CS:GO – Teams We’re Going to Miss at the Major

With Movistar Riders, ENCE, and Copenhagen Flames going to the Major, there’s quite a few surprise participants for Stockholm. But for every Fall miracle, there has to be a tragedy – after all, someone’s got to make space! We’re showing you the most important teams that haven’t made the cut!

COMPLEXITY

The switch from Kristian “k0nfig” Wienecke to Marcelo “coldzera” David has not yet paid out. The team struggled their way through IEM Fall and ended up in fifth place in their group. Only Endpoint, who arrived on-site with a last-minute stand-in, managed to perform worse than them. Of course, Complexity need time to grow together as a proper team. But seeing as they fought for this Major spot for over a year, it’s sad to see them go home empty-handed.

EXTREMUM

A lot of people probably don’t even know what EXTREMUM have meant for the Majors – or at least the old core, which used to compete for Renegades. Aaron “AZR” Ward and his men were in the Top 8 of IEM Katowice 2019, after which they stormed to a Semi Finals finish at the StarLadder Berlin Major! They quickly signed for 100 Thieves and even concluded IEM Beijing with a second-place finish against Astralis.

Unfortunately, the pandemic has worn them out. Just like a lot of teams, they’ve drowned in the slurry of online tournaments. In the meantime, 100T had to restructure and drop the team, even though the players quickly found a new home under EXTREMUM. Since then, things have been going less than stellar for them. A third place at cs_summit is the best they could muster in 2021. Sure, with performances like this, they don’t really deserve a spot at the Major, but we’ll still miss the Aussie veterans!

Fnatic

This is the second Major tournament ever without fnatic! Since 2013, they had attended every Valve event until they missed the StarLadder Major in 2019. Back then, CRAZY threw them out of the Europe Minor Lower Bracket. After roster changes and a bad performance throughout the year, they weren’t able to qualify this time. They bombed out of the IEM Group D in last place, without winning even a single map.

OG

This team really missed out on the Major by the skin of their teeth! If only they had won versus FaZe Clan, they would have surpassed Fiend in the standings and even gotten past FaZe themselves. But since they folded on the third map, they could only attain an 11th place. Mateusz “mantuu” Wilczewski and his colleagues had surely hoped for more. But seeing as the team just hasn’t performed on LAN so far, the Major qualification was maybe too much to ask in the first place.

But in these teams’ places, we can welcome some newcomers! Copenhagen Flames, Movistar Riders and ENCE were on nobody’s radar, and now they’re in the midst of the Major action. It’ll be exciting to see the underdogs square off against established and bigger teams. IEM Fall has proven that Liquid, G2, Astralis, mouz and even more just aren’t as strong as they used to be. This makes them vulnerable and gives the new arrivals a shot at making Major miracles happen!

(Header image via BLAST Premier | Jak Howard | Joe Brady)