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We've got our 24 Major teams confirmed, and that includes EG, bizarrely, and Movistar Riders. Vamos!
Who's at the Major: Definitive Edition
That's right, put away your calculators, 'cause the numbers are in.
Depending on who you support, they're either good, bad, or as expected. Or all of the above.
We'd love to go through all the teams that qualified one by one, but we like to fit our newsletter in one email. Our friend Nors3 has been so kind to put them all in one tweet however. What a nice guy.
And if you'd like the seeding breakdown, HLTV has you covered.
Just like last time around, we're going to give you some more interesting pieces of information about the teams and players that qualified (or didn't). So buckle up.
Qualified:
- With FaZe qualifying, Latvia sees its number of Major players (ever) double. From one to two.
- Meanwhile, Israel joins the club, as Spinx is the first to represent his country, playing for ENCE.
- Brazil becomes the country with the most players at the Major for the first time ever, beating Denmark out by just one player. Last Major, Brazil tied with Russia for this record.
- olofmeister saves his record of playing at every Major, now that FaZe have qualified.
- NiP went undefeated at IEM Fall EU, and device was the best player of the event - good enough for a Legends spot. Who's laughing now?
Not qualified:
- Finland sees the biggest decrease in number of representatives compared to last Major, going from six players to one.
- This is the fourth Major ever not to feature Belgian players
- coldzera - the highest rated player at the Majors - will miss a second Major in a row. Last time no one was able to surpass him, but s1mple is in second place. Will he be able to take that title?
And if you wanted to know who are all the rookies at the Major, then Nors3 has you covered again. Doesn't quite fit in one tweet this time however...
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The surprise packages
While a disappointing EU RMR Final ended 1-3 for ENCE, it's fair to say this event has been a massive success.
A second place finish, qualification for the Major and a stretch of bodies like Attila the Hun; ENCE have been killing it. To everyone's surprise.
Snappi's rebirth as a top IGL, along with his rag-tag bunch of players that nobody was too sure on, has turned the butt of the joke into a huge threat. After IEM Fall, it's actually quite hard to argue that they aren't one of the best teams in the region.
It's quite amusing that ENCE will be at the Major led by Snappi, while Aleksib won't be with his pimped out squad. Alas, we digress. Enough of OG.
ENCE bodied both G2 and Astralis in BO3s, showing that they aren't just a BO1 fluke job. Well, unless you subscribe to the theory that a BO3 is just three BO1s. The Astralis game was particularly impressive, as ENCE dropped just 11 rounds in two maps.
It actually, for once, might be easy for ENCE.
Over in NA, Evil Geniuses also qualified. Which you know, because you read the article above this one. And yet, you probably still don't know how to process that.
After a wild tiebreaker that took three games versus each team to even decide - and still required multiple overtimes - they eliminated TeamOne and, indeed, Triumph from the running.
Triumph who could have qualified from that group easily if they had beaten EG the first time around instead of, you know, sleeping on the job. That Triumph.
Instead it was EG who faced off against EXTREMUM, with the winner going to Stockholm and the other leaving with feeling that the last 12 months were a waste of time and money.
Though BnTeT and jkaem continued their excellent form, the Oceanic portion of their roster kind of failed them.
Turns out without jks, The Boys are just that. Boys, against men. EG were neck and neck with the boys going into a deciding half of Inferno, but EG took over and won eight in a row to turn an 8-7 half into a 16-7 shellacking.
Which is, kind of a shame, honestly. EG have been pretty awful of recent, and we're not exactly looking forward to seeing them lose to middle of the pack EU teams.
Look, at least Brehze and stanislaw are back, and maybe we'll see the old Brehze back. That would make it all worth it.
Changes for the Major miss-out-on-ers
- As we mentioned a few newsletters ago, k0nfig appears to be on his way to Astralis. He's left Complexity, paving the way for him to go to Astralis. Unless, a new (old) challenger appears...
- K23 have picked up xsepower and X5G7V to replace Major winners AdreN and mou - which brings up our tweet of the week. Banger.
- After the embarrassment of not making it to the Major through the South American RMR, MIBR have acted quickly by taking on WOOD7 (pronounced 'woody') and Tuurtle (pronounced, uh, 'turtle'). They're decent enough players, and at least are newer, upcoming talent
When the TLDR is still too much reading
Tune in to this week's episode of Overtime on Inferno where your favorite hosts aizyesque and Logan Ramhap go deep on the biggest news in CS:GO:
- Complexity - and who might replace k0nfig
- Just how late is too late to wake up
- Why FaZe are the best 9th place team we've ever seen
fnatic leave Sweden
Tea. Biscuits. Red postboxes. Losing Euro finals. Binge drinking. Chavs. Ugly teeth. Bland food. Colonisation. Her Majesty the Queen. And now, fnatic.
Welcome to England.
Jackinho will no longer be AWPing for fnatic, and with his departure, the team became a European team, with two Britbongs and two Swedes.
For like, a minute, anyway. Very quickly after, fnatic announced that smooya will be standing in. Which - and those of you able to count will know what's coming - means that this team is now English.
Or 'British', we suppose - though we doubt any Scots are recognising this team as their own. They hate the English more than the rest of the world. Usually.
While we're sort of joking around, this is... weird. fnatic have always been a bastion of Swedish Counter-Strike, one of the most successful teams of all time, and having done it by being all Swedish.
We're not going to say it's impossible that they repeat that feat with a mostly UK-based team, but... okay, we lied. It's impossible. God's too busy saving the Queen to give these boys the divine intervention needed to get this team up there.
The good news in that case is then, that it seems smooya won't be there for that long. After a successful trial, he's... not playing with the team for the closed qualifier he helped them qualify for. Weird.
What could possibly be the reason?
Can I get your autograph?
- "Likely not" and that's the biggest crime of this century. Don't get between us and our Bymas sticker, Valve...
- Watergate is basically nothing compared to this. ESLgate?
- You know you're getting old when s1mple's the oldest player on NaVi... We remember when he was just a rookie playing FPL at a Major...
- karrigan basically admits that he was more nervous now than he was post 15-11...
- See Plopski, this is why you buy kevlar and helmet.
