PGL Major Stockholm 2021, the first Valve-sponsored event in two years, is due to begin tomorrow in Stockholm, Sweden. Here are some key things to know before the event starts.
Tomorrow’s commencement of PGL Major Stockholm will commemorate exactly two years, two months, and three days since the last major, StarLadder Major Berlin 2019. As a result, the excitement surrounding the tournament is greater than ever after Valve’s decision to postpone the ESL One Rio Major 2020, which was previously slated to be the only CS:GO Major in 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a great influence on the esports ecosystem, with hundreds of events being canceled or switched to an online format. Should PGL Major Stockholm end successfully, it will kickstart the rest of the scene to reevaluate their event formats and reintroduce offline events to the masses.
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Schedule & Location
PGL Major Stockholm 2021 is set to take place in Sweden’s capital on October 26 – November 7 in three parts:
- The New Challengers Stage (16 teams): October 26 – 29
- The New Legends Stage (16 teams): October 30 – November 2
- The New Champions Stage (8 teams): November 4 – 7
PGL Major Stockholm will be the third CS:GO Major taking place in Sweden and the first one in Stockholm. The playoffs (New Champions Stage) will take place from November 4 to 7 at Avicii Arena. Since its opening in 1989, Avicii Arena, formerly the Ericsson Globe, has been one of Stockholm’s most iconic buildings.
This is the world’s biggest spherical building, with a volume of 605 000 cubic meters (about 2 136 540 cubic feet). The stadium was renamed Avicii Arena on May 19 this year, as a homage to one of Sweden’s greatest modern artists and a symbol for supporting mental health among young people. According to the official website, it has a seating capacity of more than 16,500 people. Avicii Arena is ready to reopen to the public now that the indoor limitations have been lifted.
Tournament’s format – The Buchholz System
Together with Valve, PGL has brought back the seeding system that was used at the FACEIT Major in 2018 to “remove some of the random elements of the seeding”. The system will be used in the Challengers and Legend Swiss Stages. It utilizes in-tournament results to rank teams according to the difficulty of their previous round opponents (opponents’ combined score) and assist in determining matchups between teams with the same win-loss record.
The first and second rounds of the Challengers stage are the exception, as it will be totally decided by predetermined seeding before Buchholz takes over as the major seeding method in the following rounds.
Buchholz example:
- Your team has a 0-2 record (two losses), whereas your previous opponents are 2-0 and 1-1. Your tiebreaker score is 2 (your previous opponents had a combined record of 3 wins and 1 loss, so 3-1 = 2).
- Another team is 0-2 (two losses), whereas both of their previous opponents were 1-1. Their tiebreaker score is 0 (their previous opponents had a combined record of 2 wins and 2 defeats, so 2-2 equals 0).
- This signifies that your team is seeded higher with a Buchholz score of 2 versus 0 due to the strength of your opponents.
- In cases where teams are still tied. Initial Team Seeding is utlized.
(Photo courtesy of HLTV)
Team List
The Challengers Stage contains some of Counter-Strike’s most notable teams, including Virtus.pro, Astralis, MOUZ (formerly mousesports), FaZe Clan, and the home team BIG. TYLOO, as the sole Asian representative in Stockholm, will also participate in this stage, as well as Renegades, as the only Oceanian representative. The following is the team list for the Challengers and Legends stages:
Challengers Stage:
| 🇷🇺 Team Spirit | 🇪🇺 MOUZ |
| 🌍 Virtus.pro | 🇪🇺 FaZe Clan |
| 🇷🇺 Entropiq | 🇩🇰 Astralis |
| 🇩🇰 Copenhagen Flames | 🇧🇷 paiN Gaming |
| 🇪🇺 ENCE | 🇧🇷 GODSENT |
| 🇩🇪 BIG | 🇦🇺 Renegades |
| 🇪🇸 Movistar Riders | 🇧🇷 Sharks |
| 🇩🇰 Heroic | 🇨🇳 TYLOO |
