The FIRST Counter-Strike 2 Major-PGL Copenhagen 2024 Recap
The first Counter-Strike 2 Major has just concluded! Team Navi is the first-ever CS2 Major winner. Despite all the hardships, strong opponents, and even some talents and casters who did not believe in them, they beat the odds and won the Trophy of the PGL Copenhagen 2024.
This Major was quite a whirlwind of emotions! This Major had it all. We have seen a lot of close maps, amazing kills, unexpected games, crazy clutches, insane flicks, one-taps,
overtimes, last-second defuse/plants and even some trick shots!
Not only have the games been amazing, but also the casters, and a few special highlights from the likes of donk, m0nesy, or even some amazing spraydowns from various pros and teams.
This might have been, the greatest Counter-Strike Major ever!
In our recap we go through the four different days of the Major, as well as highlighting a few notable rounds/matches and incidents that happened.
Recap of the Major
Thursday - Quarterfinals 1
The first day of the Counter-Strike 2 major was quite something special. The dawn of a new era finally settled.
We can now enjoy, for the very first time, competitive Pro Counter-Strike 2.
The opening ceremony filled the air with a blissful glee. The euphoria to see another major, but the very first CS2 major was breathtaking.
James Banks started off the games again with his wholesome attitude and elegant style as always.
It was to win the title of the first Counter-Strike 2 Major winner, and this beautiful PGL trophy.
The Major started with Cloud 9 vs Vitality on Inferno. A notable and probably soon-to-be heavily memed-scene was in round six when Boombl4 was in a clutch against ZywOo and apEX. Boombl4 took out apEX and with only four bullets to spare he shot ZywOo. ZywOo switched to his Desert Eagle, not realizing it only had one bullet left! And after missing his shot he switched to his AWP while Boombl4 switched to the Glock to finish ZywOo off. This was quite an awkward encounter.
In round 6 of this Inferno game, Zywoo is out of ammo switching to his almost empty Deagle, and then back to his AWP.
After a close Game on Inferno with a few nice smoke kills from each team and nasty AWP flicks from ZywOo Vitality closed Inferno with a score of 13-8.
Cloud 9 now had to win Anubis to still have a chance at staying in the race. Except for a few nice AWP shots and spray downs from Cloud 9, this map was a stampede by Vitality. Vitality took the win with a score of 13-2, it was a good day for the Golden Hornets, but a sad day for every Cloud 9 fan.
The second game was between Team Spirit, the young prodigy donk, and the quite legendary and strong opponent FaZe Clan. Donk had to stand his ground against the Number 1 CS team in the world! Frozen and ropz from Faze had an effective synergy on the CT side, thus making it a hard time for Spirit. The first Map, Mirage, was won by FaZe Clan with a score of 13-7.
On the second Map, Nuke, Spirit had quite a head start over FaZe. FaZe did not take kindly to that. Near the end of the game, while Spirit needed only one single round to win their first map, FaZe got their revenge and they managed to win 3 rounds in a row to get the match to overtime. In the first overtime, FaZe fought and gained another 3 rounds while being behind to even out the score with Team Spirit. After another close call, Spirit closed the game on Nuke with a 19-16 Scoreline in the second overtime.
The decider map was Veritgo. And it was nothing for the easy-hearted. FaZe Clan took all they had and got an astronomical lead with 12-5 for Spirit. But that did not stop Team Spirit from doing their best! And their best they did. They came back from just winning a mere 5 rounds to force the map into overtime (12-12) donk had a great performance during this map. In overtime, it was another head-to-head race that was shut down by rain to give FaZe the 16-14 scoreline to advance to the next stage.
Friday - Quarterfinals 2
Eternal Fire vs Navi was the first game of Friday. And we must admit that Eternal Fire gave NAVI a run for their money! It came as quite a surprise how well Eternal Fire played and performed against this behemoth of a team. Eternal Fire even forced NAVI into overtime on Mirage.
w0nderful from NAVI got an impressive 27 Kills, 15 Deaths, and an average damage per round of 86. Nonetheless, Eternal Fire played some great CS against this behemoth of a team!
Wicadia and MAJ3R performed quite well and the whole team did an amazing job against
one of the best teams in the world.
With a score of 13-9, NAVI also won the second map making them advance to the next stage.
Still, Eternal Fire had won the hearts and minds. It even was the first Turkish Team to make it to the playoffs.
And a great run they had.
