Astralis
The five latest offline events:
3-4th ECS Season 3
Won vs Virtus.Pro at Clash for cash: The rematch
3-4th at IEM Sydney
2nd at Starladder i-League Starseries Season 3
1st at IEM Katowice 2017

Nicolai "device" Reedtz
Peter "dupreeh" Rothmann
Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander
Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye
Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth
Danny "zonic" Sørensen (Coach)

Astralis haven’t had a good couple of months lately, who were looking to solidify this as their era at SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals – after winning the ECS Season 2 Finals, the ELEAGUE Major and IEM Katowice – but they’ve failed to do so. They lost to FaZe in the grand final of Starladder i-League Starseries Season 3, Karrigan’s troops won over the Danes once again in the semi-finals of IEM Sydney, and at ECS Season 2 Finals they fell to SK. They did win the ELEAGUE showmatch against Virtus.pro last month,but it’s not enough. Astralis are no longer the favorites going into PGL Krakow, despite being the winning the last major.

Astralis have the best map pool in the game, right now. They are scary on overpass, train and nuke, and they are as well good enough on both mirage and inferno. They only played on cobblestone twice this year, both times against FaZe where their record is 1-1. It is possible that they have worked on it so that they can use it as a trump card early on in the Swiss format to gain an advantage in the new veto process later on. The only question mark for them is cache – where their results haven’t been that great, without notable victories. In the playoffs the Danes will always get to play one of those four maps that was recently mentioned, though in theory everyone should veto overpass and train against them.

The Danes got upset by Cloud9 at the ECS Season 3 Finals and Immortals shocked them on cache at IEM Katowice. But those are their only losses offline since their major win, against anyone but called SK or FaZe. Given the extra practice that they got by sitting out ESL One Cologne, Astralis should therefore be the best-prepared team coming in, without the exhaustion that had FalleN announce that they are feeling a bit burned out. To me Astralis have the best chance of beating SK, after FaZe’s poor performance in Cologne, but I still see all three of them being close.

BIG:
The five latest offline events:
3-5th at the PGL Major offline qualifier
1st at the Europe Minor Championship
2nd at ESEA Season 24 Global Challenge
1st at ESL Meisterschaft: spring 2017
3-4th at Copenhagen Games 2017

Fatih ”gob b” Dayik
Johannes ”tabseN” Wodarz
Johannes ”nex” Maget
Kevin ”keev” Bartholomäus
Nikola ”LEGIJA” Ninić
Alexander ”kakafu” Szymanczyk

gob b and his team have been improving gradually over time, since the team was put together in the beginning of 2017, despite some disappointments along the way. After placing second at Dreamhack Open Leipzig in January, where they knocked out Heroic in the semi-final, the Germans made it into the semi-finals of Copenhagen Games, only to be upset by Singularity, who’d then go and win the grand final. At ESEA Season 24 Global Challenge they lost two maps to PENTA in the grand final, but managed to get their revenge in the European minor shortly after. After being defeated by dignitas with a score of 0-2 in the opening round of the European minor, BIG managed to win over EnVyUs, dignitas and PENTA to secure their spot in the PGL major qualifier. The team then continued with the same momentum to qualify for the major, after recovering from a 10-16 loss to Cloud9 in the first round of the Swiss group stage, to go 3-0 against Tengri, Immortals and Liquid. But the questions is; will they be ready to compete at the major?

In the beginning of the foundation of the team, many expected Kevin ”keev” Bartholomäus to be the superstar for the Germans, but despite a good start of the year with some flashy plays, he hasn’t quite taken the next step. While Johannes ”nex” Maget has stepped up his play this year, he’s not the superstar of the team, either. Instead, it’s Johannes ”tabseN” Wodarz who’s been the superstar of the team. He has put up some ludicrous numbers so far in 2017. If the team wants to be competitive in the major, tabseN must continue to play at the same level as he’s done so far.

BIG will be taken more seriously by teams after their run in Bucharest, and it might be their downfall. The level of play is too high at the major itself in comparison to the minor qualifier. They have a big enough map pool to score upsets in best-of- one games, with cache, train and overpass being their most successful maps so far, but to do three upsets at the major might be an exaggeration.

