The PGL Major Stockholm 2021, also known as PGL Major 2021 or Stockholm 2021, was the sixteenth Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) Major Championship. It was held in Stockholm, Sweden at the Avicii Arena from October 26 to November 7, 2021. Twenty-four teams qualified via regional major rankings. It featured a prize pool, a rise from the of previous Majors due to the absence of offline competition amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It was the second Major hosted by the Romanian organization PGL, after PGL Major: Kraków 2017. Stockholm 2021 was the first Major after a break caused by the COVID-19 pandemic following the StarLadder Major: Berlin 2019. The Major was won by Natus Vincere, who did not lose a single map throughout the tournament.
Background Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is a multiplayer first-person shooter video game developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and Valve Corporation. It is the fourth game in the Counter-Strike series. In professional CS:GO, the Valve-sponsored Majors are the most prestigious tournaments.
The Stockholm Major was the first Major in two years following an absence in offline play in 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, the ESL One Rio Major 2020 was planned for May 2020, but was postponed to November, before later being canceled in September.
The defending champions were Astralis, who won their fourth Major at Berlin 2019. They were eliminated in the Legends stage after their loss to Team Vitality.
Format
Map Pool Between the Berlin 2019 Major and the Stockholm 2021 Major, Valve replaced Train in the active duty map pool with Ancient.
Dust II Mirage Inferno Nuke Ancient Overpass Vertigo
Regional Major Ranking On April 2, 2020, Valve revised the former major qualification system which featured direct qualifiers called minors, for a yearly circuit where teams had to earn Regional Major Ranking Points (RMR) in a series of tournaments. The system was revised in scope of the first postponement of the Rio Major. In early January 2021, Valve reached out to organizers for proposals of three RMR events per region–Asia, CIS, Europe, North America, South America and Oceania. Five days later, the corporation released the 2020 RMR Sticker capsule as an in-game item, including the team's logos as sticker who qualified for Rio. They furthermore reset all the points acquired and reset the leaderboard. As a compensation, teams who qualified as a Legend for the Rio Major were awarded with 600 points, Challengers with 300 and Contenders with 100. Through the rules laid out by Valve, teams were able to replace up to two members of their roster at a time for a penalty. Teams lost 20% of their points per player change. If three or more players were removed from the team, the points would be reset. At least two RMR events per region were required with an optional third one being possible. The only regions to have three RMR events were CIS and South America.
Tournaments +List of RMR tournaments Region Events Dates Asia Perfect World League Season 1 (2021/1) 5800 April 20 – May 3, 2021 IEM Fall 2021 Asia (2021/2) 9063 October 5–10, 2021 CIS EPIC League CIS 2021 (2021/1) 10000 May 12 – June 1, 2021 StarLadder CIS RMR 2021 (2021/2) 8750 June 27 – July 4, 2021 IEM Fall 2021 CIS (2021/3) 10938 September 29 – October 3, 2021 Europe Flashpoint Season 3 (2021/1) 13600 May 10–30, 2021 IEM Fall 2021 Europe (2021/2) 18908 September 29 – October 10, 2021 North America cs_summit 8 (2021/1) 10000 May 20–30, 2021 IEM Fall 2021 North America (2021/2) 10938 October 5–10, 2021 Oceania EPIC League Oceania 2021 (2021/1) 5800 May 24–30, 2021 IEM Fall 2021 South America (2021/2) 9063 September 29 – October 3, 2021 South America CBCS Elite League Season 1 (2021/1) 10000 April 22 – May 16, 2021 CBCS Elite League Season 2 (2021/2) 6900 July 21 – August 8, 2021 IEM Fall 2021 South America (2021/3) 9063 September 29 – October 3, 2021