The first map between MOUZ vs G2 was also played on Inferno yet again. The first pistol round was really insane, with HooXi getting 3 pistol kills and planting the bomb as a Terrorist. But sadly he missed the headshot on Jimpphat and he was able to defuse while HooXi was executed by Brollan. This was the second most intense pistol round of the whole major (after the NAVI one on Ancient). NiKo also had quite a nice play in round 12, getting 3 kills and G2 an 8-4 score for the T-half. G2 won the game 13-9 against MOUZ.
MOUZ vs G2 as seen from the cameras.
The second map was on Vertigo. G2 had a strong start but sadly there was an incident and the games were disrupted for around half an hour. People paid by a CS gambling site were paid to storm the stage to “protest” a G2 Counter-Strike Gambling site sponsor.
One security guard tackled one of the perpetrators against the Trophy and it fell down.
Sources say the Trophy can be stuck together, like Lego Bricks.
The crowd reacted accordingly, booing and flipping these interrupters and hooligans off.
And then chanting in unison: “Let’s go security let’s go”. The security acted very fast and efficiently. The safety of the Players and Talents was the biggest priority.
After this annoying setback, a few things changed in the arena the next day. The catwalk was removed, more security was put in place and more barriers were set up in front of the stage. Banks came out to thank the crowd and the security and get the games back on track.
The game ended relatively quickly, after around 30 minutes with a score line of 13-6, G2 winning and advancing to the next stage.
Saturday - Semifinals
The map to start of the weekend was Nuke. Vitality was playing against FaZe. After a 3-round lead by FaZe, Vitality had won their first round thanks to Sphinx and his Five-SeveN 3-kill clutch. As the casters said, “Spinx picking up ZywOos slack all major long”, Spinx woke up. When these words were uttered ZywOo died and Spinx got another nice 3 kills on the board during round 8. After an intense 2 v 1 clutch from ropz FaZe managed to win this map with a score of 13-7.
Near the end of the second map Vertigo frozen wanted to show what was in him. While the score was 3-11 for FaZe frozen turned into a headshot machine and even got one while flashed. Vitality won Vertigo with 13-5.
The decider map from the Vitality vs FaZe was the sunny Inferno.
During round 4 apEX dodged a flash thrown from the T`s towards CT on B, and he managed to get 2 kills and shoot broky down to 6 HP, who subsequently fragged him through the smoke. A few seconds after frozen retaliated and got a 2k in CT on ZywOo and Spinx. frozen killed mezzi afterwards giving FaZe their first win on this map.
In the last round of this match rain, described as “always stoic”, waited patiently on B-site for Spinx and flameZ where he picked them off in a fast swoop. The score was 13-8 for FaZe, they had just advanced to the Finals.
A lot of people were looking forward to the next game! NAVI vs G2. Everyone knew already that this game was promising, and it went for 3 maps and had multiple overtimes, close calls, insane clutches, shots, and moments. Anubis led the way for this intense series of maps.
w0nderful had quite a few smooth AWP kills, especially the multi-kill in round 12 and the shot on m0nesy. w0nderful gained another 3 kills during overtime securing the first map for NAVI. The second map was Nuke and G2 made a swift job of cleaning up NAVI and getting onto the decider map, Ancient.
During the Pistolround Alexib had quite a one tap on B site of Ancient. HooXi and m0nesy both jumped out of ruins and m0nesy accidentally shot HooXi in the head killing him.
After a short cat-and-mouse game that involved m0nesy running back into ruins and Alexib running out of time to diffuse the bomb the young G2 prodigy m0nesy, while only having 2 bullets in his Dual Berettas, jumped out and did a sick 360 one-tap headshot on Alexib closing off one of the most intense and most crazy pistol rounds ever played at any CS event!
The best is to watch this moment as a video!
After being 6 points behind NAVI’s 12 points, G2 had a tactical timeout. And oh boy a timeout it was. They came back from 6 to an 11-12 score for G2. The bomb was planted and NAVI took the win from them one round before overtime. NAVI now had to play FaZe in the finals.
Sunday - Final
16.000 people were watching at the arena. The Royale Arena in Copenhagen was completely sold out.
Starting Easter Sunday was Ancient, this time as the first pick by FaZe.
broky had the chance to one-tap Alexib in the middle in round 4, but he missed making frozen swing to get the kill. Both of them were shortly after obliterated by jL, frozen in a spray down and broky with a headshot one-tap. from red room across the middle. During the last round of the first map during a FaZe eco, broky made a double kill with a Five-SeveN on advancing T-side NAVI players, leaving jL in a crucial 1v3. jL swiftly took out karrigan in middle while broky and rain got the AK-47s, both of them were quite low on hp.
jL sneaked through to B and planted the bomb. He got broky and rain received a headshot to close off the first map with a win from NAVI.
