FaZe Clan and Team Vitality became the first two teams to reach the semifinals of the PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 playoffs on Thursday in Denmark.
FaZe outlasted Team Spirit 2-1 and Vitality swept Cloud9 2-0 in their respective quarterfinal matches Thursday. The two teams will collide in a semifinal match Saturday afternoon.
Twenty-four teams began the Counter-Strike 2 tournament, 16 of which had to go through the opening stage. Eight advanced to the elimination stage to join eight previous qualifiers. For the first two stages, play was conducted using the Swiss System format.
The playoffs will run through Sunday. Eight teams are battling in a single-elimination bracket, where all matches are best-of-three.
FaZe opened with a 13-7 win on Mirage, but Team Spirit took the next round to double overtime before winning 19-16 on Nuke. The final map was Vertigo, where Spirit rallied from a 12-5 deficit to force overtime before FaZe secured the 16-14 triumph.
FaZe star Helvijs “broky” Saukants of Latvia rang up 71 kills on a plus-23 kills-to-deaths differential. Danil “donk” Kryshkovets of Russia had 77 kills on a plus-10 K-D to lead Spirit.
Vitality put up a 13-8 win on Inferno before routing Cloud9 13-2 on Anubis for the sweep. Shahar “flameZ” Shushan of Israel had 35 kills on a plus-16 K-D to guide Vitality. Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov of Russia had a team-high 23 kills for Cloud9.
The quarterfinals conclude Friday with two matches:
–Eternal Fire vs. Natus Vincere
–G2 Esports vs. MOUZ
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 — Team Spirit, Cloud9, two teams TBD
9-11. $20,000 — Complexity, Virtus.pro, paiN Gaming
12-14. $20,000 — Imperial Esports, ECSTATIC, HEROIC
15-16. $20,000 — The MongolZ, FURIA Esports
17-19. $10,000 — SAW, Legacy, GamerLegion
20-22. $10,000 — Lynn Vision Gaming, ENCE, Apeks
23-24. $10,000 — AMKAL Esports, KOI
–Field Level Media