The CS:GO Major

Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) is a five versus five competitive first-person shooter game. The goal of the game is for the terrorists to try to plant a bomb, while the counter-terrorists try to stop them from doing so. Counter Strike’s competitive scene is fractured by many different circuits. To fix this, Valve, the game’s publisher, selects a company and city to host their Majors. Majors are the world championship for the game and are supposed to happen every six months, but due to problems in trying to host the last one in Brazil in the last two years, they shifted the major to Stockholm. The Major’s format is two Swiss stages with a playoff bracket.

Swiss stages are a format in which 16 teams play until they have three wins, in which case, they make it out, or three losses, which means that they are eliminated. Each game that qualified or eliminated was a best of three, so each team can demonstrate and prove their skills on more than just one map.

The New Challengers Stage contained the best team from minor regions, the 4th to 11th placed teams from Europe, the 3rd, 4th and 5th best from CIS, and the 4th and 5th teams from North America. In this stage, there were many upsets. The old legends of FaZe Clan, who were looking very shaky recently, got out without losing a map. The young Danes of Copenhagen Flames entered the tournament without any expectations and got out undefeated other than a map in their series against fellow Danish team, Heroic. Heroic and the reigning three Major streak champion, Astralis, barely got out of this stage. The other teams who joined those four in getting out were ENCE, Entropiq, Virtus.pro and mouz.

The New Legends Stage is the next stage where the teams that got out of the New Challengers stage meet the eight teams that qualified as legends. Those include the top three teams from Europe, the top three from North America and the top two from CIS. The teams that got out undefeated were Natus Vincere (NAVI), born to win in Latin, and G2 Esports. The expectation was for NAVI to get out easily, but G2 shocked because of how uncertain they were playing before the tournament. Heroic, Gambit and Furia got out the next day. Heroic, looking the best, only losing to NAVI in NAVI’s streak and a map in their rematch against fellow Danes Copenhagen Flames. Virtus.pro and, hometown team, Ninjas in Pajamas captured their last chance for playoffs after being caught in the path of the top two CIS teams, NAVI and Gambit. Vitality barely made it out after going to elimination as fast as possible, then with 2:1 series for three series to get out. Notably, the three Major streak team, Astralis and their former American rivals, Team Liquid. got eliminated in Round four.

The New Champions Stage is the playoffs of the Major. Every matchup is Best of Three and is a single elimination structure. They used Swiss results for seeding with the undefeated teams on opposing sides of the bracket. The playoffs played out with NAVI beating Vitality, Gambit beating Furia and G2 defeating the Ninjas, all 2-0. The other quarterfinal of Virtus.pro and Heroic went to all three maps with Heroic pulling out the win. In the semifinals, NAVI continued their march for the title with a sweep against their CIS rival, Gambit. On the other side of the bracket, G2 beat Heroic in overtime on the third map to achieve the finals. They accomplished the win by the heroic, the word not the team, plays of their star player Niko.

The day of the finals, there was a show match between, former contestant, Copenhagen Flames and a team consisting of legendary former players with help from olofmeister of FaZe Clan and YEKINDAR of Virtus.pro. Both teams played for fun and took fun matchups, like a knife round and sometimes used the Zues, the game’s close-up shock weapon. The match ended up with the mixed match team winning. Some were expecting to take the show match seriously because their roster is on the market to leave the organization. To hype up the final, they made a song. The song is called Flashbang Dance by The Verkkars and n0thing. After they performed the song for the intro, they introduced the teams competing in the final. NAVI pulled out G2’s map pick with a good lead in that map. Then they would begin NAVI’s map pick, which NAVI had a 17-win streak on. G2’s star Niko had an impact on the first half leading to an early lead, but in the second half NAVI’s star S1mple had his impact and tied up the map leading them to overtime. In overtime, NAVI ended up getting three of the first four rounds, but G2 tied up overtime and forced a second overtime. In the second overtime, NAVI won the majority of the rounds played on both sides, leading to them winning the map, and therefore the Major. That leads S1mple to win his first Major after years of success in Majors, although only winning this time. On the other side, Niko still has to win a Major, this time being his second losing in the Grand Final during overtime. Also, when they were celebrating the win, one of the NAVI players, Boombl4 proposed.

NAVI’s win would have qualified them for the unofficial World Final held by BLAST Premier, but since they already qualified for the tournament, they opened a slot for another team. The four teams already qualified to the World Finals also includes Gambit, Heroic and G2, the rest of the top four of the Major. That tournament goes from December 14-19. NAVI can also attempt to qualify three different ways at BLAST’s Fall Finals which takes place from November 24-28. The Major conclusion is also bringing on roster changes that were waiting for the past year and a half. Astralis lost two of their players due to their contracts concluding, and Vitality are rumored to be replacing two of their players and their coach with the players who have just left Astralis due to lower than expected placements at the Major. It is still unknown if the top teams at this Major will be invited to the next, and that might affect top teams making roster changes. For example, if Vitality goes through with this rumored change, they can’t replace anymore players unless they want to requalify for the Major cycle.