Cloud9
The five latest offline events:
2nd ESL One Cologne 2017
3-5th at PGL major offline qualifier
3-4th at ECS season 3
7-8th at Dreamhack Summer 2017
1st at American qualifier for the minor

Jordan ”n0thing” Gilbert
Tyler ”Skadoodle” Latham
Jake ”Stewie2k” Yip
Timothy ”autimatic” Ta
Michael ”shroud” Grzesiek
Soham ”valens” Chowdhury (Coach)

Stewie2K’s team has climbed from sixth to fifth place in HLTV.org’s world ranking, and after getting knocked out in the group stages at ESL Pro League Finals in Dallas and DreamHack Summer, have made the semi-finals at ECS Season 3 Finals – where they beat fnatic and upset Astralis from a 0-8 loss on mirage – and last weekend took down NiP and Na`Vi to clinch a grand final spot for the first time since their win at ESL Pro League Finals in Sao Paulo last October. But has the North American team already peaked, or are they rising up towards their top-level of play?

Cloud9 showed impressive strength in Cologne, fighting back in series despite being down 0-2 in the Swiss group stage, and putting up a solid fight against SK on two of the three maps in the best-of-five grand final. Cloud9’s play is reliant on their players playing well individually, with coach valens scheming for each opponent to keep them ready. While Stewie2K and autimatic normally perform at a high level, the big story here has been the comebacks of Skadoodle and shroud – the two players who has had a tough time up until the summer.

Cloud9 have earlier had some problems with finding a go-to-map, but it looks like they found one at recent tournaments. They’ve had some good results on mirage where they managed to beat Immortals at the Americas minor, upset Astralis from an early loss at ECS, destroyed FlipSid3 at the qualifier, and defeated Na`Vi at ESL One Cologne. They also took FaZe to overtime at the ECS finals in London – where they lost a 15-6 lead to a 15-19 loss after overtime – and barely lost to fnatic at DreamHack Summer. Outside of that, they also have a stable record on train with wins over fnatic, immortals, NiP and GODSENT as well as close games versus Na`Vi – a six-overtime thriller – and SK. Cloud9 doesn’t really have any other good map other than mirage, which is one of their biggest problems right now. They don’t play nuke, their overpass performances have possibly been better than expected, and they are inconsistent on cache, inferno and cobblestone

FaZe Clan
The five latest offline events:
3-4th at ESL One Cologne 2017
2nd at ECS Season 3 Finals
2nd at IEM Sydney
1st at Starladder i-League Starseries Season 3
2nd at IEM Katowice 2017

Aleksi "allu" Jalli
Finn "karrigan" Andersen
Fabien "kioShiMa" Fiey
Nikola "NiKo" Kovač
Håvard "rain" Nygaard
Robert "RobbaN" Dahlström (Coach)

FaZe have made five straight top-four finishes, including four grand final appearances in a row since the addition of NiKo in February, up until ESL One Cologne – where the trouble that they had in the group stage forced them to play SK in the semi-finals. FaZe is a team capable of beating both Astralis and SK, who were their only true competitors going into the event, but they might also be moving in the wrong direction. After losing a close game in the grand final of ECS Season 3 Finals, where they came back to a 15-14 lead after earlier being down 0-11 and 2-13 on the deciding map, FaZe had a rather poor performance in Cologne. They lost to mousesports and OpTic in the group stage and were close to losing to Heroic, which put them at risk of elimination in the group stage. Liquid were outmatched due to their map pool, and despite that FaZe did not play well against SK.


FaZe has only played cobblestone against Astralis where they’ve won one and lost one, and while their cache is shaky at best, until SK’s pick in Cologne no one had floated it against them in a series. Attending multiple events in a row could be taking its toll on FaZe, who rely more on their high individual skill than both Astralis and SK, which makes their performance more sensitive to tiny changes in how well players similar to NiKo and rain play. FaZe will not be winning the major if they do not play better than they did in Cologne, though the way they played at ECS Season 3 Finals could well be enough.

The loss versus SK on overpass was this rosters worst loss so far. They are still good on the map, but it is unclear whether they would like to play it again against either Astralis or SK Cache will give FaZe a minor problem against the brazilians, since rain will not carry FaZe all by himself next time around, but Astralis seem unlikely to pick it, unless they want to simply counter karrigan and his troops. FaZe do not seem to mind playing nuke, though their offline record is poor with 1-4, even if their losses are only versus Astralis and G2, who are both seen as two of the best nuke teams. Most teams tend to avoid mirage and nuke against them, with the maps being train, overpass and inferno. FaZe are seen as the number one team on inferno and the only team to beat them on overpass is SK. When it comes to the map-pool, they are ready for action

FaZe have all the necessary tools, the experience of deep playoff runs, and come in as one of the clear top-three sides. In order to win the major FaZe first need to forget about Cologne, not lose easy games in the group stage, and be ready for each and every playoff game. It would be kind of insane to expect them outside of the top four, but they may be the ones of them, SK and Astralis to end their run in the semis.

