FACEIT Major New Challengers Stage preview: Returning Challengers

The FACEIT Major New Challengers Stage, which corresponds to the Main Qualifier of past Majors, will feature 16 teams. Eight of them are coming from the Minor system — Minor Challen gers, which were previewed yesterday by Lars "Yossarian" Esmarch —, and eight are the teams who finished 9th-16th at the ELEAGUE Boston Major — Returning Challengers.

Today, we take a look at the latter group, a list that features three teams in the top four — Astralis, Liquid, and North—, two struggling former Major winners — Gambit and Virtus.pro —, as well as three teams that have been less active, albeit to different degrees — BIG, Space Soldiers, and Vega Squadron.

The full team list for the FACEIT Major New Challengers Stage, which includes both the Minor Challengers and the Returning Challengers, can be found below:

Astralis	Complexity
BIG	Rogue
Gambit	Renegades
Liquid	TYLOO
North	HellRaisers
Space Soldiers	Spirit
Vega Squadron	NIP
Virtus.pro	OpTic

Returning Challengers

Astralis (#1)	Age	Rating
Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz	22	1.30
Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander	23	1.15
Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen	25	1.15
Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif	20	1.14
Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth	22	1.08

Offline placings in the last three months
2nd	DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018
1st	ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018
3rd-4th	ESL One Cologne 2018
1st	ECS Season 5 Finals

Starting off the list of Returning Challengers is none other than Astralis, so far the best team of 2018, a squad that won four events since April and DreamHack Masters Marseille. Not only were the tournaments they won some of the biggest ones in the circuit, but Astralis also won them in a very dominant matter, rarely dropping maps, and even at the three events they didn't win, they placed highly, earning two second places and a top-four finish.

With standards set so high, it is easy for Astralis' fans to be left disappointed with just the slightest of underperformances, which is what the team had in Stockholm last week. A lack of playtime, coming back from the break, could perhaps be what caused the Danes to look uncharacteristically sloppy in the group stage, where they lost to North and had troubles dealing with TYLOO. But they were able to iron out the kinks before the playoffs, 2-0'ing both MIBR and NIP on stage.

Astralis are a lock-in to make it through to the next stage

A repeat loss to North in the grand final is the biggest worrying sign going forward, as being upset by a local rival in the group stage is not the same as dropping an Intel Grand Slam title amidst talk of your team establishing an era. Another question mark is how gla1ve's troops will handle the busy period ahead as this will be the first time they will attend two events back-to-back since February, when they played at StarSeries S4 and IEM Katowice.

While DreamHack Masters Stockholm has identified some chinks in Astralis' armor, it is hard to see this well-rounded, wide-map pool team having issues at this stage of the Major. Defeating Complexity in the opener should be a given, and with a little luck in the form of avoiding Liquid and North in the second round, Astralis should be one of the teams going 3-0 and qualifying for the next phase.

Liquid (#3)	Age	Rating
Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic	20	1.18
Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski	21	1.11
Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken	18	1.10
Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella	23	1.01
Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo	23	0.90

Offline placings in the last three months
2nd	ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2018
13-16th	ESL One Cologne 2018
3-4th	ESL One Belo Horizonte 2018
2nd	ECS Season 5 Finals

Another highly-ranked team amongst the Returning Challengers is Liquid, who have taken a prolonged break from competing, skipping ZOTAC Cup Masters and DreamHack Masters Stockholm to put all their focus on the Major.

Looking at their last three months, the reasoning is sound — their worst results have come after overplaying, attending too many tournaments and getting burnt out. With Liquid being a team that likes to prepare quite a bit, with a fondness for a tactical brand of Counter-Strike, it is easy to see how a lack of preparation could hurt Twistzz and co. Otherwise, their results have been solid this year, and they have placed second at two tournaments in the last three months — both times losing to Astralis in the final — and will be looking for another strong finish in London.

Twistzz and co. took a prolonged break, focusing on the Major

As an organization, Liquid have a great Major history, finishing 3rd-4th and second at Majors in 2016, but have struggled to achieve similar results in recent times, missing out at PGL Krakow Major and having to play with their coach Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado at the ELEAGUE Boston Major, which hindered them significantly. Liquid will be relying on their firepower-packed trio of EliGE, NAF and Twistzz in hopes of returning to great finishes at Majors, and at least for the New Challengers Stage they shouldn't have a lot of issues.

North (#4)	Age	Rating
Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså	23	1.18
Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup	22	1.10
Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye	20	1.09
Nikolaj "⁠niko⁠" Kristensen	20	0.95
Mathias "⁠MSL⁠" Lauridsen	23	0.93

Offline placings in the last three months
1st	DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018
1st	DreamHack Open Valencia 2018 (4/5 of the line-up)
9-12th	ESL One Cologne 2018 (4/5 of the line-up)
3-4th	DreamHack Open Summer 2018 (4/5 of the line-up)

Denmark has been able to produce a lot of talent in CS:GO, with as many as six teams from the five million people country earning spots in the top 30 of our rankings at certain times, alongside Astralis. However, the second-best squad in the country, North, had not been able to go big in quite some time, only winning a handful of Dreamhack Open events since the organization's inception.

