The long-awaited day has finally arrived. And the first Counter-Strike Global Offensive Major of the year will be at Antwerps Sportpaleis between 9th-22nd May. 24 teams participating in the competition from different parts of the world are facing each other again in the qualifiers. Many teams from Europe, North America, South America, and Asia-Pacific regions have to prove themselves.
Whatever the outcome, we can safely say that an extremely exciting week awaits us for Esports lovers. Now, let’s dive into the details of the PGL Major and take a closer look at which teams will participate and how the stages work.
PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Stages – Format
PGL Major Antwerp uses a two-tier tournament system this year. The Challengers stage will happen first, and 16 teams will compete in the Swiss system format for 3 days. And the Challengers stage will consist of 9 European, 5 American, and 2 Asian teams. These teams, which have the status of Contender, are in the lower ranks of the competition. However, we recommend that you pay attention to some teams among them.
In addition, only 8 of the 16 teams on the Challengers Stage will qualify for the Legends stage. The bottom 8 teams will be completely eliminated from the tournament. There are already 8 teams on the Legends Stage that have already qualified for regional tournaments. These teams are BIG, Heroic, FaZe, Natus Vincere, Cloud9, Copenhagen Flames, NIP and FURIA. We will be talking about the details of the teams and how they are qualified in the rest of our article.
First of all, we would like to remind you that in addition to these 8 qualified teams, 8 more teams that have been successful in the Challengers Stage will be added. In this way, the number of teams in the Legends Stage will increase to 16 and start the other part of the tournament.
Legends Stage
From now on, just like in Challengers, only 8 teams will be able to advance to the next level in Legends. And 8 teams that have successfully completed the Legends stage will advance to the Champions Stage and begin the fight for the grand finale. For the Champions Stage, where the single elimination system will be applied, each match will be organized as the best 3 series, including the final. In addition, the first major CSGO team of the year will be determined at the end of the Champions stage, which will continue for 3 days.
Teams qualified for PGL Major Antwerp 2022
In our article, we mentioned that 8 teams are already present at the Legends Stage. As you know, these 8 teams managed to qualify directly due to their success in regional leagues. Now we will take a look at the performance of the 8 teams one by one and the latest status of the players. If you’re ready, let’s start.
Ninjas in Pyjamas
NIP was in PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Europe RMR B group. With the third-place they achieved among 16 teams, they managed to qualify directly. Especially in the last match of the group stage with ENCE, there was fierce competition. As you know, ENCE has been determined by HLTV as the 4th best team in the world. In short, they were tough opponents and the winning team could directly qualify for the PGL Major Antwerp. NIP managed to eliminate ENCE with a clear score of 2-1 without giving up the fight.
Even though they had a successful group stage, troubles remain for NIP. Because the lack of a Device has been felt a lot since October 2021. We don’t know if Nicolai “device” Reedtz will be able to join the game in the continuation of the tournament, but NIP may need him.
For now, NIP continues with a 19-year-old young player named Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin, a Swedish player instead of Device. Even though he’s a new signing, the ratings show that Brollan has done well.
NaVi
As you know, there is a long-standing war in Ukraine. And NaVi, the Ukraine-based Esports team, is greatly affected by this situation. It is known that especially the leader of the team, s1mple, was greatly affected by the events. The players, who are psychologically restless as a team, continue to struggle despite everything. And they managed to get the last ticket of PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Europe RMR A.
They left the Group Stage in fourth place with their consecutive OG, Vitality and forZe wins. Thanks to their high performance in their last two games, they managed to participate directly in the PGL Major Antwerp. Although they did not reach their legendary performances last year, they are still one of the biggest favorites of the PGL Major.
Cloud9
Without a doubt, Cloud9 is by far the favorite team of PGL Major Antwerp. Because they bought the whole CSGO team of Gambit Esports and managed to transfer before PGL. Together with Ax1Le, HObbit, interz, nafany and sh1ro, Cloud9, which ended their long break, are getting ready to make their mark on CSGO.
FaZe Clan
And here is FaZe Clan, which is one of the best CSGO teams in the world due to their consistent performance. They have been going for weeks without losing a match in both PGL and ESL Pro League. MOUZ, Vitality, ENCE, FURIA, NaVi, Gambit, G2 and Heroic are just some of the teams FaZe has beaten in a row in recent months. They had their only defeat against BIG at the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Europe RMR A. And yet they managed to join the PGL Major Antwerp Legends Stage, leaving the group in third place.
FaZe Clan is currently aiming for success with two young players, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken and Robin “ropz” Kool. At least as good as them, Helvijs “broky” Saukants and Håvard “rain” Nygaard have also become integral parts of the team. Let’s see what awaits FaZe Clan this season.
Heroic
Heroic is a Denmark-based Esports organization. It is one of the top 5 CSGO teams in the world. However, due to their failures and shock defeats, Heroic doesn’t have many tournament titles. They were a little stunned, especially by the losses they suffered at the PGL Major Stockholm 2021.
