PGL Major Kraków 2017, also known as PGL Major 2017 or Kraków 2017, was the eleventh Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Major Championship. It was organized by PGL and held in Kraków, Poland from July 16 to 23, 2017. It features sixteen professional teams from around the world. Eight teams directly qualified based on their top eight placement in the last major, ELEAGUE Major 2017, while another eight teams qualified through the Offline Major Qualifier. The PGL Major was the fourth consecutive major with a prize pool of US$1,000,000 since Valve announced the prize pool increase from US$250,000 at MLG Columbus 2016.
The playoffs consisted of eight teams. Astralis, Fnatic, Gambit Esports, North, SK Gaming, and Virtus.pro were returning Legends while BIG and Immortals were new Legends. FaZe Clan and Natus Vincere lost their Legends status after failing to make the top eight. The grand finals consisted of two underdogs with Gambit Esports, which defeated Fnatic and Astralis, and Immortals, which defeated BIG and Virtus.pro. The major concluded with Gambit defeating Immortals 2-1 in a relatively close best of three series, marking just the second time a non-European team winning a major (SK Gaming from Brazil won two majors) and the first time an Asian team won a major.
Video PGL Major Kraków 2017
Format
The format will be kept the same as the previous majors.
There will be four regional qualifiers and two from each qualifier will move on to the main qualifier.
In the major qualifier, the top eight teams from the pool of sixteen will move on to the major. The teams will play in a 16 team Swiss tournament. Teams with three wins will move on to the major and teams with three losses will be eliminated. The teams that move on will be known as "Challengers".
The top eight teams from the previous major will receive automatic bids to the major; these teams are known as "Legends." The group stage of the tournament will also be a 16 team Swiss tournament. Teams with three wins will move on to the playoffs and become the new Legends. Teams with three losses will be eliminated and will be invited to the next major's offline qualifier.
In the playoffs, eight teams will play in a single elimination, best of three bracket. Teams will play until a winner is decided in the finals.
Map Pool
The map pool was changed for this major. Dust II was taken out of the active map pool and Valve reintroduced Inferno, which has been revamped since it was taken out.
The veto process was also changed for the best of one games. One team can decide whether to veto first or second. The team that vetoes first will remove two maps. The second team will remove three maps. The first team will then choose from one of the two remaining maps. The second team will then choose the side it wants to start on. The best of three veto process was unchanged. Each team will remove one map. Then each team will choose one map. For the decider map, each team will remove one more map to decide the third map.
Maps PGL Major Kraków 2017
Major Qualifier
Regional Qualifiers
Asia Minor
A total of eight teams will compete in the Asia Minor. Two teams will be invited and the other six will qualify in their regional qualifiers. These teams include one team from East Asia, one team from the Middle East, one team from China, one team from Oceania, and two teams from the India & Southeast Asia qualifier.
CIS Minor
A total of eight teams will compete in the Commonwealth of Independent States Minor. The eight teams that participated in this minor all qualified through the closed qualifier. In the closed qualifier, twelve teams are invited and four teams qualify through an online open qualifier. Teams were separated into four groups of four and the top two teams moved on in each group to the closed qualifier. Two teams in the minor qualified for the main qualifier.
Europe Minor
All teams in the European Minor were required to compete in a closed qualifier. In the closed qualifier, 8 teams were invited and 8 other teams qualified through three different open qualifiers. The teams will play in a Swiss system tournament and the top 8 teams move on to the closed qualifier. In the closed qualifier, the teams will be separated into two groups of four teams. Two teams from each group move on to a four team, double elimination playoff bracket. The top three teams advance to the main qualifier.
Americas Minor
Two teams were invited to the Americas minor. One team out of a pool of 512 from South America qualified for the minor. The last five teams came from the North American closed qualifier. In that closed qualifier, 8 teams qualified through the open qualifier and 8 more teams were invited. The top five teams moved on to the Americas minor. In the minor, two teams moved on to the major.
Main Qualifier
Teams
1Team EnVyUs loses its automatic bid since it changed three players after kennyS, apEX, and NBK- transferred to G2 Esports. Thus, G2 acquires EnVyUs's spot and EnVyUs must play in the regional qualifier.
The main qualifier will be a sixteen team swiss tournament, where after the Day 1 games, teams will play other teams with the same win-loss record. Every round will consist of one game. In addition, teams will not play the same team twice unless necessary. Any team with three wins would qualify for the major, and any team with three losses would be eliminated. The qualifier will be played in Bucharest, Romania.
In the first round, teams from pool 1 will be matched up against teams in pool 4. Teams in pool 2 will play teams in pool 3.
In the second round, the winners in the first round will face each other in the "high" matches; the losers will face each other in the "low" matches.
In the third round, the winners of the high matches from round two will face each other. The winners of these two matches will qualify for the major. The losers of the high round and the winners of the low round will face each other in the "mid" matches. The losers from the previous low matches will face each other in round three's low matches. The losers of these low matches are eliminated. Twelve teams remain in the Qualifier.
In the fourth round, the losers of the high matches and the winners of the low matches will face each other in round four's high matches. The winners of the high matches qualify for the major. The losers of the mid matches and the winners of the low matches will face each other in the low matches of round four. The losers of these matches are eliminated from the Qualifier. Six teams remain.
In the last round, the remaining teams will face off. The winners of these matches will qualify for the major and the losing teams will be eliminated.
The Ninjas in Pyjamas, after missing its first ever major at ELEAGUE and failed to be Legends for the first time at ESL One Cologne 2016, failed to qualify for the major qualifier and the European Minor after losing to Finland's iGame.com in the first round, losing to Sweden's Red Reserve in second round, defeating Sweden's Epsilon eSports in the third round, and losing to Turkey's Space Soldiers in the fourth round, failing to attend its second straight major.
Broadcast Talent
Host
- Paul "ReDeYe" Chaloner
Interviewer
- Scott "SirScoots" Smith
Fluff
- Pala "Mantrousse" Gilroy Sen
Commentators
- James Bardolph
- Anders Blume
- Henry "HenryG" Greer
- Daniel "ddk" Kapadia
- Auguste "Semmler" Massonnat
- Matthew "Sadokist" Trivett
Analysts
- Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill
- Robin "Fifflaren" Johansson
- Joona "natu" Leppänen
- Jason "moses" O'Toole
- Janko "YNk" Paunovi?
Observers
- Heather "sapphiRe" Garozzo
- DJ "Prius" Kuntz
Broadcasts
All streams were broadcast on twitch.tv in various languages.
Source of article : Wikipedia