Eternal Fire cruised to a pair of victories on Sunday to begin opening-stage action at the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 event in Denmark.
Twenty-four teams are participating in the Counter-Strike 2 tournament, 16 of which have to go through the opening stage. Eight will advance to the elimination stage to join another eight that have already qualified. For the opening stage, which runs up until Wednesday, play is conducted using the Swiss System format.
The opening stage consists of five rounds, with the first pitting teams against each other based on predetermined “Next Major Slot” rankings. Winners of the first-round matches head to the second round as part of the high group, while the losers get sent to the low group.
Any team that goes 2-0 through the first two rounds goes to the third as part of the high group. Teams that go 1-1 are sent to the mid group, and teams that fall to 0-2 land in the low group.
Winners of the high-group matches move on to the elimination stage, while losers of the low-group matches get eliminated from the event.
Any team remaining that sits at 2-1 lands in the high group for the fourth round. The low group consists of the teams that are 1-2. Once again, high-group winners head to the elimination stage, with low-group losers getting knocked out.
Six teams will then be left standing, and they will face off in the fifth round. Winners of those matches earn a spot in the elimination stage, while the losers get eliminated.
Matches in which elimination or advancement is on the line are best-of-three. All other matches are best-of-one. When moving on to the next round, teams don’t play an opponent that they have already faced.
On Sunday, Eternal Fire beat The MongolZ 13-6 on Nuke in their first match before trampling paiN Gaming 13-2 on Anubis in their second. Turkey’s Ozgur “woxic” Eker racked up 20 kills to go along with a plus-13 kill-death differential for Eternal Fire in the first match. He followed that up with 12 kills against paiN.
Cloud9, HEROIC and SAW were the other three teams to compile 2-0 records on Sunday. Eight teams went 1-1, while The MongolZ, KOI, FURIA Esports and AMKAL ESPORTS all dropped both of their matches.
Elimination-stage action starts on Thursday and runs through next Sunday after the same format as the opening stage — Swiss System format with best-of-three elimination and advancement matches and best-of-one matches in any other scenario.
Playoffs are scheduled for March 28-31. Eight teams will battle in a single-elimination bracket, where all matches are best-of-three.
The opening stage continues Monday with eight third-round matches:
High matches:
–HEROIC vs. Eternal Fire
–Cloud9 vs. SAW
Mid matches:
–Imperial Esports vs. Apeks
–paiN Gaming vs. ENCE
–GamerLegion vs. Legacy
–ECSTATIC vs. Lynn Vision Gaming
Low matches:
–The MongolZ vs. AMKAL ESPORTS
–KOI vs. FURIA Esports
Opening-stage standings (match record, round differential):
1. Cloud9, 2-0, plus-6
2. HEROIC, 2-0, plus-10
3. Eternal Fire 2-0, plus-18
4. SAW, 2-0, plus-13
5. Imperial Esports, 1-1, plus-1
6. paiN Gaming, 1-1, minus-6
7. GamerLegion, 1-1, plus-1
8. ECSTATIC, 1-1, even
9. Lynn Vision Gaming, 1-1, minus-4
10. Legacy, 1-1, even
11. ENCE, 1-1, plus-1
12. Apeks, 1-1, minus-2
13. The MongolZ, 0-2, minus-10
14. KOI, 0-2, minus-13
15. FURIA Esports, 0-2, minus-7
16. AMKAL ESPORTS, 0-2, minus-8
PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 prize pool:
1. $500,000, 3,500 BLAST Premier points, qualification to BLAST Premier World Final, qualification to Esports World Cup 2024
2. $170,000, 2,750 BLAST Premier points
3-4. $80,000, 1,775 BLAST Premier points
5-8. $45,000, 1,050 BLAST Premier points
9-11. $20,000
12-14. $20,000
15-16. $20,000
17-19. $10,000
20-22. $10,000
23-24. $10,000
–Field Level Media