it was played out in four days, with 16 best CS: GO teams facing each other and using the classic swiss system format, with only half of the teams earning their right to advance to the following New Legends phase.
Speaking of the length of the series, the first games at the New Challengers stage were played out using quicker and less forgiving Bo1 matches. But then, for example, when one of the teams were playing their potentially last match in the tournament, after two losses or two wins in the first two rounds, the decider matches were using the more fair best-of-threes instead.
In this article we aim to specifically focus our attention on the series of matches of the immensely famous and popular Danish CS: GO team Astralis, and follow their path all the way throughout the PGL’s New Challengers stage.
Astralis vs Copenhagen Flames
During the first day of the Swedish event, each participating squad was allowed to play two of their Bo1 matches. Straight from the start, one of the most exciting and hottest openers of the Stockholm tournament’s first round definitely appeared to be the game on Overpass between two of the best Danish CS: GO teams — the Astralis vs Copenhagen Flames matchup.
First of alll, there was some indirect evidence in the air and even predictions that the Astralis squad were not quite in their best shape before and at the start of the PGL event, previously losing to the likes of the opponents such as Team Vitality and ENCE, and these rumors turned out to be more than true.
The game started with the Astralis squad picking up six rounds on the attacking side of the map. And probably nobody knew that these rounds were going to be the last ones for the Danish esports organization in this particular match.
After scoring 9 rounds in the defense in the first half of the game, the Copenhagen Flames team currently floating around world’s top 10 and lead by the former Ninjas in Pyjamas team member and coach Faruk “pita” Pita, were able to seemingly just casually shut down the once unbeatable Danish legends with the seven to zero round score in the second half of the match.
One the most experienced and cold-blooded killers — the award-winning Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen was the highlight player of the match with his four spectacular kills on the attacking side of the Overpass map.
The Astralis’ living legend, who was able to win four of his major titles between 2017-2019 which is the highest recorded number in the entire history of the competitive Counter-Strike, was definitely not quite able to carry his team and his actions seemed not entirely sufficient.
The real deal in this Danish derby surely was the duo of the Copenhagen Flames’ members — Fredrik “roeJ” Jorgensen, who was selected as the player of the match, and also Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi. Both were topping the scoreboards of the server with 24 and 21 kills, respectively, and an average of 1.5 rating.
Astralis vs Entropiq
The peculiar blend of the overall hype mixed with a tiny bit of drama surrounding the path of the Danish legends in this year’s first major CS: GO championship only started getting bigger when the Astralis squad played their second official game during the first play day in the PGL event.
With the starting 0-1 record, in the second swiss round the Danish CS: GO team was set to meet another opponent who also managed to lose their opening game — the Entropiq‘s roster from Russia.
On the Dust2 map which was left over after the entire vetoing process was done by both teams in the Astralis vs Entropiq matchup, the Astralis squad started on the CT side and then were able to pick only 5 rounds against the Russians’ two times higher number of wins.
In the first pistol round of the map Andreas “Xyp9x” Hojsleth was one of the highlight players in terms of pure fragging abilities, when he was able to execute the 1v2 play but ultimately failed to defuse the bomb planted on the B site afterwards due to the lack of the remaining time.
When the score on the Dust2 map was 3:7 in favor of the Entropiq team during the ongoing first half of the match, Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander was one the CTs who was able to score three fast kills with his M4A1-S rifle to stop the progression of the attackers on the A long area.
Despite the formidable efforts of the Astralis squad, after the swap, the Entropiq team which is coached by one of the best players from the CIS region — Russia’s Dmitry “hooch” Bogdanov, were able to start the second half with the advantage due to Vladislav “Krad” Kravchenko’s brilliantly executed smoke play on short which resulted into three quick USP-S frags for the 22-year-old CT player.
With this kind of starting play on the map, the Entropiq squad took the advantage in their hands and were able to close the map in an elegant fashion with the 1:6 score in the second half, resulting in the 6:16 loss for the authoritative Danish CS: GO team.
After the second game was finished, the Astralis team ended up being down 0-2 and they were suddenly facing elimination at the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 championship.
Astralis vs GODSENT
As almost every other team in the PGL championship, the Danish team’s roster and staff members are some of the most skilled and experienced professionals who seem to more or less know how to cope with the appearing trouble and obvious large amounts of stress caused by the unusual LAN environment.
The implemented ranking system at the Major definitely lets the teams make some mistakes, but always up to a certain degree. The Astralis squad got the slight chance to meet a somewhat lesser Brazilian CS: GO team of Epitacio “TACO” de Melo and recieved the potential ability to recover their state at this year’s PGL Major.