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Legends Stage:
| 🇷🇺 Natus Vincere | 🇪🇺 G2 Esports |
| 🇷🇺 Gambit Esports | 🇧🇷 FURIA |
| 🇸🇪 Ninjas in Pyjamas | 🇺🇸 Team Liquid |
| 🇫🇷 Team Vitality | 🇺🇸 Evil Geniuses |
| TBD – CS 3-0 team | TBD – CS 3-0 team |
| TBD – CS 3-1 team | TBD – CS 3-1 team |
| TBD – CS 3-1 team | TBD – CS 3-2 team |
| TBD – CS 3-2 team | TBD – CS 3-2 team |
First-round matchups
The following is the complete list of first PGL Major Stockholm Challengers Stage Day 1 matchups in SGT (UTC+8):
Tuesday, October 26th
16.00 – 🇩🇰 Astralis vs. 🇩🇰 Copenhagen Flames
16.00 – 🇪🇺 FaZe Clan vs. 🇷🇺 Team Spirit
17.15 – 🇪🇺 ENCE vs. 🇧🇷 GODSENT
17.15 – 🇷🇺 Entropiq vs. 🇧🇷 paiN Gaming
18.30 – 🇩🇪 BIG vs. 🌍 Virtus.pro
18.30 – 🇪🇸 Movistar Riders vs. 🇦🇺 Renegades
17.45 – 🇩🇰 Heroic vs. 🇨🇳 TYLOO
17.45 🇪🇺 MOUZ vs. 🇧🇷 Sharks
Broadcasts & Talents
(Photo courtesy of HLTV)
The Major will be live-streamed on the main stream by a total of 18 persons, ranging from Richard Lewis, who will anchor the desk, to Sudhen “Bleh” Wahengbam, who will be making his debut at CS:GO Major as an analyst. Finally, four casting pairs will provide insights as the matches progress. Below is the talent lineup for the event:
- 🇬🇧 Richard Lewis – Host
- 🇬🇧 Freya “Freya” Spiers – Stage host
- 🇮🇳 Sudhen “Bleh” Wahengbam – Analyst
- 🇬🇧 Duncan “Thorin” Shields – Analyst
- 🇨🇭 Mathieu “Maniac” Quiquerez – Analyst
- 🇷🇸 Janko “YNk” Paunović – Analyst
- 🇦🇺 Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill – Caster
- 🇬🇧 Alex “Machine” Richardson – Caster
- 🇬🇧 Daniel “ddk” Kapadia – Caster
- 🇬🇧 James “BARDOLPH” Bardolph – Caster
- 🇩🇰 Anders “Anders” Blume – Caster
- 🇺🇸 Auguste “Semmler” Massonnat – Caster
- 🇨🇦 Matthew “Sadokist” Trivett – Caster
- 🇺🇸 Jason “moses” O’Toole – Caster
- 🇬🇧 James “BanKs” Banks – Interviewer
- 🇺🇸 Efren Chuong – Observer
- 🇬🇧 Jake “Jak3y” Elton – Observer
- 🇬🇧 Ryan “ItsRandall” Randall – Observer
(Photo courtesy of HLTV)
The PGL Stockholm Major will be broadcast on PGL’s Twitch and YouTube channel. There will be secondary streams for simultaneous matches and non-English broadcasts available. There are Chinese, English & Malay, Vietnamese, and Tagalog stream partners available, as well as more community streams in your language if it is not included on the list. The following are some noteworthy official broadcast partners:
| English | Twitch Youtube Steam TV |
| Chinese | Perfect World Website |
| Vietnamese | Nimo TV |
| Tagalog (Filipino) | Facebook Youtube |
| English & Malay | eGG Network (TV) |
| Community Broadcasters | Twitch Youtube Nimo TV |
Prize Pool Breakdown
Concluding the viewer’s guide is the prize pool breakdown, where the eventual victor of the event will walk away with half the money on offer. The prize pool, as well as external circuit points & seeding, will be distributed in the following manner:
| 1st | US$1,000,000 + 1800 EPT pts + BLAST Premier World Final + BP 4000 pts |
| 2nd | US$300,000 + 1400 EPT pts + BP 2000 pts |
| 3rd-4th | US$140,000 + 1100 EPT pts + BP 1250 pts |
| 5th-8th | US$70,000 + 700 EPT pts + BP 500 pts |
| 9th-11th | US$17,500 + 700 EPT pts + BP 250 pts |
| 12th-14th | US$17,500 + 330 EPT pts |
| 15th-16th | US$17,500 + 200 EPT pts |
| 17th-19th | 105 EPT pts |
| 20th-22nd | 60 EPT pts |
| 23rd-24th | 20 EPT pts |
* BP = BLAST Premier
How to Keep Updated With All of the PGL Major Stockholm Matches?
CSGO2ASIA.com offers a real-time match ticker, updated daily across all major matches to watch. We categorize the match from one to three stars according to both team’s lineup, tournament rounds, and the tournament’s prestige. You can always join the euphoria and watch your favorite team play by clicking on the match, and you will be directed to the live stream of the match. Just to remember that we use Singaporean Time (UTC+8) for all of the schedules. Check it out right now on the right side of our website!
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Cover photo courtesy of HLTV
