PGL Major Stockholm 2021 was the first Counter-Strike Major in more than two years, after the pandemic wiped out the 2020 event. Natus Vincere won it without losing a single map, a first for a CS:GO Major, and Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev finally lifted a Major trophy. It also changed the event's items more than any Major in years: team patches, gold team stickers in capsules, autographs only for the playoff teams, and Souvenirs with gold map stickers instead of player signatures.
The tournament
PGL ran the Major in Stockholm from October 26 to November 7, 2021. It was the first since the StarLadder Berlin 2019 Major, because the planned ESL One Rio 2020 was cancelled. All 24 teams qualified through Valve's Regional Major Rankings.
- New Challengers Stage (October 26 to 29): 16 teams in a Swiss format, best-of-one except for best-of-three advancement and elimination matches. The top eight advanced.
- New Legends Stage (October 30 to November 2): the same format, with the eight Legends joining.
- New Champions Stage (November 4 to 7): an eight-team single-elimination bracket, all best-of-three.
HLTV reported that the first two stages were played in a studio, which Liquipedia lists at the Quality Hotel Globe, while the playoffs moved to the Avicii Arena. It was the first time since 2019 that Counter-Strike was played in front of a big crowd. The prize pool was $2 million, with $1 million for the winner. The map pool was Ancient, Dust II, Inferno, Mirage, Nuke, Overpass and Vertigo, which made Stockholm the first Major with Ancient, added to the game in Operation Broken Fang.
Natus Vincere's run
Natus Vincere started in the Legends Stage and went 3-0, beating Heroic, Virtus.pro and Ninjas in Pyjamas. In the playoffs they beat Vitality 2-0 in the quarter-finals and Gambit 2-0 in the semi-finals.
The final on November 7 was a rematch of the IEM Cologne final from July, which NaVi had won. G2 picked Ancient and lost it 16-11. NaVi's pick, Nuke, was closer: G2 led 15-10, one round from forcing a third map, before NaVi came back to win 22-19 in double overtime. HLTV wrote that NaVi became the first team to win a CS:GO Major without dropping a map.
| Natus Vincere | Role |
|---|---|
| Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev | Player, HLTV MVP of the event |
| Denis "electroNic" Sharipov | Player |
| Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov | Player |
| Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy | Player |
| Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy | Player |
| Andrii "B1ad3" Horodenskyi | Coach |
G2's runner-up lineup was Nikola "NiKo" Kovač, huNter-, nexa, AMANEK and JACKZ, coached by maLeK.
| Place | Team | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Natus Vincere | $1,000,000 |
| 2nd | G2 Esports | $300,000 |
| 3rd–4th | Heroic, Gambit | $140,000 each |
| 5th–8th | Vitality, FURIA, Virtus.pro, Ninjas in Pyjamas | $70,000 each |
The audience was large too. Valve's post after the event spoke of "record breaking viewership", and Esports Charts figures reported by Dexerto put the peak at more than 2.7 million concurrent viewers, the highest for any CS:GO event at the time.
Stickers, patches and autographs
Valve's October 21 announcement, "The Major is Back", put three team sticker capsules and, "for the first time ever", three team patch packs on sale, split into Legends, Challengers and Contenders. Team stickers came in paper, holo, foil and gold, and patches in regular and gold. Each capsule and pack also contained the PGL logo, and 50% of the proceeds went to the teams.
| Group | Teams in the sticker capsule and patch pack |
|---|---|
| Legends | Evil Geniuses, FURIA, G2 Esports, Gambit Gaming, Natus Vincere, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team Liquid, Vitality |
| Challengers | Astralis, BIG, ENCE, Heroic, MOUZ, Movistar Riders, paiN Gaming, Team Spirit |
| Contenders | Copenhagen Flames, Entropiq, FaZe Clan, GODSENT, Renegades, Sharks Esports, Tyloo, Virtus.Pro |
Two firsts here are often mixed up. Stockholm was the first Major to sell gold team stickers in capsules, but the very first capsules with gold team stickers were the 2020 RMR capsules released that January. Gold player autographs were older still: they had been in autograph capsules since PGL Kraków 2017.
Patches are applied to agents rather than weapons. Our guide to agents and patches covers how they work, and Stockholm remains the only Major with team patches.
Player autographs worked differently from every Major before. HLTV reported that only the players of the eight playoff teams would get autographs, and that they would go on sale after the event. On November 9, 2021, Valve released them in two capsules, both in paper, holo and gold:
- Stockholm 2021 Champions Autograph Capsule: s1mple, electroNic, Boombl4, b1t and Perfecto.
- Stockholm 2021 Finalists Autograph Capsule: the players of the other seven playoff teams, G2, Gambit, Heroic, Vitality, FURIA, Virtus.pro and Ninjas in Pyjamas.
Dexerto wrote that the playoff-only decision was widely criticised, and Valve went back to autographs for every player at the next Major in Antwerp. In August 2022 Valve said that over the previous 12 months, a period covering Stockholm and Antwerp, more than $70 million had been raised for organisations, teams and players. Our guide to Major sticker capsules explains how that money is shared.
Souvenirs with gold map stickers
Souvenir packages came from the Viewer Pass: each coin upgrade gave a token for a package from any match you chose, and the "Viewer Pass + 3" started with three tokens. Valve's announcement said Souvenirs "will feature gold stickers of the teams and map of the match". From Cologne 2015 to Berlin 2019, Souvenirs had carried a gold autograph of a round MVP, and Stockholm replaced it with a gold map sticker. Our Souvenir packages guide covers every era.
| Package | Collection | Rarest skins |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient | Ancient | Welcome to the Jungle (M4A1-S), Covert |
| Dust II | 2021 Dust 2 | Gold Arabesque (AK-47), Covert |
| Inferno | 2018 Inferno | Integrale (SG 553) and Twin Turbo (Dual Berettas), Classified |
| Mirage | 2021 Mirage | Desert Hydra (AWP), Covert |
| Nuke | 2018 Nuke | Control Panel (M4A1-S) and Remote Control (Tec-9), Classified |
| Overpass | Overpass | Master Piece (M4A1-S), Classified |
| Vertigo | 2021 Vertigo | Imminent Danger (M4A1-S), Covert |
Four packages have a Covert skin at the top, while Inferno, Nuke and Overpass stop at Classified. The 2021 collections had arrived weeks earlier with Operation Riptide, so Stockholm was the first Major to use them.
Collecting Stockholm 2021 items
- Read the full name. Stockholm items end in "Stockholm 2021", and Valve's spellings are its own: "Gambit Gaming", "Tyloo" and "Virtus.Pro".
- Know the finishes. Team stickers come in paper, holo, foil and gold. Autographs come in paper, holo and gold only, and only for the eight playoff teams.
- Check the Souvenir's stickers. A Stockholm Souvenir carries two gold team stickers, the event sticker and a gold map sticker, so they tell you exactly which match it came from.
- Search by sticker. The sticker filter on Buy finds weapons carrying a specific Stockholm 2021 sticker, and you can narrow it by slot.
The next Major, PGL Antwerp 2022, followed six months later.
Sources
- PGL Major Stockholm 2021 — Liquipedia
- NAVI win PGL Major Stockholm over G2; make history by going undefeated — HLTV.org
- PGL Major Stockholm viewer's guide — HLTV.org
- PGL Major Stockholm stickers and Pick'Em released — HLTV.org
- The Major is Back — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
- PGL Stockholm 2021 Champions! — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
- Happy Birthday CS:GO! — Counter-Strike blog (Valve)