The second map being played was picked by NAVI and it was Mirage. FaZe played some incredible CS on Mirage!
A very notable round was round 9. After a failed attempt at going A, the last two players from NAVI rerouted to B during the last 30 seconds of the match.
iM finished off ropz and executed quite a pristine spray on karrigans head, shortly after he gets taken out by brokys grenade. Broky rushed into the site and w0nderful stopped planting the bomb at the last second, running out of time and giving the round to FaZe Clan. Not before hitting a sick AWP no-scope flick Headshot on broky himself.
After the side switch on round 13 FaZe Clan is now on the attacking Terrorist Team. ropz imideatly had two great headshot kills in the pistol round securing FaZe their 11 round of this map. FaZe closed out this game with a score of 13-2…yes you have heard right! 13-2!
Without sounding too rude: NAVI got hella dominated on Mirage! The ending score on NAVI’s pick was 13-2 for FaZe. Truly a devastating match for NAVI.
Losing that high on their pick without a real chance, a lot of people doubted NAVI even more than they had before.
Both teams now have one map on the board. NAVI won the pick of FaZe Clan while FaZe won the pick of Natus Vincere.
It is time for the decider map of the grand final of PGL Copenhagen 2024.
Whoever wins this map goes home with the Trophy and the title of FIRST COUNTER-STRIKE 2 MAJOR WINNER!
The decider map for the grand finale between FaZe and NAVI was Inferno.
Both teams have one map win already- whoever wins this map goes home as a Major winner. Now it is a best-of-one!
NAVI had quite an amazing start at Inferno. They won 7 rounds before FaZe won just a single one. jL is quite a skilled player, he is a rock in the surf for NAVI.
The whole team had solid performances on Inferno, while FaZe could not grab a foothold. But every round that FaZe won was loudly celebrated by the FaZe fans in the arena.
During round 9 b1t and w0ndeful were going for the retake on the planted bomb on B. w0nderful accidentally gave b1t a haircut with an AWP, shooting him clean through the head in the process and thus giving FaZe their well deserved second round win. Otherwise, sadly not much is to mention, it was a sweep by NAVI on FaZe.
At the end of the game, the score was 13-3 for NAVI, and they were crowned the very first Counter-Strike 2 Major winners! History was just made in the Royale Arena.
A lot of the team has just won their first Major, and b1t his second since PGL Major Stockholm 2021.
Alexib: “Nothing of this could have been possible without the teammates I have had, so selfless, everybody doing tons of work. For the past 6 months we have been having ups and downs everybody has worked their ass off and B1ad3 deserves his respect as well, he made me a better IGL and he is the best coach in the world.”
NAVI won the major with an outstanding performance from Alexib, w0nderful and jL, who even was awarded the very first CS2 Major MVP.
A thank you from us to you!
During the Major, you also had quite a few opportunities to meet us and come by the office.
We thank each one of you who came by the office or attended our Saturday boat trip through Copenhagen.
It was quite a lovely time and we wholeheartedly enjoyed spending time with people who know as much and who love skins as much as we do.
We enjoyed the conversation about skins and we loved that you were at our office and on the boat tour.
We hope you guys enjoyed it as much as we did. It was quite a unique experience, to say the least.
We at GamerPay are proud to be as community-close as we are.
Thank YOU for making us who and what we are! 💙
Traders, collectors and players who attended our boat tour in and around Copenhagen said what an amazing time they had. And we can give that compliment back!
We all had so much fun with you, and it truly was a pleasure to meet so many of you in the office, on the boat tour or in the arena.
We are Counter-Strike!
Saturday’s GamerPay boat trip with people from the CS-Community.
Conclusion
The first CS2 Major is over. NAVI won the title of first Counter-Strike 2 Major winner, and they held the trophy of the PGL Copenhagen 2024.
A lot of you guys are probably already home, but we hope you liked our small city of Copenhagen.
We were so glad that the first Counter-Strike 2 Major was in the hometown of GamerPay, and as some people say the hometown of CS.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive found its place into the history books, but history was made right here in Denmark.
We really hope you have loved the Major as much as we did, and that you also enjoyed our company as much as we did enjoy yours.