Those days finally ended last weekend in quite an unlikely way. After removing Daniel "⁠mertz⁠" Mertz, the AWPer they had brought up from their academy, North seemed lost, trying out an international roster with Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas before adding niko and having MSL pick up the sniper — going for a seemingly desperate solution. But it worked.

MSL had a great event, wielding the Big Green with finesse and earning an MVP award for his showing. He proved he can be an impactful player for his team, finding a high number of entry kills that allowed his team to overcome strong teams on the way to the DreamHack Masters Stockholm title, with aizy's return to 2015-esque form and valde's consistency being the other two cornerstones of North's success. Kjaerbye has been an x-factor player for the side, capable of big rounds, while niko has been a bit quiet in this roster, plugged into more supportive positions on the maps.

North finally lifted a Big Event trophy at DreamHack Masters Stockholm

North's DreamHack Masters Stockholm win was, for the most part, based on good individual play — the aforementioned entry frags and multikill rounds — and some good team play, with the team standing out in terms of converting 5v4 advantages. However, they were under-average when it came to winning 4v5s and one of the worst teams in terms of deaths traded, which could be an issue moving forward.

Considering North as a favorite for the Major based on just the Stockholm result wouldn't be realistic since there were a number of factors going their way that made the result easier than it would normally be. DreamHack rules allowed Alexander "⁠ave⁠" Holdt to call in every freezetime, upsets are always more likely following the player break, adding a new player made it harder for others to predict how North would play, and no one knew how well MSL would be handling the AWP. All of those things will go out of the window as the Major starts running its course, and things will get more difficult for MSL's squad. But even so, it's hard to see them not going through the first stage just a week after winning a $250,000 tournament.

BIG (#11)	Age	Rating
Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz	23	1.16
Johannes "⁠nex⁠" Maget	26	1.11
Owen "⁠smooya⁠" Butterfield	19	1.03
Tizian "⁠tiziaN⁠" Feldbusch	22	0.98
Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik	31	0.89

Offline placings in the last three months
2nd	ESL One Cologne 2018
5-6th	ESL One Belo Horizonte 2018

The Germans' crazy run to a second place finish in Cologne, which inspired HLTV's Milan "Striker" Švejda to take a deeper look at BIG, put so many eyes on gob b's side in July. Since then, BIG has been quiet, not playing a single official game, which saw the hype around the tactical team die down, and perhaps, made some teams forget about how uncomfortable it can be to play gob b's side.

BIG are a standout team in terms of utility usage, overshadowing even the current #1, Astralis, in the related categories. With 31.3 utility ADR and 0.32 Flash Assists per round, BIG are the best team at using grenades in the game, something that has been their focus for a long, long time. On the other hand, the team does lack some firepower, even though tabseN and nex stepped up heroically in Cologne, with smooya bringing in decent impact with the AWP.

smooya will try to make the home crowd proud at the Major

Perhaps surprisingly, there are some issues in the teamwork department, where BIG have subpar stats in terms of trading and in 5v4 conversion, something that is perhaps tied to language issues. Even though all of BIG can communicate in English well, it isn't hard to imagine that the flow of information isn't as crisp as it is would be if they were all communicating in their mother tongue.

Something that plays up BIG's alley in the FACEIT Major New Challengers Stage is that the matches, except the final one, will be BO1, mitigating the issues with their map pool. Before the break, BIG didn't play Mirage at all, Nuke only rarely, and didn't look convincing on Overpass. Other teams should be avoiding their Dust2, but playing a bunch of Inferno, which they are strong on, should give them a decent chance to move on to the New Legends stage.

Gambit (#19)	Age	Rating
Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev	28	1.06
Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khasenov	24	1.06
Rustem "⁠mou⁠" Telepov	26	1.04
Nikolay "⁠mir⁠" Bityukov	22	0.96
Mihail "⁠Dosia⁠" Stolyarov	30	0.91

Offline placings in the last three months
13-16th	DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018
3-4th	IEM Shanghai 2018
13-16th	ESL One Cologne 2018
5-6th	ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 Europe Regional Finals
3-4th	DreamHack Open Summer 2018

Gambit's rise from "just a good CIS team" to Major winners happened within the span of a year, and their fall back to the same level took about the same time. The team has been on a steady downward trend since Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko departed the squad, with the lack of leadership an obvious issue for which they simply cannot find a fix. More fragging power was added in form of former Vega Squadron star mir, in-game leadership has been passed around, and CIS veteran Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy has been brought in to help create a structure for the likes of AdreN, HObbit and mou blossom again. Both mir and B1ad3 were good pickups on paper, but results have not been satisfactory.

