The CIS and Europe are the two most interesting regions for the public. But the representatives of North and South America, as well as Asia and Oceania will also play at the Major. We offer you to run through each region and see which other teams will come to Stockholm at PGL Major 2021.
Bet on PGL Major Stockholm 2021 with 1xBetNorth America
In North America, the situation with the slot distribution for the Major is approximately the same as in Europe, only scarier. Out of 3 planned qualifying tournaments, only two were held, and absolutely all teams received incomplete points for achievements in 2020 due to penalties for replacements in the lineups. Only 5 teams received points at the last RMR tournament (from 1875 to 2500), so the leaders of the rating before the start of IEM Fall 2021, the Extremum team, were left without a slot. How did it happen? We will tell you.
Before the start of the last RMR tournament, Extremum had 1880 points. For a fifth place at RMR, 1875 points were given. Extremum had to either get into the top 5 and score points or hope that the fifth place would be taken by a team that did not score points either in 2020 or at the first qualifying tournament in 2021. The most interesting thing is that no other team could even count on such "generosity." No other team in the region would have had enough points under any scenario if they had not entered the top 5 at IEM Fall 2021.
Team Liquid and Furia Esports smashed their groups and entered the playoffs from the first places. PaiN Gaming and Godsent took second place in the playoffs. Evil Geniuses, experiencing huge problems within the team, and Extremum, who, with equal points with PaiN Gaming, lost second place in the group to the Brazilians due to defeat in a personal meeting, went to the match for fifth place.
So, Extremum only needed a victory in the match for fifth place, but unexpectedly for everyone, the collapsing Evil Geniuses pulled themselves together, forgot about all their differences, and showed the game of their life. Stanislaw had the lowest 0.99 rating in their team at the end of this match. The worst player in the team has almost 1! And their average rating per team was 1.19. Note that until recently it was not clear whether the guys were going to play this tournament in full. And they were going to play not only at the RMR but also at the Major. And that's all. Extremum (jkaem, BnTeT, AZR, Liazz, Gratisaction) is passed over the Major.
The teams that made it to the playoffs finished the last matches relaxed, with a sense of accomplishment. Team Liquid was beaten by unexpectedly charged Godsent (felps, dumau, latto, Taco, b4rtiN). In the second semifinals, Furia defeated PaiN, finishing the second map with a score of 16-0. And in the final, it didn't feel any problems against Godsent, without giving any maps in the best of 5. Thus, three Brazilian teams will go to Stockholm from North America at once. It's kind of funny.
South America
IEM Fall 2021 South America. Or the Brazilian Counter Strike Championship. As you prefer. Since 20 Brazilians played in the four teams that took part in the main stage of the tournament.
Unexpectedly, relatively young guys from the Bravos team easily defeated everyone, but this did not help the team to score enough points to go to the Major, because only one quota is allocated for the region.
And this quota was taken by the Sharks Esports team, which beat the main favorites of the MIBR region by 101 points. It's especially cool that the fate of the slot was decided in a face-to-face meeting of these two teams, where Sharks turned out to be stronger (2-0). Note that this time a small number of players under the age of 20 played at the Brazilian Championship. All the talents were either taken to other regions or beaten in the qualifiers. It doesn't look like the region will soon be reborn, although there are enough good teams. However, they compete in another region for some reason…
What's in Asia?
The two best teams in the region, Vici Gaming and TyLoo, battled it out to see who would take the slot. They are the only two teams from the entire region that played both at the first RMR tournament and at the last (by the way, there were only two of them). No matter how great Vici Gaming looked for the season, no matter how hard the team leaders Kaze and JamYoung tried, they could not resist TyLoo, who approached the decisive selection in optimal shape.
Vici took a total of 10 rounds for two maps in the final of the top bracket and a total of 16 rounds for 3 maps in the BO5 Grand Final. Four TyLoo players at once topped the list of the best players in the region according to the results of the IEM Fall 2021. And the team became the best statistically by a huge margin. TyLoo has a rating of 1.24 against 1.05 of the closest opponent. Let's see what will be shown compared to the representatives of other regions.
How are things in Oceania?
As strong as TyLoo's dominance in Asia is, the Renegades have firmly established themselves as the best Oceania team. They can have fun and not take tournaments with not the biggest prize money seriously. They can do nonsense and lose from time to time. But all this is on unimportant starts. As soon as the issue of a Major slot is resolved, the team gathers and plays at its maximum.
They gave only one map to their opponents for the entire tournament. Five players of the Renegades team (malta, Sico, INS, Hatz, aliStair) entered the top 6 best players in the region. Only Rickeh from the Order team managed to squeeze into the third line. Renegades like to surprise their fans with a bright game on the Major. We'll see if they can confirm the reputation in Stockholm.
List of teams that have passed to the PGL Major Stockholm 2021
It's too early to talk about the favorites, the outsiders, the chances of the teams to pass to the Legends or reach the playoffs. The coolest tournament in the history of Counter-Strike is waiting for us. The teams will draw two million dollars in one tournament for the first time. This is a big step forward for this discipline. This is a new level that each of the teams will try to meet.