However, this year, they managed to take first place with their performance at PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Europe RMR A. And they were able to join the Legends Stage directly. The team seems to be in harmony this season. In addition, their eagerness to become the PGL Major Antwerp champion can be clearly seen from their performances.
BIG
BIG, is a Germany-based Esports team currently competing for IEM Dallas and PGL Major Antwerp. With the second place in the PGL Major Antwerp Europe group, they moved directly to the Legends stage. It is one of the favorite teams of the tournament with their successive wins in the last weeks.
We know that there have been two changes in the team in the last months. We are witnessing the positive results of the transfer of Karim “Krimbo” Moussa, which was made 2 months ago. The 19-year-old young CSGO pro draws attention with a rating of 1.07. Let’s see if he can show the same performance for PGL Major Antwerp.
Copenhagen Flames
Copenhagen Flames is a team that does the unexpected this season. They are Denmark-based Esports organization and finished first in PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Europe RMR Group B. Moreover, the group featured some of the best teams in the world such as NIP, ENCE and G2. Despite this, they managed to advance to the PGL Major Antwerp Legends stage with their consecutive victories.
FURIA
FURIA is a team that has been through misfortune for a long time. Based in Brazil, FURIA had some successes in the North America regional tournaments in 2020. However, they failed to win major tournaments like IEM or PGL. This time, they want to change their fate by putting an end to this bad luck.
FURIA managed to finish first in the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Americas RMR. They also continue to not lose consistently since the early days of 2022. And their only loss in the last weeks was against FaZe Clan.
PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Challengers Stage Teams
We have already told you that the PGL Major Antwerp adventure will first start with the Challengers Stage. Challengers matches, the first stage of the tournament, will take place between May 9th and 12th and will determine the teams of the next stage. Only 8 teams will be able to advance to the next level from the Challengers stage, where there are 16 teams in total. Considering all these, we can say that exciting matches await us at the Challengers Stage.
Now let’s take a quick look at the teams in the Challengers Stage;
- Eternal Fire
- Vitality
- forZe
- Outsiders
- Bad News Eagles
- Spirit
- G2
- ENCE
- Astralis
- Imperial
- Complexity
- Liquid
- MIBR
- 9z
- IHC
- Renegades
PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Stages and Match Schedule
PGL Major Antwerp 2022 will have 3 stages in total. And the teams that will participate in the final will be determined according to the results of these 3 stages.
- First Stage – Challengers Stage: 16 teams will compete – May 9th – May 12th 2022
- Second Stage – Legends Stage: 8 teams are waiting directly qualified. The other 8 teams will participate from the Challengers Stage. – May 14th – May 19nd
- Final – Champions Stage: The finals will be played between 8 teams that have qualified from 16 teams and will last for three days. May 19th – May 22
TOP 3 Teams to Watch in PGL Major Antwerp 2022
We know that bettors and Esports fans alike have one common question on their minds. Which team is closer to becoming a champion? Or which of the teams can make it to the final? At this point, we would like to reflect on some of our personal observations to you. We will list 3 teams that will mark the PGL Major Antwerp as a result of their performances throughout the season.
Cloud9
For those of you who don’t know, Cloud9 has taken a break from the CSGO Esports arena for a long time. They did not actively participate in tournaments and existing CSGO teams were also disqualified. Until Gambit Esports was affected by the events between Ukraine and Russia. In this process, Cloud9 contacted Gambit and managed to transfer all the players to their teams by spending a significant amount of money.
Hoping to return to the successes of 2018 and 2017, Cloud9 looks ready for the PGL Major Antwerp. The newly transferred players were already continuing to compete in tournaments independently. In addition, with the support of Cloud9, we can easily say that they are the closest team to becoming a champion.
Cloud9 Roster
- Coach: groove
- Ax1Le
- Hobbit
- Interz
- Nafany
- Sh1ro
FaZe
As you know, FaZe has been one of the favorite teams in CSGO tournaments for many years. Even though they have left this superiority to NaVi for a few years, they seem to be back to the old days this season. Their successive victories and their continued undefeated path are enough to scare their opponents. They’ve garnered enough attention recently with their ESL Pro League Season 15 Championship and IEM Katowice 2022 titles. In our opinion, PGL Major Antwerp seems to be one of the favorite teams for 2022. But CSGO is a game full of surprises, and we never know exactly what will happen.
FaZe Roster
- Coach: RobbaN
- Rain
- Broky
- Twistzz
- Karrigan
- Ropz
Natus Vincere
We believe that NaVi is still the favorite of the tournaments, even though they are sorrowful because of the events in Ukraine in the last few days. There is no decrease in the performance of s1mple and his teammates. Their consecutive wins and their direct participation in the PGL Major Antwerp already prove this. Although they are distracted, as a team, they are locked in the PGL Major. And they definitely want to win the tournament again as they did in 2021.
NaVi Roster
- Coach: B1ad3
- S1mple
- electroNic
- Boombl4
- Perfecto
- B1t