ELEAGUE Major Main Qualifier preview

Taking place from December 15-18 at the ELEAGUE studios in Atlanta, the ELEAGUE Major Main Qualifier will bring together some of the best teams in the world, such as recent winners OpTic and Ninjas in Pyjamas, among others.

With 12 out of the 16 teams participating sitting in the top 20 of our Team Ranking, and six of them in the top 10, this offline qualifier will be one of, if not the hardest to date.

The Underdogs (ranked below #20)

The Could-be's (#11 - #20)

The Heavy-hitters (#3 - #10)

The qualifier will follow a slightly modified Swiss format, which you could see in play at ESL One New York and ESL One Cologne's Main Qualifier. Once again, the match-ups have been drawn in the first round according to their seeding.

From there on, each round will see teams randomly matched up with teams who have the same record until they reach three wins, at which point they will qualify for the Major, or three losses, to exit the competition.

Seeding pool 1	Seeding pool 2	Seeding pool 3	Seeding pool 4
Dignitas	CLG	Vega Squadron	Spirit
Ninjas in Pyjamas	OpTic	TYLOO	Renegades
MOUZ	Envy	GODSENT	HellRaisers
FaZe	G2	Immortals	Cloud9

We have prepared a graphic which will visually explain each round and at which point teams are eliminated or qualify for the Major:

Without further ado, let's delve into the teams participating in the Main Qualifier. Under each team's lineup, you will see results against other participating teams from offline tournaments which took place in the past three months.

Note that matches which had different lineups than the ones participating in the qualifier have been taken out. 

* The players' ratings are from the past three months on LAN.

The Underdogs

Spirit (#42)
	Age	Rating
Vadim "⁠DavCost⁠" Vasilyev	20	1.06
Dmitry "⁠S0tF1k⁠" Forostyanko	22	0.96
Dmitriy "⁠Dimaoneshot⁠" Bandurka	21	0.91
Anton "⁠tonyblack⁠" Kolesnikov	24	0.86
Nikolay "⁠Certus⁠" Poluyanov	-	-

As all three CIS-based teams whom we regularly see at international events, Natus Vincere, FlipSid3 and Gambit, made it to ESL One Cologne (and to its playoffs), the CIS Minor Championship prior to the ELEAGUE Major allowed two of the less known teams from the region to make their mark.

One of those two teams are Spirit, who finished second to ALLIN (now Vega Squadron) at the CIS Minor despite besting them in the upper bracket final.

However, the team will not attend with their usual lineup, as Pavel "⁠COLDYY1⁠" Veklenko ran into visa issues. The Russian team now have to use their coach, Certus, who hasn't played any official matches in almost a year.

Due to the level of competition, Spirit would have been considered huge underdogs even if  they fielded their full lineup. With COLDYY1 unable to attend, there is very little hope for Spirit to win a single match, let alone three which are needed to qualify for the Major.

CLG (#34)
	Age	Rating
Kenneth "⁠koosta⁠" Suen	20	0.83
James "⁠hazed⁠" Cobb	27	0.77
Stephen "⁠reltuC⁠" Cutler	28	0.74
Ethan "⁠Ethan⁠" Arnold	16	0.72
Yassine "⁠Subroza⁠" Taoufik	19	0.65

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
CLG	3-16	Envy	Northern Arena - Montreal	Group stage

Since CLG brought in an unproven duo in Ethan and Subroza during the off-season, the American-Canadian team has not attended a big event, compared to about one every month in the first half of the year, including the previous Major which earned them a place at the Main Qualifier.

CLG first showed their new lineup at the first Northern Arena event in Toronto, where they placed 5th-8th with a best-of-three win over NRG, in which the new duo showed why they were given a chance in a Pro League-level team in North America.

At the second Northern Arena, which took place in early November in Montreal, CLG couldn't repeat their previous success versus Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik's team as they exited the competition in last place.

While that offline result doesn't bring much hope to their fans, their online record in the past couple of months could, as they finished 5th in ECS Season 2 (two wins away from a place at the finals) with wins over NRG, TSM, and most importantly OpTic on Train, among others.

