The Champions Stage of the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 was designed to crown an undisputed champion, and left no doubt about which team deserved to win the $1 million prize after Natus Vincere recorded its third straight sweep, 2-0 over G2 Esports, in Sunday’s Grand Final.
Natus Vincere previously swept Team Vitality in the quarterfinals and Gambit Esports in the semifinals to register a dominating run at Stockholm. NaVi also finished 3-0 in the Legends Stage to finish perfect in the tournament.
In addition to the $1 million first-place prize, NaVi earned 4,000 Blast Premier points and an automatic bid to the World Final 2021 in December
Yet the Grand Final was anything but a foregone conclusion. G2 put up a fight before falling 16-11 on Ancient in the first game. The second game then evolved into a marathon battle, with NaVi eventually emerging as the winner 22-19 on Nuke.
Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev was dominant Sunday as he was for the entire event. The native of Ukraine finished first among all players with 72 kills and a plus-31 kills-to-deaths ratio.
In Game 1, s1mple rolled up a 32-17 K-D ratio. Also finishing net positive for NaVi were Ukraine’s Valeriy “B1T” Vakhovskiy (plus-6) and Russia’s Denis “electronic” Sharipov (plus-2). G2 was paced by France’s Francois “AmaNEk” Delauney.
The second game saw s1mple outpace everyone once again with a huge plus-16 differential. B1T (plus-1) and electronic (plus-6) once again finished positive, and teammate Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy (Russia) scored 25 kills to contribute.
Two players from Bosnia and Herzegovina kept G2 in the fight. Nemanja “huNter-” Kovac scored a big victory in overtime to keep G2 alive and finished 33-28 (plus-5). Nikola “NiKo” Kovac forced the second overtime and finished 33-29 (plus-4).
The PGL Major Stockholm 2021 was a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive major championship with a total prize pool of $2 million.
Sixteen teams competed in the Legends Stage, which ran through Tuesday. Elimination and advancement matches were best of three, while all other matches were best-of-one.
PGL Major Stockholm prize pool:
1. $1 million — Natus Vincere
2. $300,000 — G2 Esports
3-4. $140,000 — Gambit Esports, Heroic
5-8. $70,000 — Virtus.pro, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team Vitality, FURIA Esports
9-11. $17,500 — Entropiq, FaZe Clan, Copenhagen Flames
12-14. $17,500 — Team Liquid, Astralis, MOUZ
15-16. $17,500 — Evil Geniuses, ENCE
17-19. No prize money — Movistar Riders, BIG, Team Spirit
20-22. No prize money — TYLOO, Renegades, paiN Gaming
23-24. No prize money — Godsent, Sharks Esports
–Field Level Media
