PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024 Last Chance Qualifier Recap
On February 24, the European qualifiers for the first CS2 Major concluded. Prior to yesterday, 16 teams from the European region were known to participate in this tournament. Another 6 teams battled for the remaining slot in the last chance stage. Let’s summarize the Last Chance Qualifier, focusing on each team and attempting to forecast the future of their current rosters.
Astralis
The biggest disappointment came from Astralis, who, despite gathering the best players from Denmark, miss out on one of the most significant events in their careers. It’s not just about the status and historical significance of the tournament. The first CS2 Major will take place in Copenhagen, a hometown tournament for every Dane. They would have the opportunity to attend the PGL Major, but merely as spectators. The Danes faced one of the easiest opponents in the initial stage, but Astralis couldn’t showcase a worthy performance and lost 2-0 in maps. It’s surprising how experienced players completely vanished and couldn’t even achieve a positive KDA.
After such a dreadful performance, the team received no support from the community. Their staunch opponents, Heroic, dubbed their rivals’ failure as the “Best day ever.” Recall that according to them, Astralis practically stole Stavn and Jabbi, leaving the team in a very difficult situation. However, Heroic managed to secure their spot in the Major. Does karma exist?
It’s hard to say what the future holds for this lineup. They have one of the best rosters with strong fraggers, an experienced AWPer, and a serious organization. The main stars are tied to significant contracts, signed quite recently. Most likely, the guys will try to improve their team chemistry and continue playing in this lineup for a long time.
BetBoom
Another disappointment, but this time for the CIS region. The team has been in this lineup for about 6 months and has failed to demonstrate any coherent results. On paper, the lineup still looks decent, with most players having experience competing at tier-1 level and high individual skill. However, all of this seems to vanish when they step onto the server, and the guys don’t appear as a unified whole. After being eliminated from the RMR, team captain Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov mentioned in an interview that the team has issues with morale and in-game communication. A significant portion of the lineup gets nervous in official matches and can’t execute what they practiced in training.
It’s worth reminding that the team was assembled from players who either left their organizations or were benched. Apparently, all of this wasn’t by chance, as Virtus.pro, Cloud9, and Team Spirit managed to breeze through to the Major without much trouble.
Such a failure was immediately followed by a swift reaction from the management. The team parted ways with coach Vyacheslav “innershine” Britvin, who refused to take responsibility for the team’s results. BetBoom Team surely awaits changes, and it’s unlikely we’ll see any significant results from this tag in CS2 in the near future.
Fnatic
The fact that the team made it to the Last Chance stage is already surprising. The lineup of the legendary Swedish tag is uncompetitive and requires urgent changes. Swedish scene veteran Freddie “KRIMZ” Johansson carried out several games single-handedly for his native club. However, his efforts were insufficient to qualify for tournaments of Major level.
Most likely, Fnatic will follow in the footsteps of NIP and make significant changes to the roster. It’s hard to imagine whom exactly they could invite to the organization, as the Swedish scene is experiencing a shortage of young players. It seems they’ll need to form another international mix or focus on developing their own academy. Such a project will require a lot of time, but there are already examples where such a model yields results.
GamerLegion
This team was very close to making it to the Major and was one of the favorites in the last chance stage. The lineup has a fairly stable core of three players who have been playing together for almost 2 years. The addition of Janusz “Snax” Pogorzelski brought experience and had a positive impact on the game. The team almost staged a comeback in the deciding map of the final, where they fell short of just one round to force overtime.
There shouldn’t be any changes expected; the lineup just needs to gain experience and learn to close out such crucial matches. GamerLegion recently secured a slot in BLAST tournaments, has a decent position in the ESL rankings, so we’ll definitely see them at tier-1 level this year.
9Pandas
The team from the CIS region are the true triumphers of this qualifier. Remember that the organization has existed for just under two years and has been building a Counter-Strike lineup with one goal in mind – to make it to the Major. The coveted dream of not only the players but also the investors has come true, and each of them is already packing their bags for Copenhagen.
Lately, the current roster has shown promising results at LAN tournaments and even secured a victory last November. They didn’t come to this qualifier as favorites, and their qualification for the Last Chance stage could be considered a decent result. After the draw, their first opponent was Astralis, and on paper, it was the toughest possible matchup. The Pandas swept aside the Danes and immediately advanced to the final thanks to the Buchholz coefficient.
In a tense final, they faced another favorite in GamerLegion and clinched the last ticket to the main tournament of the first half of 2024. Interestingly, the hero of this victory was 30-year-old Alexander “glowiing” Macievich, who ended the deciding BO3 with a rating of 1.69. It’s also worth noting the unique achievement of Denis “seized” Kostin, who last competed in a Major 6 years ago as part of FlipSid3.
Let’s see what this team will show at the PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen. It’s possible that 9Pandas can demonstrate a decent result. The guys have already exceeded all expectations and achieved the main victory for themselves. With such morale, they could pose a lot of problems for some favorites and breeze through the underdogs with confidence.
The main part of PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024 will take place from March 17 to March 31. Teams will compete for $1,250,000 and the status of the first CS2 Major champion.