Vega Squadron (#32)
	Age	Rating
Nikolay "⁠mir⁠" Bityukov	20	1.23
Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov	19	1.22
Sergey "⁠keshandr⁠" Nikishin	22	1.13
Dmitriy "⁠jR⁠" Chervak	23	1.07
Pavel "⁠hutji⁠" Lashkov	21	1.04

Vega Squadron are the majority of the team who previously represented ANOX. Since then they've lost Belarussian duo Igor "⁠dERZKIY⁠" Radosavlevich and Kirill "⁠hitMouse⁠" Tsarev, who formed K29, and added keshandr and hutji before transferring to their current organization.

The Russian-Ukrainian mixture are the second team to come from the CIS Minor Championship, where they finished first with a win over Spirit in the grand final, taking revenge after the upper bracket final loss.

For most of the players, this Main Qualifier will be their first, apart from 19-year-old chopper, who attended ESL One Cologne's qualifier with FLuffy Gangsters and finished last following close matches against MOUZ and Renegades.

Vega Squadron's chances are similar to those of Spirit, chopper's team are looking to gain much-needed experience with hopes of upsetting some of the lower-level teams.

TYLOO (#21)
	Age	Rating
Hui "⁠DD⁠" Wu	22	1.14
Ke "⁠captainMo⁠" Liu	27	1.11
HaoWen "⁠somebody⁠" Xu	21	1.09
YuLun "⁠Summer⁠" Cai	19	1.08
YuanZhang "⁠Attacker⁠" Sheng	19	1.05

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
TYLOO	3-16	G2	IEM Oakland	Group stage
TYLOO	17-19	Immortals	IEM Oakland	Group stage
TYLOO	0-16	Cloud9	iBUYPOWER Masters	Group stage
TYLOO	2-0	Renegades	PGL Asia Minor	Grand final

TYLOO earned their place at the Main Qualifier with a victory at the Asia Minor, though their route wasn't as dominant as it used to be when facing regional competition.

With a 0-2 loss to VG.CyberZen, they had to fight their way through MVP Project and take revenge on their long-time rivals who took them to three maps, with Cache going to nearly 70 rounds following quadruple mr5 overtime. TYLOO clinched first place in the end, once again defeating Renegades in the grand final, but since then they haven't been very successful internationally.

iBUYPOWER Masters saw the Chinese narrowly defeating Echo Fox on three out of four maps to qualify for IEM Oakland, but they finished 0-5 at the main event after three one-sided matches and two close encounters, with Natus Vincere and Immortals.

Only four days ago, TYLOO finished in a measly fourth place at WCA Finals, where they were expected to at least reach the final if not win it all, with losses to Epsilon and more importantly iGame.com, a team who have just entered the top 30 with their result in China.

Those results suggest TYLOO's form is awful going into the Main Qualifier. With such a limited amount of time it's unlikely captainMo's team have been able to figure out what went wrong, which puts TYLOO in a position of one of the underdogs at the qualifier.

The Could-be's

HellRaisers (#20)
	Age	Rating
Kirill "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow	27	1.18
Bence "⁠DeadFox⁠" Böröcz	21	0.99
Vladyslav "⁠bondik⁠" Nechyporchuk	23	0.97
Patrik "⁠Zero⁠" Žúdel	18	0.94
Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk	20	0.91

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
HellRaisers	1-2	GODSENT	PGL Europe Minor	Grand final
HellRaisers	2-0	GODSENT	PGL Europe Minor	Upper final

Since HellRaisers added DeadFox, ANGE1's team attended two offline events in close succession, EPICENTER: Moscow, for which they qualified online, and the PGL European Minor.

At one of the biggest events of the second half of the year, HellRaisers surprised by splitting maps with fnatic and Virtus.pro, but it wasn't enough for a playoffs spot as they dropped both maps to SK at the end of the group stage.

With wins over ENCE, Heroic and Space Soldiers, and two extremely close series against GODSENT, the European mixture secured their spot at the Main Qualifier for the third time in a row.

In both of their previous attempts, at the time with Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný in the lineup, HellRaisers were only a few rounds away from qualifying to the Major, but this time the competition will be fiercer than ever. With that said, there are several teams HR should play well against, including MOUZ whom they're facing first, but they'll need to be lucky with the random draws to have a chance at going through.