Fnatic:
The five latest offline events:
9-11th at ESL Cologne 2017
7-8th at ECS Season 3 Finals
2nd at Dreamhack Summer 2017
5-8th at Starladder i-League Starseries Season 3
9-12th Dreamhack Masters - Las Vegas 2017
5-8th at the Eleague major

Dennis "dennis" Edman
Robin "flusha" Rönnquist
Jesper "JW" Wecksell
Freddy "krimz" Johansson
Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer
Jimmy "Jumpy" Berndtsson (Coach)

Many of the legend-teams might lose their legends status at this tournament, fnatic is one of them. The Swedes got knocked out of groups at the ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals, but it was very close. They got to play mini re-matches against SK, them and EnVyUs. They only lost full games against SK and G2 in the same tournament having only lost to SK and G2 in full games – their run at the last two tournaments has been discouraging. They managed to place second at Dreamhack Summer, after losing to Sk in the finals. They suffered a overtime loss to CLG after leading with 11-4 on the t-side. They placed last place at ECS Season 3 Finals against two other American sides, Cloud9 and Liquid – where they lost to Liquid in a BO3-series. fnatic faced some tough teams, once again, in Cologne, where they lost to FaZe and SK, but it was the loss versus mousesports in the opening game that cost them a chance at making it through to the playoff.

The Swedes are not expected to beat SK or FaZe, or Astralis at the major, but their timely inconsistency is hindering them. If they lose games to the lower rated teams, they simply will not make it through to the playoffs. The weakest teams in the tournament, at least on paper, are Cloud9, Gambit and Immortals, who are the best ones they have defeated in the past one and a half month. They will need to step up their individual play in the major. Many would think that olofmeister would be the team’s best performer but it’s actually JW with olofmeister not far behind. Both flusha and Dennis haven’t been performing too well recently and need to step up at the major if fnatic want to go through to the playoffs.

Flusha said an interview clearly defined map pool, which should mean that they can play almost any map. fnatic have generally not played nuke, but recently they have been moving away from cache and cobblestone, as well. Their weak maps seems to be train and overpass, which leaves them with mirage and inferno, two more pug-friendly maps.
It is uncertain what to expect of fnatic, especially since Krimz is the one who’s taken over the leader role now. There are some tough Challengers looking to move up in the world, and fnatic’s streak of making playoffs is in actual danger. Will fnatic once again get a lucky draw and manage to make it through to the playoffs?

Flipsid3:
The five latest offline events:
6-8th at PGL major offline qualifier
3-4th at Adrenaline Cyber League 2017
15-16th at ELEAGUE major 2017
1st at Dreamhack Leipzig 2017

Andrey ”B1ad3” Gorodensky
Yegor ”markeloff” Markelov
Georgy ”WorldEdit” Yaskin
Denis ”electronic” Sharipov
Jan ”wayLander” Rahkonen

Flipsid3 have only attended two tournaments since the ELEAGUE major- the qualifier for the PGL major and the Adrenaline Cyber League one, which was a small one-day event consisting of four teams. They, however, won Dreamhack Open Leipzig in January, where they beat BIG in the grand final. Flipsid3 have always stepped up their game at the majors, while participating in a very few amount of tournaments outside of the major, which they are known for. electronic, the team’s star player, have continued developing throughout the year. He had quite a showing at the major qualifier where he had a 1.38 rating on HLTV.

The CIS team managed to beat Renegades, HellRaisers and Liquid- the latter in the last and deciding game, after triple-overtime. FlipSid3 are consistent in their play, most of the time, but they come in well prepared and rarely bomb out of tournaments. They simply lack some of explosiveness you need to make top eight at an event with the world’s best teams in attendance.

Unlike Mousesports, Flipsid3 doesn’t have a go-to map. The tactical style that they play works just fine on Nuke, but there’s few teams that play that map, which means that it’s unlikely that they’ll get to play it in Krakow. Their mirage is okay, but the problem is that they have gone through a ton of close losses on it. Cache does not fit the team that much, and their results on cobblestone and train have been a bit up-and-down. Both inferno and overpass are fairly good maps for them, but they’re, once again, not quite there to compete with the best teams.