Due to the equal possibility of the Brazilian team’s elimination because of their previous losses to the likes of the Finnish ENCE squad and the Team Spirit from Russia, in the third swiss round of the New Challengers stage, the losing team in the Astralis vs GODSENT Bo3 matchup was completely out of the Swedish CS: GO tournament.
After all of the other maps on the list were removed, Nuke and Vertigo were left as the two final maps to play at. The Astralis team started the first half of the map playing on the attacking side with the strong 13:2 record in their favor.
Emil “Magisk” Reif even managed to produce a quick MAC10 ace highlight with his five unanswered kills against the ecoing Brazilian CS: GO squad at the 2:0 score mark, which happened to be in favor of the attacking Astralis team.
The Astralis team were pushing forward as dupreeh then clutched one of his signature rounds during the 3:0 score against the three alive GODSENT players, including their AWPer. The Danish clutcher went hard with the upper site play as the bomb was already planted down and ticking.
The other dupreeh’s highlight moment came in when the score was already 10:0 in favor of the Danes. Rasmussen was once again almost able to kill three of the GODSENT defenders and thus absurdly turn the 1v4 situation in his favor.
The Danish squad continued their relentless push and were then able to quickly close out the first Nuke map, with the 3:1 score in the second half, of the first 16:3 game of the series.
Vertigo was set to be the following map of the series. The Astralis team played on the safety side and confidently started the first half of the game, which finished with the 10:5 score in their favor.
The second part of the game was full of former SK Gaming and MIBR‘s Joao “felps” Vasconcello action. After the swap, when the score was 10:7 in favor of the Astralis roster, felps with his fellow teammate Bruno “latto” Rebelatto simultaneously threw their explosive grenades and managed to severely damage the grouped Danish roster armed only with the pistols.
The Danish team then were all dead within a moment in the result of the quick spray down of the Brazilian defenders, and felps personally grabbing four of the five kills to his favor.
The next clipped highlight moment from the Brazilian defence came in next, as felps was able to run away, hide and, before he was dead himself, spray down with his M4A1-S rifle three of the Astralis members that were executing an eco round.
The Brazillians were fighting well on the second half of the Vertigo map, so the second game ended for the GODSENT team with a sort of more bearable 16:11 loss.
Instead, Astralis’ main damage dealers in this game were Magisk and dupreeh who both scored 43 and 40 kills and could also boast of the admirable 1.61 and 1.26 rating, respectively.
In the result, the Danish team stabilized a bit by earning their first victory at the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 championship. They were now hanging in with the 1:2 score.
While the opposing GODSENT team who previously finished first at the ESEA Advanced Season 38 North America and came in second at the IEM Fall 2021 North America event, were out of the major Swedish event.
Astralis vs paiN Gaming
The struggle of the European champions continued in the fourth swiss round of the New Challengers stage in Stockholm, Sweden, where both Astralis vs paiN Gaming were 1-2 in terms of the scores, and they were once again standing on the brink of the elimination.
Against the popular Brazilian esports organization who recently started hovering around the top 30 in the world rankings, the Astralis squad decided to pick Nuke. The paiN Gaming team replied with the Ancient pick as the second map.
The Danish team started the first half of the first map playing on the Terrorist side, and they were able to take 9 rounds against 6 of the enemy team.
The first game on Nuke was full of highlights from both squads, and they started happening from the very beginning, even during the initial pistol round when paiN Gaming’s Gabriel “NEKIZ” Schenato was able to collect four kills with two different pistols in an afterplant position and also being in the minority of the 2v4 situation.
NEKIZ started his action from the initial kill from the squeaky door position, and then he was able to continue the carnage of the defending Astralis members on the upper bomb site of the map. In the end of the moment, the paiN Gaming roster did not have enough time left to safely defuse the bomb, but their effort looked quite respectable.
The Brazilian AWP player Rafael “saffee” Costa’s highlight moment came right afterwards, at the moment when the scoreboard was showing 2:8 in favor of the attacking Astralis team. saffee managed to pick up four unanswered frags with the sniper rifle.
paiN Gaming’s NEKIZ was once again reigning hawok on the Astralis squad, as the Brazilian player was responsible for the round’s three entry frags during the 4:8 score in the first half. The Terrorists ended up being punished for pushing the rifler one by one through the smoked squeaky door position at the upper plant of the map.
The last highlight of the first map came in at the 8:13 score and it happened when Astralis’ Magisk was in turn able to comfortably spray when sitting on the A plant site, and he picked three fast frags using his M4A1-S rifle against the ecoing Brazilian opponents.
After all of the 15 rounds were played and the usual swap happened, the Astralis squad secured the second half 7:2 and also the first game in their favor with the 16:8 score.