RMR standings
+Asia Teams Total Seed Tyloo 100 1500 2500 4100 Contenders ViCi — 1600 2344 3944 rowspan="5" Team NKT — — 2188 2188 Checkmate — — 2031 2031 Invictus — 1400 — 1120 Wings Up — 1300 — 1040 +Oceania Teams Total Seed Renegades 100 1600 2500 4180 Contenders ORDER — 1500 2188 3688 rowspan="4" LookingForOrg — 1300 2344 3384 VERTEX — — 2031 2031 Rooster — 1400 — 895 +CIS Teams Total Seed Natus Vincere 600 1200 2000 2344 6024 Legends Gambit Esports — 1600 1875 2500 5975 Team Spirit 600 1300 1750 1875 5405 Challengers Virtus.pro 100 1500 — 2031 3631 Contenders Entropiq — 1100 — 2188 3288 K23 — 950 1625 — 2575 rowspan="5" forZe — 950 1500 — 2450 Akuma — — 1400 — 1400 Nemiga 300 — — — 192 Espada 100 — — — 60 +North America Teams Total Seed FURIA 600 1500 2500 4084 Legends Team Liquid 300 1600 2188 4028 Evil Geniuses 600 950 1875 3185 paiN Gaming — 1100 2031 3031 Challenger Godsent — — 2344 2344 Contender Extremum 600 1400 — 1880 rowspan="5" 00Nation — 1300 — 1300 Extra Salt — 1200 — 1200 Bad News Bears — 950 — 570 Gen.G 100 — — 80
+South America Teams Total Seed Sharks Esports — 1500 1875 2344 5719 Contenders MIBR 100 1600 1750 2188 5618 rowspan="8" Bravos Gaming — 1300 2000 2500 4932 Paquetá Gaming — 1400 1625 — 3025 Imperial Esports — — — 2031 2031 Havan Liberty — 1050 — — 840 INTZ — 1050 — — 630 Santos e-Sports — 1050 — — 0 Meta Gaming — 1050 — — 0 +Europe Teams Total Seed Ninjas In Pyjamas 600 1500 2500 3988 Legends Team Vitality 600 1000 2188 3668 G2 Esports 300 1400 1719 3359 Astralis 300 Challengers ENCE — — 2344 2344 BIG 300 1200 1094 2294 Movistar Riders — — 1875 1875 Heroic 600 1300 — 1660 mousesports — 1600 — 1600 Copenhagen Flames — — 1563 1563 Contenders FaZe Clan 100 250 1250 1498 Team Fiend — — 1406 1406 rowspan="9" OG 300 250 938 1368 FunPlus Phoenix 300 800 — 1040 DBL Poney — 900 — 720 Sprout — 600 — 480 Complexity Gaming — 700 — 420 Anonymo — 500 — 300 fnatic 300 250 — 294 HYENAS 100 250 — 0
Teams competing
Legends
Evil Geniuses FURIA Esports G2 Esports Gambit Esports Natus Vincere Ninjas in Pyjamas Team Liquid Team Vitality
Challengers
Astralis BIG ENCE Heroic MOUZ Movistar Riders paiN Gaming Team Spirit
Contenders
Copenhagen Flames Entropiq FaZe Clan GODSENT Renegades Sharks Esports TYLOO Virtus.pro
New Challengers Stage
The New Challengers stage took place from October 26 to October 29, 2021, at the Avicii Arena. The Challengers stage, also known as the Preliminary stage and formerly known as the offline qualifier, is a sixteen team swiss tournament. Initial seeding was determined using RMR srandings, from the 3rd round forward the Buchholz system was used.
Round 1 matches Inferno Inferno Nuke Nuke Inferno Nuke Overpass Overpass
Round 2 matchesHigh division Dust 2 Nuke Vetrigo Nuke Low divisioncolspan=5
Round 3 matchescolspan=5
Round 4 matchescolspan=5
Round 5 matchescolspan=5
New Legends Stage
Top 8 Teams proceed to New Champions Stage Bottom 8 Teams are eliminated
Place Team Record RD Round 1 Round 2 Round 3 Round 4 Round 5 Natus Vincere 3–0 +31 G2 Esports 3–0 +24 Heroic 3–1 +22 Gambit Esports 3–1 +17 FURIA Esports 3–1 +3 Team Vitality 3–2 +23 Virtus.pro 3–2 +2 Ninjas in Pyjamas 3–2 −9 Copenhagen Flames 2–3 6 FaZe Clan 2–3 −2 Entropiq 2–3 −12 MOUZ 1–3 −5 Team Liquid 1–3 −17 Astralis 1–3 −25 ENCE 0–3 −33 Evil Geniuses 0–3 −36
Round 1 matchescolspan=5
Round 2 matchesHigh divisioncolspan=5 Low divisioncolspan=5
Round 3 matchescolspan=5
Round 4 matchescolspan=5
Round 5 matchescolspan=5
New Champions Stage With eight teams remaining, the final stage of the Major is a single-elimination bracket, with all matches played as best-of-3 maps.