Gambit
The five latest offline events:
5-6th at Dreamhack Summer 2017
1st at Dreamhack Austin
2nd at cs_summit
12-14th at Starladder i-League Starseries Season 3
5-8th at Dreamhack Masters - Las Vegas 2017

Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev
Mikhail "Dosia" Stolyarov
Abay "HObbit" Khassenov
Rustem "mou" Telepov
Daniil "Zeus" Teslenko
Mykhailo "kane" Blagin (Coach)

After winning DreamHack Open Winter, Gambit made the playoffs at the ELEAGUE major, before missing playoffs with a 1-3 record at SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals, which included a loss to CLG. The CIS team made the grand final at cs_summit in April, and won Dreamhack Open Austin in May – but have only attended one event in the past two months. At Dreamhack Open Summer they, once again, lost to CLG in the opening game, and got knocked out by the same fnatic team who stole a map from them at the Starladder tournament earlier this year.

Gambit play all seven maps, at a decent level. They were in the conversation for world’s best cobblestone team until the first CLG loss, and their only losses on nuke have come against G2 and North, making it a map most will veto out. Inferno fits their personality well and their record on train is outstanding – with victories combined on the two maps over teams such as SK and G2. They haven’t played many games on cache lately, which means that their cache still remains a question. They have rarely played inferno and they have only played mirage once offline in recent months where they lost to OpTic at cs_summit. Gambit’s map pool is good, but their play isn’t enough to win over the top teams.

Since they missed out on both ECS Season 3 Finals and ESL One Cologne and not needing to qualify for the major, Gambit have had much more time to prepare for the major than the other teams, in fact they were the only team without an event to attend after Dreamhack Open Summer. This team has the kind of consistency and deep map pool that should be beneficial for them in the group stage, especially if Zeus once again prepared for every single team at the major. Gambit are, for me, one of the underdogs that go through, especially if the luck of the random draw of the Swiss system is on their side. It will be close though, and AdreN will need to step up individually.

G2
The five latest offline events:
5-8th at ESL One Cologne 2017
1st-2nd at PGL major offline qualifier
5-6th at ECS season 3 finals
1st at ESL pro league season 5 finals
1st at Dreamhack Tours

Richard ”shox” Papillon
Alexandre ”bodyy” Pianaro
Nathan ”NBK” Schmitt
Dan ”apEX” Madesclaire
Kenny ”kennyS” Schrub
Edouard ”SmithZz” Dubourdeaux (Coach)

G2 are, out of all the challengers, by far one of the most dangerous teams. They struggled online in the beginning of the team's creation after the ELEAGUE major, but have showcased good results offline since the beginning. At SL i-League StarSeries Finals shox’s side lost a close series to FaZe in the quarter-finals, with a disappointing defeat at Gambit’s hands stinging from Dreamhack Open Austin – an event where they were the favourites to win. The Frenchmen bounced back by winning Dreamhack Open Tours – albeit versus weaker opposition – and ESL Pro League Finals, where they took down SK in the semi-finals and North in a best-of- five final. They qualified for the major with a 3-0 record, but surrounding it got knocked out by FaZe at the ECS finals – in a ridiculously tough group with both SK and FaZe – and most recently lost to Na`Vi at ESL One Cologne despite leading 11-2 on overpass and 13-10 on nuke, both on the ct-side.

The Frenchmen have all the ingredients to take the trophy. Both kennyS and shox are still some of the best players in the world, NBK is likely the most overqualified role player in the world, and both apEX and bodyy are capable of taking over games at times. You can say that G2 are SK’s kryptonite, considering that they have won 5 games and only lost one game against the current best team in the world, but they often fail to reach the later stages of tournaments where the Brazilians await. After their quarter-final exit in Cologne, shox told HLTV.org in an interview that G2’s problems are largely mental. This might stop G2 in Krakow, since mental problems often doesn’t get solved in such a short amount of time. Sure, they might put it aside just for the time being so that they can focus on going through to the playoffs, but the problems will still be there after the major.

G2 are probably the world’s best team on cobblestone and nuke, currently. Their first offline loss on nuke came from the loss against Na`Vi last weekend, and they have won 10 out of the 11 games that they’ve played on cobblestone. They have not found a recipe for consistent success on cache yet and they have struggled on train, where they have only won against Tricked. G2’s permanent veto is mirage, and they can compete on overpass and inferno, which likely will be the maps that’ll decide their destiny in the major.

