The opening weekend of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s ELEAGUE Major: Boston saw the New Challengers Stage stage confirm the progression of nine teams to the New Legends Stage.
The New Challengers Stage saw 16 teams grace Turner’s Atlanta studio to battle it out for a spot in the latter stages and a bite at the one million US dollars (£7.26million) prize pool.
Big money is on offer to the best gamers (Joe Giddens/PA)
Nine of the 16 teams who competed will now join the seven existing Legends next week as the field narrows from 16, leaving just eight teams standing.
The final weekend of January will see the top eight head to the Agganis Arena, Boston, where the champion will take home 500,000 US dollars (£363,000).
Coming into the weekend’s fixtures, juggernauts of the Counter-Strike scene such as FaZe Clan, Cloud9 and G2 Esports were among the teams expected to breeze through to the next stage, and they did so in relatively comfortable fashion.
Cloud9 and G2 made no mistakes in cruising to the necessary three wins for qualification. C9 beat an understrength EnVyUs before brushing past Sprout and mousesports to prolong their Atlanta stay. G2 made short work of Flash Gaming, Misfits and an impressive Vega Squadron on their way through.
FaZe, Natus Vincere and mousesports laboured to the required three victories as they all made it safely through.
Vega Squadron beat both FaZe and Liquid on their way to qualification, playing at a level that many fans did not expect. The most surprising of the qualifiers is undoubtedly Quantum Bellator Fire, who beat Flash Gaming, EnVyUs and AVANGAR to secure a place in the top 16.
The fact that Quantum Bellator Fire only beat Flash Gaming, AVANGAR and EnVyUs – who were playing with their coach due to player illness – to secure a top-16 place remains a contentious issue.
With so many teams competing in such a limited time frame, tournament organisers have struggled to find a system that is unanimously considered optimal. The Swiss System currently used is considered among the best, but there remains scope for upsets to happen and teams to miss out through a run of games considered infinitely tougher than other opponents.
The full list of teams to compete in the New Legends Stage is:
Gambit Esports (current champions)
Astralis
Virtus.pro
BIG
Fnatic
SK Gaming
North
Cloud9
G2 Esports
FaZe Clan
Space Soldiers
Vega Squadron
mousesports
Natus Vincere
Quantum Bellator Fire
Team Liquid
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