PGL Major Krakow

Lore & Background

PGL Esports is a Romanian esports production company based in Bucharest that produces Dota 2 and Counter-Strike 2 tournaments. They have hosted multiple Counter-Strike Major Championships, including PGL Major: Krakow 2017.

In Their Own Story

The group stage was a sixteen-team Swiss-system tournament in which, after the first round, teams only played other teams with the same win–loss record. Each match was best-of-one, and no team played another team twice. All teams played until they had either won or lost three games: any team with three wins advanced to the playoff stage, and any team with three losses was eliminated. The group stage and playoffs were played in Kraków, Poland, with group stage played in closed studio and playoffs being held in Tauron Arena Kraków. First round seeding was determined by placements at the previous Major and the main qualifier. In the quarterfinals, BIG and Gambit received the top seeds and played a randomly selected opponent among Virtus.pro, Immortals, and Fnatic. BIG received Immortals and Gambit received Fnatic. Among SK Gaming, North, and Astralis, two randomly selected teams from this pool would go on to face each other and the teams would be SK Gaming and Astralis. The remaining two teams, North and Virtus.pro, were paired together. Gambit Esports defeated Fnatic in the quarterfinals, then defeated Astralis in the semifinals. Immortals defeated BIG in the quarterfinals, then defeated Virtus.pro in the semifinals. In the finals, Gambit Esports defeated Immortals 2–1.

Reader's Guide

The format remained the same as the previous Major. The top eight teams from Atlanta 2017 ("Legends") were automatically invited to Kraków 2017. The remaining eight spots were filled by teams that advanced from the PGL Major Krakow 2017 Main Qualifier. The group stage of the Major was a 16-team Swiss-system group stage. The top eight teams at the end of the group stage, teams with three wins, advanced to the playoff stage and became the new Legends. Teams with three losses were eliminated, but earned an invite to the next Major's offline qualifier. All playoff matches were best-of-three, single elimination. The map pool was changed for this major: Dust II was taken out of the active map pool and Valve reintroduced Inferno, which had been taken out of the map pool and revamped. The veto process was also changed for best-of-one games.

Did You Know?

• The grand finals featured two underdogs: Gambit Esports and Immortals.
• Gambit Esports defeated Fnatic and Astralis en route to the final.
• Immortals defeated BIG and Virtus.pro to reach the final.
• The Major concluded with Gambit defeating Immortals 2–1 in a best-of-three series.