PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 Opening Stage

The Opening Stage will be held from March 17 to March 20, featuring sixteen teams fighting for a spot at the Elimination Stage and their chance for one of the biggest prize pools in Counter-Strike 2. Out of the Opening Stage, eight teams will qualify for the Elimination Stage to join the list of the top eight teams in the world who have already qualified. We will introduce you to every team in the Opening Stage, which consists of teams from three different parts of the world.

Opening Stage Teams Overview:

EUROPEAN REGION TEAMS

Teams qualified through Europe RMR

Being the most dominant by the number of teams coming from its region, it’s going to be nine teams to represent the EU, and here’s the list:

Cloud9

CIS-based team who didn’t find much success after roster changes but had some excellent results against top world teams and got some wins to their name against, for example, Team Vitality - a team who will have to protect their major title at this tournament.

Eternal Fire

The Turkish team decided to hold to the entire team roster that consists of only Turkish players, and it seems it’s paying off now. They didn’t find that much success to talk about, but they did put up a close fight against top teams such as FaZe and Na’Vi, and in the end, they qualified here for the biggest tournament this year so far.

ENCE

Under legendary in-game leader, ‘gla1ve‘, the Polish team is trying to find success. They had a good run at their home arena, IEM Katowice, but unfortunately, they fell against Team Falcons in the Quarter-Finals. Overall, this team seems promising, and if ‘gla1ve‘ can pull up some good strategies, as he is experienced with multiple Major tournament wins in his past, they might surprise and give a fight to anyone.

Apeks

A team who surprised everyone at the last Major tournament and ended up in the Semi-Finals, only losing to VItality, who became a champion of that Major. They have changed some players since then, but there are still three players remaining, and they also have the experience they can bring with them this time.

HEROIC

Unfortunately, after some failures, they had to let go of one of the best in-game leaders out there and the one who looked like some “team soul” cadiaN, and on top of that, they changed two more players, leaving only two from the main roster. Now, there are only two players left from the old HEROIC everyone knew, and the rest are entirely different. Since then, they haven’t found any success so far, and it’s questionable if they will keep this roster if they fail at this Major as well. Let’s hope for the best and that young players will do their best to show that those changes weren’t for nothing!

9 Pandas

Russian team who got here by giving their all in the qualifiers. In their elimination match of the qualifiers, they had to comeback from a brutal loss at the first map with a 14-16 score to 2-1 by the maps in the best-of-three series. Aleksandr ‘glowing‘ Mastlevich, 9 Pandas in-game leader, dropped an insane 85 frags across all three maps and ended up with a 1.69 rating for the series. Let’s hope they can bring this here and show their best as they did in the most important game to get here!

SAW

A Portugal team seems one of the most promising young teams to fight for the top. After successfully qualifying for this tournament, they went to play at the BLAST Showdown and ended up winning their spot at the BLAST Finals while losing only one map across the tournament. They seem in perfect shape right now and motivated to the roots!

ECSTATIC

A young team from Denmark who are not known for any big wins at all and all of them are entirely new to such big stages as this one. It’s hard to find much to say about them because they’re still young, and it’s hard to expect anything from them here, but we wish them the best, as we are always glad to see new young teams make it to the top!

AMKAL

Another CIS-based team at this tournament consists of 4 Russian players and one player from Kazakhstan. A few of their results include a win over Astralis and Falcons in the European RMR Qualifiers, which led them to play at this tournament, while big names like Astralis and Falcons will have to wait for the next Major to get their chance.

KOI

It is a team that consists of a mix of two players from Portugal, two from Spain, and one from Romania. In the European RMR Qualifiers, to get here, they lost to Na’Vi, but even though they lost, it was a pretty close match, which shows us that if this team can find some extra power in them, they might beat top teams the next time they meet them.

