History of PGL Counter-Strike tournaments. Three majors and many minors and RMR
PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 will be the first major held in Counter-Strike 2. Despite the great competition among tournament operators, the right to host it went to PGL. The organizer has been collaborating with Valve for a long time, not only in the direction of CS, but also Dota 2 – he has been working on The International for many years.
Viewers often criticize the tournament operator due to individual technical problems and delays in matches. And players are often dissatisfied with the choice of PC components, which negatively affects FPS. In this material we will recall all the CS:GO tournaments from PGL. Over the years, the organizer has already held three majors, as well as many minors and RMR tournaments.
Regular tournaments
PGL’s path to CS:GO began in 2015 with its first own tournaments. This year, two championships with a prize fund of $75 thousand were held – Championship Series Kick-Off Season and Championship Series Season 1. Only the four best teams from the online stage played at the LAN finals in Bucharest. The first one was attended by Team EnVyUs, TSM, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Fnatic, and the second one saw NIP and EnVy replace Virtus.pro and Team Liquid. The champion of both finals was the composition of Nicolai device Reedtz, which in the future will become the basis for Astralis.
However, this is where the history of the league from PGL ended, as well as the organizer’s own major tournaments. The operator switched to organizing Valve championships, but still held two events in the Asia Championships series – in 2018 and 2019. They received an impressive prize fund of $300 thousand and $500 thousand, respectively. Not only Asian teams took part in them, but also world giants such as Natus Vincere, Virtus.pro, Envy and others.
Minors and RMR
Despite the fact that PGL was only able to host three CS:GO majors, the tournament operator was directly involved in many of them. Before the emergence of the usual system of qualifiers for the main championship in the discipline, the organizer managed to hold 9 minors in different regions, and then 6 RMRs. The organization had a hand in the qualifications for MLG Columbus 2016, ESL One: Cologne 2016, ELEAGUE Major Atlanta 2017, PGL Major Krakow 2017, ELEAGUE Major Boston 2018, PGL Major Antwerp 2022 and PGL Major Copenhagen 2024.
Majors
The main asset of PGL in CS:GO were three majors held in Krakow, Stockholm and Antwerp. PGL Major Stockholm 2021 featured the largest prize pool in the history of Valve championships – $2 million was up for grabs due to the cancellation of ESL One: Rio Major 2020 due to the coronavirus epidemic.
PGL Major Krakow 2017 was most remembered by fans from the CIS. It was there that the Gambit Esports team with Danylo Zeus Teslenko won an unexpected victory. Before the major, the team showed an incomprehensible game and, perhaps, did not even qualify for passage to the playoffs, let alone high places. However, Gambit managed to complete the group stage with statistics of 3-0, and in the playoffs they managed to cope with Fnatic, Astralis, and in the grand finals they beat another of the outsiders, Immortals, who were able to climb as high as the squad from the CIS. But this major was remembered not only for Gambit’s championship and huge delays. After this, the community began to consider PGL to be the worst organizer of championships from Valve.
PGL Major Stockholm 2021 was marked not only by a huge prize money, but also by the long-awaited closed «gestalt» of Natus Vincere. After a series of unsuccessful grand finals in Valve championships, the lineup with Kirill Boombl4 Mikhailov was able to win the most «expensive» major. NAVI also managed to set one of the records at that time – during PGL Major Stockholm 2021 it did not lose a single map. The team went through the group stage without defeat, and in the playoffs Team Vitality and Gambit Esports were unable to oppose them, and in the finals they destroyed G2 Esports. It was there that Nikola NiKo Kovac’s fatal mistake happened with Desert Eagle on Nuke. The mistake cost G2 the map and the entire grand final.
At PGL Major Antwerp 2022, Natus Vincere failed to defend its title and win its second major. In the grand final they were stopped by FaZe Clan, who began their era of dominance in the professional CS:GO scene. The team won several major tournaments in a row, and the major in 2022 became one of them. But FaZe’s path to the championship was not as easy as NAVI’s. In the group, Finn’s karrigan Andersen roster lost to ENCE, and in the quarterfinals lost map to the Ninjas in Pyjamas. However, after that the team did not have any difficulties with Team Spirit and Natus Vincere. The MVP of the tournament was one of the oldest players on the professional scene – Howard rain Nygaard.
PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 will certainly be the biggest Counter-Strike 2 event since its release. But what impression the championship will leave for its participants and spectators is a big question. Already at the last RMR, the organizers again encountered technical difficulties, and the players were dissatisfied with the components presented. If PGL manages to hold the Major without long delays and equipment problems, the championship in Copenhagen will really be able to create a Counter-Strike holiday atmosphere and be remembered by fans for a long time.