ELEAGUE Major Boston 2018: Cloud9, a double-overtime final and ten sticker capsules

The ELEAGUE Major in Boston, played in January 2018, ended with Cloud9 beating FaZe Clan 2-1 after two overtimes on Inferno. ESPN called it the first Major won by a North American team. Boston was also the first Major to fold the qualifier into the event itself, with stickers for every team, and two late withdrawals left it with ten sticker capsules, four of them added after the originals went on sale.

A new format

On December 13, 2017, HLTV reported that Valve had renamed the stages of the Major. The former offline qualifier became the New Challengers Stage, the group stage became the New Legends Stage and the playoffs became the New Champions Stage. Because the qualifier now counted as part of the Major, all 24 teams got stickers.

• New Challengers Stage, January 12–15: 16 teams, Swiss system, best-of-one, at the ELEAGUE Arena in Atlanta.
• New Legends Stage, January 19–22: the eight survivors plus the eight Legends from Kraków, same format, same venue.
• New Champions Stage, January 26–28: an eight-team best-of-three bracket at Agganis Arena in Boston.

The map pool was Cache, Cobblestone, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass and Train, and the prize pool was $1,000,000. Cloud9 took $500,000 and FaZe $150,000.

Two teams that never arrived

TyLoo had qualified from the Asia Minor, but HLTV reported that Hansel "BnTeT" Ferdinand's US visa application was rejected, and talks to use former coach Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu as a stand-in broke down. Flash Gaming, third at the Asia Minor, took the place. ELEAGUE confirmed the swap on January 4, 2018.

100 Thieves had signed Immortals' former roster in December 2017, and with it the Legends spot Immortals earned in Kraków. On January 12, the day the New Challengers Stage began, the team said it would not attend because of immigration issues. The replacement came from the teams that finished the New Challengers Stage 2-3: Team Liquid beat AVANGAR 19-15 on Mirage in the decider and took the slot. In the end, 23 teams played.

Cloud9's route

Cloud9 had finished in the 9th–11th group in Kraków, so they started in the first stage. They went 3-0 there, beating Team EnVyUs, Sprout and mousesports. In the New Legends Stage they lost their first two matches, to G2 Esports and Space Soldiers, then won three in a row against Virtus.pro (16-7), Astralis (16-6) and Vega Squadron (16-4) to qualify at 3-2.

In Boston they beat G2 2-0 (16-8 on Mirage, 16-7 on Overpass) and SK Gaming 2-1 (16-3 on Mirage, 8-16 on Cobblestone, 16-9 on Inferno).

tarik and RUSH had joined from OpTic Gaming in August 2017, replacing two of the players Cloud9 had used in Kraków.

The final

FaZe Clan, with Finn "karrigan" Andersen, Nikola "NiKo" Kovač, Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer, Håvard "rain" Nygaard and Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács, came in as the favourites. ESPN described them as a heavy favourite that had beaten Cloud9 in their two previous best-of-three meetings.

• Mirage: FaZe 16-14. Cloud9 started 7-1 on the Terrorist side, but FaZe recovered and closed the map with an olofmeister triple kill.
• Overpass: Cloud9 16-10, after a 12-3 first half.
• Inferno: Cloud9 22-19. FaZe reached match point in regulation, and Dust2.us reported that a Stewie2K four-kill round tied the map 15-15. Both teams won all three of their CT rounds in the first overtime. In the second, HLTV wrote, a tarik ace on the B site started the run that won the title.

There were two MVP awards. HLTV gave its MVP medal to tarik, who had a 1.22 rating, the best on his team, and 258 kills, tied with autimatic for the most at the event. ELEAGUE's own award, presented as the "U.S. Air Force MVP" according to Kotaku, went to Skadoodle.

Other storylines

• Quantum Bellator Fire, from the CIS Minor, went from the first stage to the quarter-finals, where Natus Vincere beat them 2-0.
• Astralis, semi-finalists in Kraków, went 1-3 in the New Legends Stage and finished joint 12th.
• Autographs for players who did not play. HLTV reported that Valve included autographs for BnTeT and for Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz, whom Liquid had replaced, but none for the two coaches standing in, peacemaker for TyLoo and Wilton "zews" Prado for Liquid. The TyLoo stand-in plan later fell through anyway.

Ten capsules

Valve released the Boston items on December 19, 2017, with half of the proceeds going to players and organisations. Paper team stickers were sold individually. Each capsule held one random sticker: team capsules a holo or foil team sticker, autograph capsules a paper, foil or gold autograph. Team stickers were split into three groups, each with a matching autograph capsule:

Then the line-up changed twice:

• January 4, 2018: Valve's release notes added Flash Gaming stickers and two new capsules, Boston 2018 Minor Challengers with Flash Gaming and its autograph version, neither containing TyLoo. The TyLoo sticker stopped counting as a Pick'Em game piece.
• January 12, 2018: after 100 Thieves withdrew, Valve released Boston 2018 Attending Legends and Boston 2018 Attending Legends Autograph Capsule without them, and took the 100 Thieves sticker out of the store and the Mega Bundle.

The original capsules were not deleted, so all ten still trade. The Counter-Strike Wiki notes that the versions with TyLoo and 100 Thieves can still be found on the Steam Market. That makes the Tyloo and 100 Thieves stickers, and the autographs of their players, Boston items for teams that never played in Boston. Gold team stickers were not sold in any capsule; they exist only on Souvenirs.

Souvenir packages

Valve said Souvenir packages would drop to viewers from the first weekend, which meant the former qualifier produced Souvenirs too. Viewers needed to watch through GOTV or on Twitch with a linked Steam account. There was one package for each map in the pool, and each Souvenir carried gold ELEAGUE and team stickers plus the gold autograph of the round MVP.

The Boston 2018 Cobblestone Souvenir Package was the last Cobblestone package ever made. In April 2018 Valve replaced Cobblestone with Dust II in the Active Duty pool, so the London Major later that year had none. That closed the souvenir route to the AWP | Dragon Lore, as our Dragon Lore history explains. The famous $61,052 Souvenir Dragon Lore with Skadoodle's gold autograph sold the day after this final, but it came from a Kraków 2017 package.

Collecting Boston 2018 items today

• Know which capsule you have. "Legends" and "Minor Challengers" are the originals; "Attending Legends" and "with Flash Gaming" are the replacements.
• Read the full sticker name. Steam writes TyLoo as "Tyloo" and Flash as "Flash Gaming", and every name ends in "Boston 2018".
• Check Souvenir details. The gold team stickers and autograph identify the match and the round MVP. Grand final Souvenirs came from Mirage, Overpass and Inferno packages.
• Check the scrape. Inspect applied stickers in game before buying.
• Search by sticker. The sticker filter on Buy lets you look for guns with a specific Boston sticker. See the capsules explainer for how the 50% share worked.

The next Major was the FACEIT Major in London, where Cloud9 returned as Legends.

Sources

• ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018 — Liquipedia
• Cloud9 beat FaZe to win ELEAGUE Major Boston — HLTV.org
• tarik claims ELEAGUE Major MVP award — HLTV.org
• C9 becomes first North American team to win CS:GO major — ESPN
• Release Notes for 1/4/2018 — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
• Release Notes for 1/12/2018 — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
• TyLoo confirm Major absence, replacement to come from Asia Minor — HLTV.org
• ELEAGUE Major Boston stickers released — HLTV.org