AMERICAN REGION TEAMS

Teams qualified through America RMR

It’s four teams that will represent America at the opening stage of the PGL Major. List of the teams below:

FURIA

Legendary Brazilian player ‘FalleN‘ is leading a well-known team from Brazil. They didn’t meet many problems while qualifying here, and let’s hope they can shine as they did some time ago, even though lately they’ve been looking lost. ‘FalleN‘ and his in-game leadership skills might bring this team to the top level, and he is well experienced in the games under high pressure.

Imperial

A second team will represent Brazil at this tournament. Few of the players are known for their experience in the past playing Grand Final of the Major tournament, but the rest are new young players yet to shine and show what they’re capable of. They won qualifiers without losing a single map to anyone and only lost 14 rounds in 4 maps they had to play, which is pretty impressive, even if it was against less experienced teams.

Pain

A third team will represent Brazil at this tournament. Probably the less experienced one out of the three Brazilian teams here. It is hard to find any results worth mentioning, but they’re here for a reason, and we will have to see if another young team is here to surprise us.

Legacy

They are the fourth Brazilian team in this tournament. One of them has to do it and make Brazil proud! Legendary player ‘coldzera’ is back in the Major tournament with his new team, which consists of young Brazilian players who have yet to get their experience at such big stages as this one. Let’s hope Coldzera can repeat somewhat close to what he was capable of in the past!

ASIAN REGION TEAMS

Teams qualified through Asia RMR

Historically, it’s always been like that for the Asian side, with only a few teams to represent a region at the biggest tournaments, but it’s easy to explain; the main reason for that is because

Counter-Strike 2 is not so widespread on that side of the world, so here we will have only a small list of two teams:

TheMongolZ

The name speaks for itself. A young team from Mongolia from Asia RMR has yet to show what they’re capable of on the big stage. A few results worth mentioning would be their games against world teams. They won one map out of a best-of-three series against ENCE and showed a close result against Team Spirit, one of the favorites to win this tournament.

Lynn Vision

The second team comes from Asia RMR, which consists of 5 Chinese players. In the history of Counter-Strike, teams from less-known regions like Asia and especially China could surprise top-world teams from time to time with their utterly different playstyle or some unpredictable plays. We will see if they bring some secrets this time!

Favorites

If we had to make a list out of these sixteen teams, it would be something like this:

Favorites to proceed to the Elimination Stage:

SAW
Cloud9
Apeks
ENCE
Eternal Fire
FURIA
HEROIC
Cloud9

Underdogs and Dark Horses:

AMKAL
KOI
ECSTATIC
Imperial
Pain
Legacy
TheMongolZ
Lynn Vision

PGL Major Opening Stage Schedule

March 17:

Cloud9 vs. ECSTATIC, Eternal Fire vs. TheMongolZ at 13:00 CET
ENCE vs. Imperial, Apeks vs. paiN at 14:00 CET
9 Pandas vs. AMKAL, HEROIC vs. Lynn Vision at 15:00 CET
FURIA vs. Legacy, SAW vs. KOI at 16:00 CET
Opening Stage Swiss Round 2 #1 and #2 at 18:00 CET
Opening Stage Swiss Round 2 #3 and #4 at 19:00 CET
Opening Stage Swiss Round 2 #5 and #6 at 20:00 CET
Opening Stage Swiss Round 2 #7 and #8 at 21:00 CET

March 18:

Opening Stage Swiss Round 3 #1 and #2 at 13:00 CET
Opening Stage Swiss Round 3 #3 and #4 at 14:00 CET
Opening Stage Swiss Round 3 #7 and #8 at 18:00 CET

March 19:

Opening Stage Swiss Round 4 #1 and #2 at 13:00 CET
Opening Stage Swiss Round 4 #3 and #4 at 16:00 CET
Opening Stage Swiss Round 4 #5 and #6 at 19:00 CET

March 20:

Opening Stage Swiss Round 5 #1 at 13:00 CET
Opening Stage Swiss Round 5 #1 at 16:00 CET
Opening Stage Swiss Round 5 #1 at 19:00 CET

We will return with our Elimination Stage Overview and Predictions as soon as all the teams are determined on March 20; stay tuned!