We haven't seen an improvement from Gambit in a long time

DreamHack Masters Stockholm, where the rules allow coaches to speak between every round, was the perfect event for B1ad3 to get work done, but it was another underwhelming display from Gambit, who went out to MOUZ and HellRaisers — the latter using a stand-in. The struggle is real, and there is a tough task ahead of Gambit if they wish to reach another top-16 of a Major. The only thing going for them is that, even though they are in bad shape, their occasional good maps and flashes of brilliance still make them favorites against some teams who are in even worse form, which follow later in the preview.

Virtus.pro (#20)	Age	Rating
Paweł "⁠byali⁠" Bieliński	24	1.17
Michał "⁠snatchie⁠" Rudzki	20	1.14
Michał "⁠MICHU⁠" Müller	21	1.10
Jarosław "⁠pashaBiceps⁠" Jarząbkowski	30	1.09
Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski	31	1.01

Offline placings in the last three months
5-8th	ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 Grand Finals
3-4th	IEM Shanghai 2018
7-8th	DreamHack Open Valencia 2018
2nd	CS:GO Asia Championships 2018

Another fallen Major champion is Virtus.pro, the Polish squad going down to just three of the five members that were victorious at EMS One Katowice 2014, and will soon be down to just NEO and pashaBiceps, as byali announced he will be leaving the team following the Major.

The announcement comes shortly after Virtus.pro seemed to have finally gotten a stable roster and a grasp of how they wanted to play the game. With snatchie, a competent AWPer, joining MICHU and byali, Virtus.pro had a young firepower trio, supported by veterans pashaBiceps and NEO, but internal turmoil, something the team had been expecting for a while, forced the Poles to make another roster change.

With byali on his way out, Virtus.pro find themselves in a tough situation

Having a player with one foot out of the door ahead of the Major, especially your highest rated one in the past three months, can only very rarely play out as a positive for your side. The only thing that will be pushing Virtus.pro to give it their all at the New Challengers Stage is the fact that, if they don't advance, they will be forced to go through the ever-increasingly difficult Europe Minor qualifiers to attend the next Major, which will be held in Katowice — an event they surely will not want to miss.

Space Soldiers (#31)	Age	Rating
Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş	23	1.23
Buğra "⁠Calyx⁠" Arkın	20	1.18
Ahmet "⁠paz⁠" Karahoca	21	1.03
Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli	27	1.00
Canpolat "⁠hardstyle⁠" Yıldıran	-	-

Offline placings in the last three months
5-6th	ESL One Belo Horizonte 2018
1st	DreamHack Open Austin 2018

MAJ3R's unit is one of the two Returning Challengers no longer amongst the top 30 of our rankings, but that, in itself, might be somewhat deceiving. Looking at Space Soldiers' last events, they won Dreamhack Open Austin comprehensively, and finished 5-6th at ESL One Belo Horizonte, where they lost to the eventual winners, FaZe, and SK, after beating the Brazilians in the group stage opener.

MAJ3R and co. will be missing ngiN in London

The Turkish side's dip in the ranking is mostly due to inactivity, which comes as a result of failing to qualify for a few premium events, such as DreamHack Masters Stockholm, IEM Chicago, and StarSeries i-League S6. Space Soldiers were looking like a dark horse, a team a lot of people were sleeping on for the FACEIT Major New Challengers Stage, but recent news that Engin "⁠ngiN⁠" Kor will not be able to attend the event due to visa issues hampers their chances quite significantly. Their coach hardstyle, who only has one competitive match in his record, will have a hard time holding his own against the teams at the event. For Space Soldiers to still go through, it will require their stars XANTARES, Calyx and paz to step up to an even higher level, making up for ngiN not being on the server.

Vega Squadron (#211)	Age	Rating
Anton "⁠tonyblack⁠" Kolesnikov	25	1.14
Pavel "⁠hutji⁠" Lashkov	22	1.08
Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov	21	1.03
Dmitriy "⁠jR⁠" Chervak	24	1.00
Igor "⁠crush⁠" Shevchenko	23	0.94

There are sleeper teams like Space Soldiers, fairly inactive teams such as BIG and then there is Vega Squadron, who are incomparable with the two aforementioned sides. The Russian team, who broke out in 2016 by eliminating NIP at the ELEAGUE Atlanta Major Main Qualifier, has played only five official maps, all online, in the past three months, which saw them nosedive through our ranks down 211th ahead of the action in London.

With mir departing, there is additional pressure on chopper to perform well for Vega Squadron

Earlier this year, after a consensus on how to approach team development couldn't be reached, Vega Squadron underwent significant changes. Star player mir and Sergey "⁠keshandr⁠" Nikishin departed the lineup, and team captain jR was left to rebuild around chopper and hutji. The two signings they made were uninspiring, though, with crush and tonyblack (formerly known as kibaken) filing the gaps after a few players had been trialled.

The 'Sharks' played an exciting style of Counter-Strike, pulled off upsets and were overall a fun addition to the last couple of Majors and Major Qualifiers, but expectations for them will be much lower this time. There is always a chance that their practice has been going fantastically and that they will emerge from the depths to surprise everyone at the Major — in the style of their CIS brethren FlipSid3 —, but it is looking very unlikely.