Renegades (#19)
	Age	Rating
Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage	21	1.09
Karlo "⁠USTILO⁠" Pivac	23	1.08
Ricardo "⁠Rickeh⁠" Mulholland	25	1.06
Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward	24	1.04
Yaman "⁠yam⁠" Ergenekon	28	0.92

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
Renegades	16-14	Cloud9	DreamHack ZOWIE Open Winter	Group stage
Renegades	1-2	FaZe	iBUYPOWER Masters	Group stage
Renegades	12-16	Immortals	iBUYPOWER Masters	Group stage
Renegades	0-2	TYLOO	PGL Asia Minor	Grand final

Renegades made their way through to the qualifier via the PGL Asia Minor, which took place at the end of October. Some of the Asian teams, including VG.CyberZen and MVP Project, took the Aussies to close scorelines, but yam's team still made it to the grand final where they lost to TYLOO for the second time in a row.

The Australian side then travelled back to the United States for iBUYPOWER Masters, but their journey there was unsuccessful following losses to Immortals and FaZe, two teams they could encounter at the qualifier.

Their best result this year came at DreamHack ZOWIE Open Winter, where they grabbed silver with a loss to Gambit in the grand final. While they also defeated Cloud9 in groups, it's highly unlikely the two teams will face at the qualifier, as they're part of the same seeding pool.

USTILO and company aren't favored against any of the Heavy-hitters, but most of the other match-ups are looking pretty good, as long as AZR improves on his poor showing at DreamHack Winter, where he hit a few dangerous lows.

GODSENT (#17)
	Age	Rating
Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson	23	1.05
Andreas "⁠znajder⁠" Lindberg	23	1.01
Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist	23	1.00
Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell	21	1.00
Markus "⁠pronax⁠" Wallsten	25	0.80

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
GODSENT	2-1	HellRaisers	PGL Europe Minor	Grand final
GODSENT	0-2	HellRaisers	PGL Europe Minor	Upper final

After the big Swedish swap in the off-season, GODSENT have been struggling to regain some of their former glory, placing last at Gfinity CS:GO Invitational and 5th-8th at WESG European Finals.

Up to that point, GODSENT, had their spot at the Major locked due to having the majority of fnatic's lineup that made playoffs at ESL One Cologne. However, Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson decided to go back to fnatic, which transferred the Major spot to Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer's squad, and Lekr0 returned to GODSENT.

As such, pronax's team had to fight their way through the PGL Europe Minor in early November. After an awful start, an overtime loss to Kévin "⁠Ex6TenZ⁠" Droolans's LDLC, GODSENT played several dangerous series in the playoffs, including two against Epsilon. Surviving the Swedish match-up both times, flusha and company avoided elimination and defeated HellRaisers in a rematch to take first place at the Minor.

Two weeks afterwards, GODSENT took part in DreamHack Open Winter and grabbed a semi-final finish in their home country, losing to eventual champions Gambit in a narrow series.

flusha has been his team's best player at most of their events, although znajder played great at the Minor while Lekr0 showed consistency in Jönköping. It seems this team fits the newest addition better than fnatic, so if he and the other two players show up to play again, GODSENT could finish at least somewhere in the 3-2 region.

Immortals (#13)
	Age	Rating
Henrique "⁠HEN1⁠" Teles	21	1.09
Ricardo "⁠boltz⁠" Prass	19	1.04
João "⁠felps⁠" Vasconcellos	19	0.99
Lucas "⁠LUCAS1⁠" Teles	21	0.95
Lucas "⁠steel⁠" Lopes	23	0.95

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
Immortals	19-22	Envy	ECS Season 2 Finals	Group stage
Immortals	2-0	Cloud9	ELEAGUE Americas Minor	Upper final
Immortals	0-2	Ninjas in Pyjamas	IEM Oakland	Quarter-finals
Immortals	16-4	G2	IEM Oakland	Group stage
Immortals	19-17	TYLOO	IEM Oakland	Group stage
Immortals	2-1	Cloud9	iBUYPOWER Masters	Grand final
Immortals	16-12	Renegades	iBUYPOWER Masters	Group stage
Immortals	19-17	FaZe	iBUYPOWER Masters	Group stage

As we slowly approach #10, we have one of the improving teams as of late, Immortals. Following group stage exits at ELEAGUE Season 2 and ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals, the Brazilians decided to put an end to the Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado experiment and added steel, who is a better individual player and seems to fit the team well in terms of leadership.

