PGL Major Kraków 2017 was the eleventh CS:GO Major and the first run by the Romanian organiser PGL. Gambit Esports, 15th in HLTV's last ranking before the event, beat Immortals 2-1 in the final at Tauron Arena on July 23. It was also the first Major where gold player autographs came out of capsules, and one of its Cobblestone souvenirs later became one of the most expensive skins sold at the time.
The tournament
The event ran from July 16 to 23, 2017, in Kraków, Poland. HLTV noted it was the third Major held in Poland, after the two ESL events in Katowice in 2014 and 2015. The group stage was played backstage in a closed studio from July 16 to 19, and the eight-team playoffs moved onto the stage at Tauron Arena Kraków from July 21 to 23.
Sixteen teams took part. The top eight from the ELEAGUE Major in Atlanta returned as Legends, and eight Challengers came through an offline qualifier. The group stage used the Swiss system with best-of-one matches: three wins sent a team to the playoffs, three losses sent it home. Every playoff match, final included, was best-of-three.
The map pool was Cache, Cobblestone, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass and Train. The prize pool was $1,000,000, of which Gambit took $500,000 and Immortals $150,000, according to HLTV's final standings.
Gambit's run
Gambit went 3-0 in the Swiss stage, beating mousesports 16-10 on Inferno, G2 Esports 16-6 on Cache and Virtus.pro 16-11 on Train. In the playoffs they beat Fnatic 2-0 (16-14 on Train, 16-12 on Inferno) and then Astralis 2-1 in the semi-final (16-10 on Overpass, 8-16 on Inferno, 16-12 on Train).
| Player | Name | Kraków autograph on Steam |
|---|---|---|
| Zeus | Danylo Teslenko | Zeus |
| AdreN | Dauren Kystaubayev | AdreN |
| Dosia | Mikhail Stolyarov | Dosia |
| mou | Rustem Telepov | mou |
| HObbit | Abay Khassenov | Hobbit |
| kane (coach) | Mykhailo Blahin | none |
The final
Immortals were playing their first Major and had beaten BIG 2-1 and Virtus.pro 2-0 on the way. Their lineup was Henrique "HEN1" Teles, Lucas "LUCAS1" Teles, Ricardo "boltz" Prass, Lucas "steel" Lopes and Vito "kNgV-" Giuseppe.
- Cobblestone (Immortals' pick): Gambit 4-16 Immortals. HLTV's report credits HEN1 with 18 kills on a Terrorist side that gave Gambit only three rounds.
- Train (Gambit's pick): Gambit 16-11. A triple kill from Rustem "mou" Telepov in a partial buy gave Gambit their 14th round and left Immortals without money.
- Inferno (decider): Gambit 16-10. Gambit led 11-4 at half-time, and when Immortals won the first four rounds of the second half, Abay "HObbit" Khassenov stopped the run with a 1v3 clutch.
HLTV named Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev the event's MVP. It reported that he posted above-average ratings in every map Gambit won and was the best opening fragger of the tournament, with 0.17 entry kills per round.
Favourites that fell short
HLTV's ranking of July 10, 2017, the last before the event, had SK Gaming first, FaZe Clan second, Immortals tenth and Gambit 15th. FaZe went 0-3 in the group stage, losing to BIG, mousesports and FlipSid3 Tactics, and finished joint 15th. SK lost their quarter-final to Astralis 0-2. BIG, one of the qualifier teams, went 3-0 in the Swiss stage alongside Gambit, and Virtus.pro reached the semi-finals at a Major in their home country before Immortals beat them 2-0.
The stickers
Valve released the Kraków items on July 7, 2017, nine days before the event. Half of the proceeds went to the players and organisations. The set worked like this:
- Paper team stickers were sold one by one and doubled as game pieces for the Pick'Em Challenge.
- Krakow 2017 Legends (Holo-Foil) held a holo or foil sticker of one of the eight Legends (Astralis, FaZe Clan, Fnatic, Gambit, Natus Vincere, North, SK Gaming and Virtus.pro) or of PGL.
- Krakow 2017 Challengers (Holo-Foil) did the same for BIG, Cloud9, FlipSid3 Tactics, G2 Esports, Immortals, mousesports, PENTA Sports and Vega Squadron, plus PGL.
- Krakow 2017 Legends Autograph Capsule and Krakow 2017 Challengers Autograph Capsule held player autographs in paper, foil or gold.
That last point was new. Valve's Pick'Em page said gold stickers were available in autograph capsules "for the first time". At earlier Majors, gold versions of event stickers had only come on Souvenir weapons. Gold team stickers stayed Souvenir-only in Kraków. The Major sticker capsules explainer covers how the capsule system and the 50% share developed.
Souvenir packages
Souvenir packages dropped to viewers watching through GOTV or on Twitch with a linked account, one package per map: Cache, Cobblestone, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass and Train. Each Souvenir came with gold stickers of both teams in the match, a gold PGL sticker and the gold autograph of the player who was MVP of the round in which the package dropped. Our guide to Souvenir packages explains the system.
The Cobblestone package is the one collectors talk about, because it could contain a Souvenir AWP | Dragon Lore. On January 29, 2018, a Factory New Souvenir Dragon Lore with the gold autograph of Cloud9's Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham sold for $61,052.63, as Polygon reported at the time. Polygon said it came from a Kraków package. PCGamesN, citing Dot Esports, listed its stickers as PGL, G2 Esports, Cloud9 and Skadoodle, which matches the only Kraków match between those teams: G2's 19-17 group stage win on Cobblestone. The seller told Polygon he had paid about $35,000 for it. The Dragon Lore history covers the skin's other sources.
Collecting Kraków 2017 items today
- Read the full name. Steam spells the event "Krakow 2017" without the accent, and some autographs differ from the usual handles: Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz's is listed as "device", and HObbit's as "Hobbit".
- Gold autographs are not proof of a Souvenir. Since gold autographs also came from capsules, check that the weapon itself has Souvenir quality. Gold team stickers, on the other hand, only came on Souvenirs.
- Check the scrape. Inspect applied stickers in game. A scraped holo or gold is worth less than a clean one.
- Know the match. For Souvenirs, the gold team stickers and autograph tell you the match and the round MVP. Grand final souvenirs came from Cobblestone, Train and Inferno packages.
- Search by sticker. The sticker filter on Buy finds guns with a specific Kraków sticker.
The previous Major was the ELEAGUE Major in Atlanta, and the next was the ELEAGUE Major in Boston, where AdreN, mou, Dosia and HObbit returned as Legends without Zeus, who had rejoined Natus Vincere.
Sources
- PGL Major Kraków 2017 — Liquipedia
- PGL to host Major in Krakow — HLTV.org
- Gambit defeat Immortals to win PGL Major — HLTV.org
- AdreN wins PGL Major MVP award — HLTV.org
- PGL Krakow 2017 Pick'Em Challenge — counter-strike.net (Valve)
- PGL Krakow 2017 Souvenir Packages — Counter-Strike Wiki
- Someone bought a CS:GO skin for more than $61,000 — PCGamesN