Bracket
Quarterfinals
Heroic vs. Virtus.pro Casters: Semmler & moses
Virtus.pro vs. Heroic scores Team Score Map Score Team Mirage Ancient Inferno
G2 Esports vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas Casters: Semmler & Anders
G2 Esports vs. Ninjas in Pyjamas scores Team Score Map Score Team Inferno Mirage G2 Esports Ancient Ninjas in Pyjamas
FURIA Esports vs. Gambit Esports Casters: James Bardolph & ddk
FURIA Esports vs. Gambit Esports scores Team Score Map Score Team Inferno Overpass FURIA Esports Mirage Gambit Esports
Natus Vincere vs. Team Vitality Casters: James Bardolph & ddk
Natus Vincere vs. Team Vitality scores Team Score Map Score Team Dust II Nuke Natus Vincere Mirage Team Vitality
Semifinals
Heroic vs. G2 Esports Casters: Semmler & Anders
G2 Esports vs. Heroic scores Team Score Map Score Team Nuke Mirage Inferno
Natus Vincere vs. Gambit Esports Casters: Semmler & Moses
Natus Vincere vs. Gambit Esports scores Team Score Map Score Team Overpass Mirage Natus Vincere Dust II Gambit Esports
Finals
Natus Vincere vs. G2 Esports Casters: Machine & SPUNJ
G2 Esports vs. Natus Vincere scores Team Score Map Score Team Ancient Nuke G2 Esports – Mirage – Natus Vincere
Final standings The final placings are shown below. In addition, the prize distribution, seed for the next major, roster, and coaches are shown. Place Prize Money Team Seed Roster Coach 1st Natus Vincere PGL Major Antwerp 2022 RMR s1mple, electroNic, Boombl4, Perfecto, b1t B1ad3 2nd G2 Esports JaCkz, AmaNEk, nexa, huNter-, NiKo maLeK 3rd 4th Heroic stavn, cadiaN, TeSeS, refrezh, sjuush Xizt Gambit Esports nafany, sh1ro, Ax1Le, interz, HObbit groove 5th 8th Team Vitality apEX, ZywOo, shox, , XTQZZZ FURIA Esports yuurih, arT, VINI, KSCERATO drop tacitus Virtus.Pro buster, Qikert, Jame, YEKINDAR, FL1T dastan Ninjas in Pyjamas REZ, Plopski, hampus, dev1ce, LNZ THREAT 9th 11th Entropiq PGL Major Antwerp 2022 RMR El1an, Lack1, NickelBack, Krad, Forester hooch Copenhagen Flames Jabbi, , roeJ, , Zyphon vorborg FaZe Clan rain, olofmeister, broky, Twistzz, karrigan innersh1ne 12th 14th Astralis dupreeh, Xyp9x, gla1ve, Magisk, Lucky zonic MOUZ ropz, , Bymas, acoR, dexter mithR Team Liquid EliGE, NAF, Stewie2K, Grim, FalleN jokasteve 15th 16th Evil Geniuses , CeRq, stanislaw, , ENCE , , Spinx, , hades 17th 19th BIG tabseN, , syrsoN, , LEGIJA Movistar Riders mopoz, ALEX, DeathZz, SunPayus, dav1g Team Spirit chopper, mir, magixx, degster, Certus 20th 22nd paiN Gaming PKL, biguzera, hardzao, , felippe1 Renegades malta, Sico, INS, Hatz, aliStair Kingfisher TYLOO somebody, Summer, Attacker, SLOWLY, DANK1NG 23rd 24th GODSENT , felps, latto, , dumau Sharks Esports jnt, pancc, Lucaozy, ,
Notes
References