Major Championship PGL Stockholm 2021

The PGL Stockholm Major Championship 2021 is one of the biggest and most long-awaited Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournaments in the world, technically the 17th Valve-sponsored event. The previously planned 16th Major known as ESL One: Rio was set to begin in November 2020 but canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The last Valve-sponsored event was played out more than three years ago. It was the $1,000,000 StarLadder Berlin Major, which was held in August-September 2019. The PGL Stockholm Major 2021 event can boast of the record $2,000,000 prize pool. This is the biggest amount of money in the history of the competitive Counter-Strike.

The New Challengers stage was played out from October 26 to October 29. Sixteen best CS: GO teams played each other using the Swiss system. Half of the teams moved on while the other half was eliminated. All of the New Challengers stage's matches were played on only one map except for the Bo3 system, which was used when one of the teams was about to move on or leave the tournament. The stage's seeding mechanics was switched from using the Regional Major Ranking standings table to the Buchholz system from the third round of the games.

The next New Legends stage's matches commenced on October 30 up until November 2. This stage used practically the same rules from the previous New Challengers phase. The final New Champions stage is the last stage of the event. It was going on from November 4 and finished on November 7. Eight best teams participated in the playoffs. All of the matches in the knockout stage were played as the Bo3 series.