Virtus.pro, ENCE and Entropiq all punched their tickets to the Legends Stage with wins Thursday at the PGL Major Stockholm event.
VP defeated Team Spirit 2-1, Entropiq topped Heroic 2-1 and ENCE edged BIG 2-1 in High Matches on the penultimate day of the Challengers Stage. ENCE and Entropiq had to rally from a map down to win.
Spirit, Heroic and BIG will play in Friday’s Round 5, the final day of the stage.
In Thursday’s Round 4 elimination Low Matches, Movistar Riders, Astralis and MOUZ survived to play another day with victories.
The PGL Major Stockholm 2021 is a CS:GO major championship with a total prize pool of $2 million. The winner also nets 4,000 Blast Premier points and an auto bid to the World Final 2021.
The New Challengers Stage runs through Friday, with the top eight teams proceeding to The New Legends Stage. The bottom eight teams are eliminated. Elimination and advancement matches are best of three. All other matches are best of one.
The New Legends Stage runs Oct. 30-Nov. 2 and operates the same way. The top eight teams proceeding to The New Champions Stage, which is a single-elimination bracket (best of three) held Nov. 4-7.
On Thursday, VP defeated Spirit 16-7 on Inferno but dropped Ancient 16-12. VP clinched with a 19-15 win in overtime on Overpass. Virtus.pro was two points from defeat, trailing 14-7 on Overpass. But they won seven rounds in a row to force OT.
Every VP player finished on the plus side of the kills-to-deaths differential. Kazakhstan’s Alexey “Qikert” Golubev led the way with 69 kills and a plus-19 K-D differential.
Entropiq dropped the first map to Heroic, 16-10 on Ancient. But they took Nuke 16-14 and rolled to a 16-4 win on Mirage. Entropiq was trailing 6-1 on Nuke before rebounding. Russians Aleksey “El1an” Gusev and Aleksey “NickelBack” Trofimov both had 54 kills for Entropiq, with El1an finishing plus-14 and NickelBack plus-10.
Rasmus “sjuush” Beck led the all-Dane side with a match-high 57 kills on plus-11 differential.
ENCE, too, had to rally after dropping Dust II 16-10 to BIG. But ENCE responded with a 16-8 win on Mirage and 16-10 on Nuke. Poland’s Pawel “dycha” Dycha led ENCE with 67 kills and a plus-21 differential.
Movistar Riders eliminated TYLOO 2-1, with a 16-14 win on Inferno and 19-16 overtime win on Vertigo, sandwiching a 16-7 loss on Mirage. Riders led the final map 10-3 but had to survive TYLOO taking 12 of the final 17 rounds to force OT. Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia was the only player on the all-Spanish side to finish in the positive on K-D differential, with plus-7. Sunpayus and Alejandro “mopoz” Fernandez-Quejo Cano had 56 kills.
China’s YuLun “Summer” Cai led the all-Chinese side with 64 kills and a plus-14 differential.
Astralis had little problem with paiN, winning 16-8 on Nuke and 19-16 on Ancient. Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen led the Danes with a plus-9 differential on 43 kills. Andreas “Xyp9x” Hojsleth had 45 kills for Astralis.
Rafael “saffee” Costa led the all-Brazilian squad with 43 kills and a plus-10 differential.
In the final elimination match of Thursday, MOUZ rallied to beat Renegades after dropping the first map 16-14 on Mirage. MOUZ rebounded by winning 16-10 on Inferno and 16-6 on Vertigo. Estonia’s Robin “ropz” Kool led MOUZ with a whopping 75 kills and plus-25 K-D differential. Joshua “INS” Potter led the all-Aussie side with 61 kills and a plus-6 differential.
The Challengers Stage ends with three matches Friday:
BIG vs. MOUZ
Heroic vs. Movistar Riders
Team Spirit vs. Astralis
Friday’s winners fill the three remaining spots in the Legends Stage.
PGL Major Stockholm prize pool:
1. $1 million — TBD
2. $300,000 — TBD
3-4. $140,000 — TBD
5-8. $70,000 — TBD
9-16. $17,500 – TBD
17-19. No prize money — TBD
20-22. No prize money – TYLOO, paiN Gaming, Renegades
23-24. No prize money – Godsent, Sharks Esports
–Field Level Media
