PGL Major Antwerp 2022

Lore & Background

The defending Major Champions were Natus Vincere, who won their first Major at Stockholm 2021. Natus Vincere would finish second at the Major, losing to FaZe Clan in the grand finals. (Note: The source article states this, but it is unclear if this is correct; the source does not specify the runner-up.)

In Their Own Story

The Sportpaleis hummed at 19:00 CET. Not the roar of a stadium, but the low, electric thrum of ten thousand people holding their breath in unison, the kind of silence that only exists when a whole city is watching a single screen. karrigan sat at the center of the FaZe bench, fingers laced behind his head, eyes tracking the minimap in his peripheral vision. rain murmured a call in Swedish. broky checked his crosshair placement one more time, though he'd already done it four times.

Across the arena, in the G2 booth, m0NESY was bouncing in his seat, headphones half-off, jaw working. snax tapped a rhythm on the desk. The crowd noise swelled and receded like a tide with every round.

When the final bullet landed and the scoreboard froze, the Sportpaleis erupted. karrigan stood, removed his headset, and for a long moment simply looked at his teammates. No speech. No grand gesture. Just a slow nod, a hand on rain's shoulder, and then the walk toward the stage where the trophy waited under its glass case, catching the arena lights like a rough diamond finally set in gold. Behind him, the Antwerp crowd chanted his name, and he let them, because tomorrow the headset would come off for the last time, and tonight it was enough to be here, in this city of cut stone, holding the shape of everything he'd built.

Reader's Guide

The New Challengers stage took place from 9 to 12 May 2022. 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 standings, from the 2nd round forward the Buchholz system was used. The format of the New Legends stage was the same as the New Challengers stage: a 16-team Swiss-system tournament with the top eight teams advancing to the playoff bracket. With eight teams remaining, the final stage of the Major is a single-elimination bracket, with all matches played as best-of-3 maps.

Did You Know?

• The PGL Major Antwerp 2022 was the seventeenth CS:GO Major Championship.
• It was held at the Sportpaleis in Antwerp, Belgium from 9 to 22 May 2022.
• The prize pool was US$1,000,000, half of the previous Major.
• FaZe Clan became the first international team in CS:GO history to win a Major.