Shortly after his addition, Immortals won iBUYPOWER Masters and advanced from the group stage at IEM Oakland after playing several maps against other teams participating in the Main Qualifier.

steel's team advanced to the qualifier through the Americas Minor, where they bested TSM 16-14 on Cache and 2-0'd Cloud9 in the upper bracket final. Their ECS Season 2 Finals journey came to an abrupt end with an overtime loss to Envy and a series with SK, the latter of whom are better than most teams at the qualifier.

As you can see above, Immortals have played seven out of 15 teams taking part in the qualifier in the last month and they defeated most or at least played a close match with them, as is the case with Envy with whom they'll lock horns in the first round. As arguably the best team of the middle group, the Could-be's as we call them, Immortals are looking good for their first Major attendance.

MOUZ (#12)
	Age	Rating
Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong	26	1.10
Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač	19	1.02
Christian "⁠loWel⁠" Garcia Antoran	20	0.98
Timo "⁠Spiidi⁠" Richter	21	0.90
Denis "⁠denis⁠" Howell	22	0.82

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
MOUZ	0-2	OpTic	ELEAGUE Season 2	Quarter-finals
MOUZ	7-16	FaZe	IEM Oakland	Group stage
MOUZ	10-16	Cloud9	IEM Oakland	Group stage
MOUZ	8-16	Ninjas in Pyjamas	IEM Oakland	Group stage
MOUZ	0-2	Cloud9	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Semi-finals
MOUZ	16-9	Envy	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Group stage
MOUZ	16-10	OpTic	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Group stage
MOUZ	19-16	Cloud9	ELEAGUE Season 2	Group stage

While Immortals have been looking up since the ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals, MOUZ have done the exact opposite, losing the last nine offline maps they played over three events.

The São Paulo tournament saw them grabbing three wins in the five-team group A before they exited the competition in semi-finals at the hands of Cloud9. MOUZ then travelled to Oakland for IEM, where they finished 0-5 in the group with three of the five losses being to teams who will also be present in Atlanta.

Less than two weeks ago, NiKo's team fell to OpTic in ELEAGUE S2 quarter-finals, adding two more losses to the list of bad results against other teams in the qualifier.

They don't seem to have a problem with specific match-ups, but their current form and map pool is questionable, to say the least, especially with NiKo dropping off heavily at the last couple of events. It's entirely possible he will return to form in time for the qualifier, where his motivation should be at its highest.

If he does, the aforementioned results could mean nothing, as MOUZ lacked their best player in most of them while nobody but chrisJ was there to step up consistently. If he doesn't, MOUZ might have to skip a Major for the first time since ESL One Katowice 2015.

One thing going for MOUZ is that they are part of the first seeding pool due to placing 9th-12th at ESL One Cologne, and as such will get to veto three maps.

Envy (#11)
	Age	Rating
Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub	21	1.14
Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire	23	1.05
Vincent "⁠Happy⁠" Schopenhauer	25	0.97
Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt	22	0.97
Christophe "⁠SIXER⁠" Xia	25	0.92

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
Envy	0-2	OpTic	ECS Season 2 Finals	Semi-finals
Envy	22-19	Immortals	ECS Season 2 Finals	Group stage
Envy	1-2	OpTic	ELEAGUE Season 2	Group stage
Envy	12-16	Dignitas	ELEAGUE Season 2	Group stage
Envy	0-2	G2	Northern Arena - Montreal	Semi-finals
Envy	16-8	OpTic	Northern Arena - Montreal	Group stage
Envy	16-3	CLG	Northern Arena - Montreal	Group stage
Envy	9-16	MOUZ	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Group stage
Envy	16-5	OpTic	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Group stage

After months of struggling in the first half of 2016, Envy finally seemed to be doing better after various in-game changes, such as returning leadership to Happy who also started playing a little less passively.

However, it wasn't enough of an improvement for Envy to keep Timothée "⁠DEVIL⁠" Démolon despite a first place at Gfinity CS:GO Invitational, as they brought in veteran SIXER instead. Since then the Frenchmen have looked more or less on the same level as before the change, finishing 5th-8th at WESG Regional Finals Europe (where they ran into Virtus.pro early) and 5th-6th at ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals.

At Northern Arena Montreal, Envy grabbed a semi-final finish following a loss to G2, and since met OpTic twice with no success, in ELEAGUE Season 2's group stage and ECS Season 2 Finals' semis.