The second map of the matchup was Ancient, and it was turning out as an overall great game of Counter-Strike. The paiN Gaming roster took the initiative and managed to score 10 rounds in their favor as the attackers.
As a terrorist during the first half of the map, paiN Gaming’s saffee pulled off an AWP clutch when he aggressively pushed with his rifle and managed to kill the sole remaining Astralis’ defender Philip “Lucky” Ewald, who was about to retreat.
Interestingly enough, the Astralis squad was able to equalize the status quo, and they responded with the mirrored score of their own during the second half of the map.
The overall success of the Danish team in the second half of the map was built on the foundation of the initial win of the second pistol round of the game, when Xyp9x managed to pull off three Glock frags against the Brazilian opponents, as he was defending the bomb planted on the B site of the Ancient map.
Hojsleth was also outrageous with his next highlights, when he managed to grab four AK kills two times, once against the arcade play of the saving paiN Gaming team, and also the second time to make the score 15:15 and push the hard fought second game to the overtime.
These intense overtime rounds, with saffe and NEKIZ clutching and even knifing their enemies, were finally finished and the game was closed out by the Astralis members when the scoreline became 19:16 in favor of the Danish CS: GO team.
Astralis scored a 2-2 record and were still holding on. paiN Gaming ended up as the another Brazilian team that went out during the early phase of the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 event.
Astralis vs Team Spirit
The fifth swiss round of the PGL event was do-or-die situation as the losing squad in the Astralis vs Team Spirit matchup was out, and the victorious team was through to the next stage of the championship. Both the Astralis team and also Team Spirit were coming to this match with the 2-2 score in the PGL Major tournament.
As the top 20 team in the world, the Russian roster first lost to the likes of the FaZe Clan team in their PGL debut, but then they were able to partially recover and claim two victories against GODSENT and also the Chinese from TYLOO, with the last game ending in a quick 16:3 fashion, and then they again lost in the Bo3 series with the 1:2 score vs Virtus.pro.
Dust2 was the first map and it was picked by Team Spirit. In turn, Astralis started the match on the CT side and were able to close out the first half with the 10:5 score in their favor.
Team Spirit’s member Nikolay “mir” Bityukov was able to display his amazing lurker skills right from the start. The 25-year-old was intentionally hiding and carefully listening outside of the upper B tunnels, and when the Astralis squad were attempting to retake the bomb plant, he pressed on from behind and killed three of the helpless Danish team’s members in their backs.
From the 9:5 score moment in the game, dupreeh was one of the players wh got a triple kill, as he managed to pick the frags up when he sprayed down three of the Team Spirit’s members from the car position during their intended B plant push.
The second half of the Dust2 map finished 6:7 and the game’s score became 16:12 for the Danes.
Inferno was played out as the second map of the Bo3 matchup and it was team Astralis’ pick. They started the game on the Terrorist side and were able to secure 10 rounds in their favor.
mir with his fellow teammate Abdul “degster” Gasanov were the two outstanding players who solved some of the problems for the Team Spirit in the initial pistol round of the map, as they aced the entire enemy team during the A bomb site retake process.
Fast forward to the moment when the Astralis team were leading 9:3 in the first half, gla1ve planted the bomb on the B side as he was left alone hiding in the church position against the likes of the two Team Spirit’s CT members pushing him from the CT spawn. In the end, Spirit’s members both died one by one in their ineffectual attempts to defuse the planted explosive.
At the 10:4 score Spirit replied with degster’s clutch round, and the bomb was defused in the result of his solo push and successive retake against two of the remaining Astralis T side players.
When Astralis were up one round up with the 10:9 score, degster attacked the A site and started from one quick kill, but then was left alone against three members of the Danish roster.
Gasanov slowly pushed the site and killed one player at the graveyard position and then killed another Astralis member on the plant area, picked up the bomb and planted it himself, then swapped to the AWP and finished the last standing dupreeh in the library location.
All in all, the second half of the match ended up with the 6:7 score, and the whole Inferno map finished 16:12 in favor of the Danish CS: GO team.
During the two maps of the 2:0 series against Team Spirit, gla1ve picked up 43 kills with the 1.41 rating and was dealing 98.7 average damage in every round. Rossander was closely followed by his teammates Magisk and dupreeh, who both scored the equal amount of 39 kills.
The story of the Astralis team is kind of unique, as the final result was coming in the quite dramatic fashion. And despite all of the countless issues and other unfortunate circumstances happening against their favor, the Astralis team were able to overcome all of their problems and moved on forward to the New Legends stage of the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 championship, along with the likes of other squads with similar ranking such as Heroic and MOUZ.