Despite their recent issues, G2 should be able to make it through. kennyS and shox are some of the best players in the game’s five-year history, and they are due another deep playoff run after picking up the trophy respectively under LDLC and EnVyUs at DreamHack Winter 2014 and Dreamhack Cluj-Napoca 2015. It would be a surprise if G2 would not manage to go through to the playoffs.

Immortals
The five latest offline events:
12-14th at ESL One Cologne 2017
6-8th at PGL major offline qualifier
3-4th at Dreamhack Open Summer 2017
2nd at the American Minor 2017
2nd Dreamhack Austin 2017

Henrique ”HEN1” Teles
Lucas ”LUCAS1” Teles
Ricardo ”boltz” Prass
Lucas ”steel” Lopes
Vito ”kNg” Guiseppe
Rafael ”zakk” Fernandes (Coach)

After failing to qualify to the ELEAGUE major qualifier last December, Immortals finally managed to qualify for a major after knocking out HellRaisers in the decider match. But following their emotional high in Bucharest, the Brazilians crashed out at ESL One Cologne in second-to- last place. They started off well by defeating Virtus.pro in the opener but lost afterwards to Liquid, G2 and Cloud9. The brazilians got destroyed by fnatic in the final two maps of a semi-final series at DreamHack Summer, though only after getting their first win over SK offline in the group stage, much thanks to kNg’s performance. In other words, IMT is still a very hot and cold team, with upset potential but no guarantee of minimum level of play.

The fact that the players are emotional might be a problem for them, which is something that their coach zakk mentioned in an interview with HLTV, and one of their games at the qualifier was paused due to them yelling too loud. Immortals are, as a team, inconsistent but at least they somewhat benefit from the highs that they have. Since adding kNg to replace fnx, who came in as part of felps’s buyout for Brazilian rival SK, Immortals have crashed out in groups at ESL Pro League Finals, suffered their first offline loss to Cloud9 at the Americas minor, upset SK and beaten mousesports to make semi-finals at DreamHack Summer, qualified for the major and crashed out in groups, again, at ESL One Cologne. They have wins versus Virtus.pro, SK, G2, mousesports and Cloud9 but have also gotten destroyed by teams such as EnVyUs, fnatic, SK, Cloud9 and BIG – with an overtime loss to Liquid from a 14-9 lead as the cherry on the top.

It’s not surprising that nuke is Immortals’s permanent veto since they have two snipers, in kNg and Hen1 as their stars. Mirage has given them troubles as of late, which makes their best map most likely overpass. The rest of the map pool is within their inconsistency zone. Newcomer kNg has done well while splitting sniper duty with HEN1, who remains the biggest difference-maker on the team. Both boltz and lucas contribute and fill their roles, whereas steel has struggled despite giving up the in-game leader’s role. In other words, the brazilians have what it takes to make the playoffs, but it is unlikely they will. I requires a bit of luck to win three out of five matches as an underdog, and you need to make use of every opportunity you get. That is the part that Immortals have proven to not be good at, and it is likely what will be the thing that’ll be stopping them from making the major playoffs.
Mousesports
The five latest offline events:
9-11th at ESL One Cologne 2017
1-2 at the PGL Major offline qualifier
5-6th at Dreamhack Summer 2017
5-6th at the ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals
3-4th at Dreamhack Tours 2017

Chris ”chrisJ” de Jong
Denis ”denis” Howell
Tomáš ”oskar” Šťastný
Christian ”loWel” Antoran
Robin ”ropz” Kool
Sergey ”lmbt” Bezhanov (Coach)

Mousesports added ropz to their lineup in April where he replaced NiKo, who went to FaZe. The 17- year old has since proven all the doubters with his rifling despite he has a lack of experience. He is one of the two best players for the team together with oskar, and the two of them has showed that they’re a dangerous duo together. Ropz made his debut in Tours, where mousesports managed to take down Heroic and Na’Vi in the group stage, and took a map from G2 in the semi-finals. At the ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals they managed to get through to the playoffs after going 4-1 in the group stage. They were then matched up against SK in the quarterfinals where they got devoured. At Dreamhack Summer it was once again the brazilians who knocked the team out of the tournament, this time in the group stages, and in Cologne they got “reverse sweeped” and went 2-3 despite starting the groups off by winning over FaZe and fnatic.

