The CS: GO Antwerp Major has brought together the greatest teams from across the world to play on the grandest stage.
There's $1 million at risk – a 50% decrease from last year's PGL Stockholm Major 2021, and the chance of being named one of the world's finest CS: GO teams. Honor, blood, glory, lots of flashbangs and smoke bombs await!
PGL Major Antwerp's sixth playoff slot has been claimed by Heroic. After moving to the Antwerps Sportpaleis with a 3-2 record on day four of the Legends Stage, coming out on top of a three-map series versus Vitality.
Fans are presently attending the event at Antwerps Sportpaleis as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive awards its next champion on May 22.
Now let’s take a brief look at one of the top contenders of the tournament Heroic and how well they fared in the tournament. The team will be facing the legendary NAVI tonight at 20:00 CEST.
Heroic beats Navi in PGL RMR
There are almost always a few surprise teams among the qualified for the PGL Major Antwerp as Legends, not Heroic though. Heroic has routinely been a top five, if not higher, squad over the last few years.
They made it to the semifinals in last year’s PGL Stockholm Major and they displayed that credentials in the RMR A, when they went 3-0, culminating in a 2-1 win over Natus Vincere.
Goodbye Team Vitality
Then Heroic continued to book off a spot in the Playoffs after beating G2 and the all famous Vitality.
The Danish squad won the series 2-1 after holding off Vitality's comeback effort in the Inferno decider.
Martin "stavn" Lund's outstanding effort enabled his squad to earn a 2-1 victory over Vitality, a French-Danish team that appeared overwhelmed on Mirage, falling 16-7. They managed to fight back and win 16-14 on Overpass, however the decisive map of Inferno fell in favour of Heroic following a remarkable comeback effort by Vitality from 6-14.
After seeing off the French-Danish combine and securing their own spot in the top-eight stage, Heroic in-game leader Casper "cadiaN" Møller spoke to HLTV.org:
“cadiaN, you're through 3-2, back-to-back Major playoffs. Just tell me how you're feeling right now.
Would I have liked a more clean route? Sure. But at the end of the day, at all of the stages, it's about proceeding to the next one. If you see here some of the teams who went 3-0, you can either draw like, NAVI, or you can draw Spirit.
Nothing against Spirit, but obviously experience-wise in the stage and stuff, there's a big difference in who you draw, so if you're 3-1, 3-0, 3-2, it doesn't matter too much. Again, I've said it earlier, I don't think we've hit our A-game yet, but it's about to come. But yeah, happy.”
Heroic vs. NAVI Rematch is tonight
Now it’s high time that Heroic will try to prove itself against one of the best in the world: Natus Vincere in the PGL Antwerp Major 2022 quarterfinals. They already bested the team once in the RMR A qualifiers.
The NAVI captain discussed the team's progress at the Major thus far, as well as their forthcoming quarter-final rematch versus Heroic. They were immediately faced with a challenging Heroic matchup, one that they had recently lost for the first time at the previous Regional Major Ranking competition.
In the team's vlog, captain Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov discussed NAVI's Major campaign, specifically the tight battles they fought against G2 and NIP, who managed to capture Mirage from the Ukrainian-Russian side.
Navi coach said: “To be honest, a lot of teams are tough to play against: FaZe, ENCE, and Heroic” and added "It won’t be like last time."
Meanwhile, Heroic is a solid squad with trustworthy players. So far, they've really lacked a superstar. Martin "stavn" Lund is attempting to fill that role for his club.
Anybody on Heroic has the ability to step up, but it is stavn who constantly does so. He's been playing fantastically well in Antwerp thus far, and he'll need to keep it up if Heroic are to beat Na'Vi in the quarterfinals.
Casper "cadiaN" Moller and his crew of fiery Danes desire a championship win more than anything else. They've proven they can compete with the greatest, but they've struggled to be the best. This is particularly true for LAN and arena contests such as last year's major. Nonetheless, this is a talented team. If momentum is on their side, they're a dark horse to win it all.