While they have quite a few results against other teams in the qualifier, they will not get to play some of them this time due to the modified format which uses seeding, as OpTic, G2 and CLG share the same pool with Envy. Considering the poor results the Frenchmen have had against the first two mentioned, that modification works in Envy' favor. Instead they'll face some of the better match-ups, the first of which being Immortals whom they defeated in ECS groups narrowly.

Any match-up against the top-ten teams will be a hard one for Envy but not impossible, especially if they get to play Cobblestone or Dust2. As usual, a lot will come down to the swing-vote apEX and whether he will help kennyS carry nV through matches.

The Heavy-hitters

G2 (#10)
	Age	Rating
Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom	22	1.08
Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon	24	1.06
Alexandre "⁠bodyy⁠" Pianaro	19	0.93
Cédric "⁠RpK⁠" Guipouy	27	0.90
Edouard "⁠SmithZz⁠" Dubourdeaux	27	0.85

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
G2	16-3	TYLOO	IEM Oakland	Group stage
G2	4-16	Immortals	IEM Oakland	Group stage
G2	1-2	OpTic	Northern Arena - Montreal	Grand final
G2	2-0	Envy	Northern Arena - Montreal	Semi-finals
G2	16-12	Dignitas	EPICENTER: Moscow	Group stage
G2	14-16	Dignitas	EPICENTER: Moscow	Group stage
G2	7-16	OpTic	ESL One New York	Group stage

While their French rivals Envy have been switching things up, G2 have remained the same, both in terms of the lineup, the roles and playstyle.

However, that hasn't been working very well for shox's team lately, as they've been but a shadow of themselves at the last several events ever since they placed second at SL i-League StarSeries S2 Finals.

Some of their results in the past three months include a last place at ESL One New York, two quarter-final finishes at the hands of SK at EPICENTER: Moscow and at IEM Oakland, and a group stage exit at ELEAGUE Season 2.

Those results don't match those of an elite-level team, a status they're beginning to lose as suggested by their rank, but a lot of their defeats came from teams who have already secured their place at the ELEAGUE Major. G2 should still be favored against nearly everyone below them, perhaps apart from Immortals who thrashed them at IEM Oakland on Cobblestone, and have a solid chance against those above.

Cloud9 (#9)
	Age	Rating
Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta	20	1.14
Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip	18	1.05
Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert	26	1.03
Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham	23	1.00
Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek	22	1.00

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
Cloud9	1-2	OpTic	ECS Season 2 Finals	Group stage
Cloud9	6-16	FaZe	ECS Season 2 Finals	Group stage
Cloud9	0-2	Immortals	ELEAGUE Americas Minor	Upper final
Cloud9	2-0	OpTic	DreamHack ZOWIE Open Winter	Group stage
Cloud9	14-16	Renegades	DreamHack ZOWIE Open Winter	Group stage
Cloud9	16-10	MOUZ	IEM Oakland	Group stage
Cloud9	14-16	Ninjas in Pyjamas	IEM Oakland	Group stage
Cloud9	17-19	FaZe	IEM Oakland	Group stage
Cloud9	1-2	Immortals	iBUYPOWER Masters	Grand final
Cloud9	16-0	TYLOO	iBUYPOWER Masters	Group stage
Cloud9	2-0	MOUZ	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Semi-finals
Cloud9	2-0	OpTic	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Quarter-finals
Cloud9	16-13	Dignitas	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Group stage
Cloud9	16-19	MOUZ	ELEAGUE Season 2	Group stage

In a two months long period following the off-season change from Alec "⁠Slemmy⁠" White to autimatic, Cloud9 have risen up the ranks with fantastic results, a semi-finals finish at StarSeries, second places at Northern Arena - Toronto and DreamHack Bucharest, and a big title at ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals.

However, since the Cloud9's culmination in Brazil, their results have dropped off significantly with group stage exits at IEM Oakland, DreamHack ZOWIE Open Winter and ECS Season 2 Finals.

The team seems to be running out of fuel, having traveled across three continents to seven events in as many weeks. That might cost them dearly, as the Main Qualifier is the most important one of all of them.

The individual players aren't as consistently good as they were during their successful run, including the two stars autimatic and Stewie2K, both of whom hit their lowest point as of late at IEM Oakland, while n0thing's form has dipped since then as well.

