The FACEIT Major: London 2018 was the second Major of 2018 and the first organised by FACEIT. Astralis, who had finished outside the top eight in Boston, started in the very first stage and finished by beating Natus Vincere 2-0 in the final at the SSE Arena, Wembley, on September 23. London was also the first Major after Dust II's return to the map pool, and the event where Valve introduced new Nuke and Inferno collections in its souvenir packages.
Format and venues
The Major ran from September 5 to 23, 2018, with 24 teams across three stages:
- New Challengers Stage, September 5–9, at Twickenham Stadium, the home of English rugby union.
- New Legends Stage, September 12–16, also at Twickenham.
- New Champions Stage, September 20–23, in front of a live crowd at the SSE Arena, Wembley, which HLTV described as a 10,000-seat venue.
Both Swiss stages kept best-of-one matches for the first four rounds, but FACEIT made the fifth round, where 2-2 teams play for survival, best-of-three. FACEIT also seeded rounds three to five, and the playoff bracket, with the Buchholz system, which ranks teams by how strong their opponents had been. HLTV noted this was meant to avoid a repeat of the Kraków quarter-final in which two of the strongest teams, Astralis and SK Gaming, were drawn against each other. Every playoff match was best-of-three.
The map pool was Cache, Dust II, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass and Train. Valve had swapped Cobblestone for Dust II in April 2018 and said the new pool would be used in London. The prize pool was $1,000,000: Astralis won $500,000 and Natus Vincere $150,000.
Astralis' run
Because Astralis finished joint 12th in Boston, they were a Returning Challenger and had to play the New Challengers Stage. They went 3-1 there. Their only loss was a 26-28 defeat to Ninjas in Pyjamas on Mirage after four overtimes. They went 3-1 again in the New Legends Stage.
In the playoffs they did not drop a map: 2-0 against FaZe Clan (16-14 on Mirage, 16-12 on Inferno), 2-0 against Team Liquid (16-8 on Nuke, 16-7 on Mirage) and 2-0 in the final. HLTV's review pointed out that those three opponents were ranked second, third and fourth in the world.
| Player | Name |
|---|---|
| gla1ve (captain) | Lukas Rossander |
| dev1ce | Nicolai Reedtz |
| dupreeh | Peter Rasmussen |
| Xyp9x | Andreas Højsleth |
| Magisk | Emil Reif |
| zonic (coach) | Danny Sørensen |
Magisk had joined in February 2018 to replace Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye, who left for North. HLTV reported that, as the only player on the team without a Major title, he was the first to lift the trophy.
The final
Natus Vincere played with Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko, Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, Denis "electronic" Sharipov, Egor "flamie" Vasilyev and Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev.
- Nuke (Astralis' pick): Astralis 16-6. HLTV noted Astralis came in on an 18-0 run on Nuke at LAN events. They led 11-4 at half-time.
- Overpass: Astralis 16-9, after a 9-6 first half on the CT side.
HLTV's report said Na'Vi never reached double digits on either map and that s1mple had a quiet final. HLTV and its sponsor betway gave the MVP award to Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz, who had a team-leading 1.26 rating over the New Legends and New Champions stages and the fewest deaths per round at the event.
Other storylines
- compLexity Gaming, a Minor team, were one of two teams to go 3-0 in the New Legends Stage, beating Fnatic, G2 Esports and BIG, before MIBR knocked them out in the quarter-finals.
- Cloud9, the Boston champions, had lost Tarik "tarik" Celik and Jake "Stewie2K" Yip, who both moved to MIBR's lineup, and went 1-3 in the New Legends Stage.
- North, who arrived after winning DreamHack Masters Stockholm, were eliminated in the first stage, which HLTV called one of the biggest disappointments of the event.
The stickers
Valve released the London items on August 29, 2018, with half of the proceeds going to players and organisations. Team stickers could be bought one by one, while holo and foil versions came from three team capsules, each with a matching autograph capsule that held paper, foil or gold signatures:
| Capsule | Teams |
|---|---|
| London 2018 Legends | Boston's top eight: Cloud9, FaZe Clan, Fnatic, G2 Esports, MIBR, mousesports, Natus Vincere, Winstrike Team |
| London 2018 Returning Challengers | Boston's 9th–16th: Astralis, BIG, Gambit Esports, North, Space Soldiers, Team Liquid, Vega Squadron, Virtus.Pro |
| London 2018 Minor Challengers | Minor qualifiers: compLexity Gaming, HellRaisers, Ninjas in Pyjamas, OpTic Gaming, Renegades, Rogue, Team Spirit, Tyloo |
The Returning Challengers capsule also held a FACEIT sticker, and it was where the champions' holo and foil came from. MIBR and Winstrike held Legends places through the rosters they had signed, the former SK Gaming and Quantum Bellator Fire lineups. Gold team stickers were not sold; they only appear on Souvenirs. See the Major sticker capsules explainer for how these sales were shared.
Souvenir packages
On September 3, Valve announced new weapon collections for Nuke and Inferno, found in that week's Souvenir packages. HLTV counted 36 new finishes between them, including an MP7 | Fade. These are the collections now listed as The 2018 Nuke Collection and The 2018 Inferno Collection. A month later, on October 3, Valve also made both available as normal rank-up drops, so non-Souvenir versions are common.
There were seven packages, one per map: Cache, Dust II, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass and Train. With Cobblestone gone, London had no Cobblestone package, and its Dust II package was the first since the Atlanta Major in early 2017. Each Souvenir carried a gold FACEIT sticker, the gold stickers of both teams and the gold autograph of the round MVP.
Viewers received packages by watching through GOTV, Steam.tv or Twitch with a linked Steam account. Valve also made a free version of CS:GO available for offline play and GOTV viewing, so viewers could watch in-game without owning the game. The Souvenir packages guide covers how the system changed afterwards.
Collecting London 2018 items today
- Check the collection. London's Nuke and Inferno packages were the first to use the 2018 collections; Boston and earlier packages use the older ones.
- Read the full sticker name. Two London autographs look almost the same: "NiKo" for FaZe's Nikola Kovač and "niko" for North's stand-in Nikolaj Kristensen, whose Steam name also has an extra space before "London 2018".
- Know which stickers are Souvenir-only. Gold team stickers and the gold FACEIT sticker come from Souvenirs; gold autographs were also sold in capsules.
- Check the scrape on applied stickers, and use the sticker filter on Buy to find guns with a specific London sticker.
The previous Major was the ELEAGUE Major in Boston. Astralis went on to defend the title at the IEM Katowice 2019 Major.
Sources
- FACEIT Major: London 2018 — Liquipedia
- FACEIT Major to feature Buchholz system, BO3 fifth Swiss round — HLTV.org
- Astralis take down Na`Vi 2-0 to win FACEIT Major — HLTV.org
- device claims FACEIT Major MVP award — HLTV.org
- Winners and losers of the FACEIT Major — HLTV.org
- FACEIT 2018 – Tournament Items — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
- FACEIT 2018 – Ways to Watch — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
- Smoke Mid Every Day — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
