Review of the Opening Stage PGL Major Copenhagen 2024
Tomorrow (March 17th) marks the first game day at the Major, but the final list of teams became known less than a day before the start of the tournament. The Russian team 9Pandas encountered visa issues, or more precisely, they simply failed to retrieve their passports for some reason. Denis “seized” Kostin’s team will be replaced by the finalists of the Last Chance stage – GamerLegion. In the big picture, these last-minute changes don’t alter much in the overall setup, except maybe tweaking the bracket slightly. However, for teams aiming to progress to the next stage, they’ll need to overcome any opponent they face. Let’s revisit how each team is positioned and prepared for this tournament.
Teams that will go 3-0.
Few would argue that this team is the main favorite of the first stage. Let’s start with the fact that Kirill “BoombI4” Mikhailov’s squad was supposed to enter the Elimination Stage initially, as they finished the RMR tournament without a single loss. But this time, VALVE decided to distribute the baskets based on the teams’ positions in their own rankings. According to the same ranking, teams received invites to closed RMR qualifiers. However, VALVE had long warned organizations that this ranking would take precedence over any other. Cloud9 has vast experience performing at LAN tournaments, so their recent exit from the BLAST Spring Showdown 2024 shouldn’t have a significant impact on the team’s morale. Of course, the team might stumble, but looking at the final lineup of the first stage, it’s hard to pick a more deserving, experienced, and skilled squad to advance to the top 16.
The second slot at 3-0 will most likely be contested between Eternal Fire, Heroic, ENCE, and Furia. It’s difficult to pick a single team here because all lineups are well-balanced and have experience playing at the tier-1 level. Without much argument, let’s believe in the Turkish roster, which can confidently tackle any opponent. And these opponents should be TheMongolz, SAW, and ENCE. At the moment, the Turks look more preferable in these matchups.
Teams that will go 3-1.
As one might have guessed, the favorites to advance further in the 3-1 basket will be Heroic, ENCE, and Furia.
Heroic is a Danish organization, and three Danes play in their lineup, for whom the first CS2 Major is a home tournament. Yes, their lineup no longer includes the crowd favorite, Casper “cadiaN” Moller, but he left behind a large fan base rooting for this tag. The guys surely set themselves the goal of playing at the Royal Arena, and for that, they need to start by advancing to the Elimination Stage.
ENCE also has a Dane in their lineup, who is already a legend of Danish Counter-Strike. Without a doubt, Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander will make every effort to prepare his guys qualitatively and take the first step towards reaching the top 16 of the tournament.
The chances of Furia going 3-1 seem less likely, but when you look at the players’ nicknames, you realize that they can deliver at any moment. The Major is the best place for this, so it’s definitely not worth counting out the Brazilian squad.
Teams that will go 3-2.
Based on their current form, SAW could easily vie for a 3-1 or even 3-0 pass (after all, they defeated Cloud9 2-0 just a week ago). But once again, let’s remember that this is the Major and it’s LAN. In any case, the Portuguese squad must handle the pressure and advance to the next stage.
Among the remaining teams, contenders for the top 8 in the Opening Stage also include AMKAL, KOI, and, surprisingly, GamerLegion. The Russian team performed well in all RMR qualifiers and has experienced players in its lineup. KOI shows interesting and dynamic CS, which sometimes works quite well even against renowned teams.
GamerLegion received an incredibly strong boost, and if you suddenly forgot, they were the runners-up of the Major in Paris. If the guys don’t have issues with their gameplay form, they are definitely capable of causing problems for their opponents. Yes, they won’t have time to prepare, so their first matches will definitely be tough. But over 2-3 game days, they can definitely find their stride and earn the coveted slot.
Apeks and TheMongolz could also make it to this list, but faith in their success is slightly less. Apeks has been very unstable lately. Their entry into the Major seems like a fortunate coincidence, judging by the list of teams they defeated in the RMR.
According to rumors, TheMongolz are impressing many during practice sessions and showing incredible shooting. In CS2, shooting has become an even more important aspect of the game, on which you can genuinely progress further. We’re confident that the guys will fight and deliver a couple of beautiful highlights, but that shouldn’t be enough to make it to the top 16.
From the entire list, only three Brazilian squads remain, whose hopes are very slim. The teams hardly participate in tier-1 events and came to Copenhagen from a very weak region. The same goes for Lynn Vision.
The final top 8 of the Opening Stage should look as follows:
3-0: Cloud9, Eternal Fire
3-1: ENCE, Heroic, Furia
3-2: SAW, AMKAL, GamerLegion
Always remember the harshness of the Swiss system and that matches not on the brink proceed in a BO1 format, which has become even more unforgiving with the transition to CS2. The final distribution of teams on the leaderboard may change slightly, but most likely, these are the teams that will advance to the Elimination Stage.