As Cloud9 were placed in the lowest pool of teams due to their loss to Immortals at the Americas Minor, their route through the qualifier will likely be very hard. Their first match-up is FaZe, to whom they lost on the last two occasions, and there are few tough ones even in the middle group of teams, such as Immortals.

FaZe (#8)
	Age	Rating
Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard	22	1.07
Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup	20	1.06
Fabien "⁠kioShiMa⁠" Fiey	22	1.06
Aleksi "⁠allu⁠" Jalli	24	1.02
Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen	26	0.90

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
FaZe	1-2	OpTic	ECS Season 2 Finals	Group stage
FaZe	16-6	Cloud9	ECS Season 2 Finals	Group stage
FaZe	0-2	OpTic	ELEAGUE Season 2	Semi-finals
FaZe	1-2	Ninjas in Pyjamas	IEM Oakland	Semi-finals
FaZe	16-7	MOUZ	IEM Oakland	Group stage
FaZe	16-5	Ninjas in Pyjamas	IEM Oakland	Group stage
FaZe	19-17	Cloud9	IEM Oakland	Group stage
FaZe	2-1	Renegades	iBUYPOWER Masters	Group stage
FaZe	17-19	Immortals	iBUYPOWER Masters	Group stage

At the same time as Cloud9 began fading away, FaZe rose to the occasion and started delivering results with leadership assumed by karrigan and kioShiMa returning to the lineup.

In the past month, FaZe have been one of the busiest teams, as they took part in iBUYPOWER Masters, IEM Oakland, ELEAGUE Season 2 playoffs and ECS Season 2 Finals.

Over those four events, they've garnered three semi-final finishes and a 5th-6th place. While they had solid results against everyone else, FaZe lost their last two series to OpTic quite one-sidedly, which is likely the only match-up they'll be afraid of.

As they're part of seeding pool 1, they'll be able to avoid Ninjas in Pyjamas, who stood in their way at IEM Oakland, and a scary opponent in Dignitas, but also a good match-up in the form of an underperforming MOUZ. When we eliminate those, there are few teams who can take on FaZe in their current form, especially in best-of-one's where they'll be able to take out three maps.

Dignitas (#6)
	Age	Rating
Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif	18	1.24
Kristian "⁠k0nfig⁠" Wienecke	19	1.15
René "⁠cajunb⁠" Borg	27	1.06
Ruben "⁠RUBINO⁠" Villarroel	22	0.98
Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen	22	0.85

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
Dignitas	16-12	Envy	ELEAGUE Season 2	Group stage
Dignitas	13-16	Cloud9	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Group stage
Dignitas	12-16	G2	EPICENTER: Moscow	Group stage
Dignitas	16-14	G2	EPICENTER: Moscow	Group stage

Much like Cloud9, Dignitas also bit off more than they could chew, as they spent most of the past two months travelling from event to event, back and forth between Europe and the Americas.

Dignitas' rise after the addition of Magisk looked similarly to Cloud9's, as the new player became one of their stars while the team continuously improved until they reached the highest step, at EPICENTER: Moscow in the Danes' case.

The similarity to Cloud9 doesn't stop there, as since their big win in Russia, Dignitas have been unable to replicate that success at the following events. At ESL Pro League Finals, they were a win away from playoffs but couldn't close out Mirage against Cloud9, while at DreamHack Winter they simply fell apart, unable to win versus two teams significantly below their level, Kinguin and FlipSid3.

Placing first in their group at ELEAGUE, Dignitas were set on a collision course with SK, whom they faced for the first time in a series, and fell short after all three maps. Magisk then had to travel back to Europe for school exams while the team used Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså at ECS Season 2 Finals and sustained another loss to SK, this time in the group stage while the Brazilians used Ricardo "⁠fox⁠" Pacheco.

Disregarding the breakdown at DreamHack and the stand-in situation at ECS Season 2 Finals, Dignitas' form doesn't look so bad, but it's unlikely they won't be affected by all the travel, as they have few means of staying in shape and getting much-needed practice.

They have a breather in the form of Spirit in the first round, but things will start to get rough from there on. Fortunately for them, they will avoid two scary teams, Ninjas in Pyjamas and FaZe, thanks to being in the same pool.

OpTic (#4)
	Age	Rating
Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas	21	1.09
Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik	20	1.07
Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic	19	1.06
William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba	22	1.05
Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz	22	1.01

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
OpTic	2-0	Envy	ECS Season 2 Finals	Semi-finals
OpTic	2-1	FaZe	ECS Season 2 Finals	Group stage
OpTic	2-1	Cloud9	ECS Season 2 Finals	Group stage
OpTic	2-0	FaZe	ELEAGUE Season 2	Semi-finals
OpTic	2-0	MOUZ	ELEAGUE Season 2	Quarter-finals
OpTic	0-2	Cloud9	DreamHack ZOWIE Open Winter	Group stage
OpTic	2-1	Envy	ELEAGUE Season 2	Group stage
OpTic	2-1	G2	Northern Arena - Montreal	Grand final
OpTic	8-16	Envy	Northern Arena - Montreal	Group stage
OpTic	0-2	Cloud9	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Quarter-finals
OpTic	5-16	Envy	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Group stage
OpTic	10-16	MOUZ	ESL Pro League S4 Finals	Group stage
OpTic	16-7	G2	ESL One New York	Group stage

OpTic are yet another team who changed lineups and went on to improve to a level which allowed them to win a big event.

After a couple of solid showings at ESL One New York at ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals, they triumphed at a smaller event, Northern Arena - Montreal, with an important series win over G2 in the grand final.

OpTic stumbled at DreamHack ZOWIE Open Winter due to a second bad result against Cloud9 after Pro League, but they got back on their feet just in time for ELEAGUE playoffs. There they dominated MOUZ and FaZe before celebrating a title following wins on Cobblestone and Overpass versus Astralis.

The same two teams ended up in ECS Season 2 grand final after OpTic broke their Cloud9 curse in groups and eliminated Envy in semis. That time it was Astralis who won Overpass, OpTic's pick, and Train for the second time to snatch the title for themselves.

With two grand final finishes in a row, OpTic are on the best form out of all teams at the Main Qualifier. Plus, a solid map pool with four very good maps (Cobblestone, Cache, Train and Overpass) will allow them to switch their bans around depending on the opponent.

Ninjas in Pyjamas (#3)
	Age	Rating
Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund	26	1.03
Patrik "⁠f0rest⁠" Lindberg	28	1.02
Adam "⁠friberg⁠" Friberg	25	0.99
Jacob "⁠pyth⁠" Mourujärvi	23	0.92
Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström	25	0.90

Recent LAN results vs. other participating teams
Ninjas in Pyjamas	2-1	FaZe	IEM Oakland	Semi-finals
Ninjas in Pyjamas	2-0	Immortals	IEM Oakland	Quarter-finals
Ninjas in Pyjamas	5-16	FaZe	IEM Oakland	Group stage
Ninjas in Pyjamas	16-14	Cloud9	IEM Oakland	Group stage
Ninjas in Pyjamas	16-8	MOUZ	IEM Oakland	Group stage

Lastly, we have Ninjas in Pyjamas, who found themselves in a situation where they have to qualify for the Major for the first time in the history of CS:GO, as they exited ESL One Cologne in groups following FlipSid3's upset win.

The Swedes had to play with Mikail "⁠Maikelele⁠" Bill from September to early November due to pyth's injury, but they made the best out of a bad situation, grabbing the title at StarSeries, placing 3rd-4th at ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals and qualifying for ELEAGUE playoffs.

Once pyth came back, Ninjas in Pyjamas surprised everyone once again, adding another title to their name at IEM Oakland after a one-sided quarter-final with Immortals and extremely close series with FaZe and SK.

The ELEAGUE Season 2 playoffs saw Ninjas in Pyjamas exit early, losing to Astralis for the first time in 14 months on LAN while f0rest and friberg continued to play well and the rest couldn't put up consistently good numbers.

GeT_RiGhT and company rarely lose to teams below their level, which makes it hard to imagine they wouldn't be able to qualify. The first seeding pool will allow Ninjas in Pyjamas to avoid FaZe and Dignitas, two match-ups they've had problems with in the past. Apart from those two, there aren't too many in which Ninjas in Pyjamas would be in big danger.

The Main Qualifier kicks off today at 16:00 with the first round of the Swiss format. Keep an eye out for the viewer's guide, in which you'll find the full schedule and talent lineup.

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