This mousesports is better than the old mousesports team with NiKo, spiidi and nex, despite lacking experience in leadership with former AWPer chrisJ leading the team. The duo consisting of ropz and oskar are the two who’s fragging the most, with lowel helping if needed. They aren’t lacking skill, but they are on the line where one of their stars having a bad performance could wreck a tournament for the whole team.

Mousesports have a few good maps in inferno and nuke, where they defeated FaZe in Cologne despite being down 0-9 on the CT-side. They are happy to play cobblestone and train but their results have been up-and-down on both maps. Despite this they, just like the other challenger teams, lack a go-to map.

Mouz could very well qualify for the playoffs but the question is if the two major debutants, oskar and ropz, will be able to perform under the heavy pressure. The whole team needs to step up in the group stage if they want to go through to the playoffs and thereby secure a legends spot for the next major.

Na’Vi
The five latest offline events
3d at ESL One Cologne 2017
2nd at Adrenaline Cyber League 2017
5-6th at Dreamhack Open Tours 2017
3-4th at Starladder i-League Starseries Season 3
5-6th at IEM Katovice 2017

Egor "flamie" Vasilyev
Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev
Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács
Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev
Denis "seized" Kostin
Andrey "andi" Prokhorov (Coach)

Na`Vi are not the team that many people expected them to become after the ESL One New York victory last fall, yet they are not hopeless, either. They crashed out oddly versus mousesports and Misfits in the group stage at Dreamhack Open Tours, where Na`Vi should have made the finals in - and got knocked out of the group stage at ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals in Dallas after losing the decider match against OpTic, having only beaten two North American sides previously. At the one-day Adrenaline Cyber League Finals they lost to a jet-lagged and unfit Virtus.pro, and in Cologne they made playoffs after they beat Cloud9, Space Soldiers and mousesports. Yet they defeated G2 in the quarter-finals after being down 2-11 and 10-13 on overpass and nuke, and then lost to Cloud9 in the semi-finals.

Na`Vi never continued to play cache after Zeus’s departure, despite having a very fitting personality. Na`Vi are a very good team on overpass, and practically no one wants to see them on train. Their nuke has been a tad underrated, but their victory should buy them respect from the other teams. The problem thus becomes the maps they do end up playing. Their inferno results haven’t been the best, and mirage has been the reason to why they've gone out of the tournaments that they’ve recently played in, where they’ve lost to mousesports, Misfits, North, Virtus.pro and Cloud9 in the last four tournaments.

It seems Na’Vi at times keep doing the same things repeatedly, almost as if they’re relying entirely on coach Andi for adjustments. Andi can only do so much with Valve’s coaching rule, and Na`Vi do not seem to be improving the way a team should under a leader. Maybe it’s time for a change, either a roster change or a change in roles. Seized’s individual game has become worse ever since he took on the ingame-leader role, which means that his teammates have to frag more and fight more as well. Na’Vi has enough firepower to go all the way to the semi-finals, but they will most likely get knocked out in the quarter-finals.



North
The five latest offline events
9-11th at ESL One Cologne 2017
2nd at the ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals
6-7th at IEM Sydney 2017
5-8th at Starladder i-League Starseries Season 3
5-6th at IEM Katovice 2017

Philip "aizy" Aistrup
René "cajunb" Borg
Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke
Emil "Magisk" Reif
Mathias "MSL" Lauridsen
Casper "ruggah" Due (Coach)

North have only made the semi-finals twice in the latest eleven offline tournaments – at Dreamhack Masters Las Vegas, where they only had to beat compLexity, OpTic and Gambit to get there – and then yet again at the ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals, where they managed to win over mousesports, Na`Vi, NRG, OpTic and Liquid to go through to the grand final, where they lost to G2 after only winning eight rounds in total over the course of two maps.

k0nfig and Magisk have continued to carry North on both mirage and overpass, but their cobblestone has become unreliable, with three straight losses coming into the Krakow major, including two against Liquid and OpTic. The Danes do not play train, and want to avoid cache since MSL despises the map. North are one of the elite nuke teams, even though they lost to Chiefs on the map in Sydney. Inferno fits their style almost like a glove, even if the results have not been encouraging.

It is hard to see North competing for a semi-final spot. The team has stopped developing, and maybe even taken a step back. North can make the playoffs in Krakow, but it wouldn’t be shocking if they went out in the group stage. All in all, North need to play better than they have in recent months to stay Legends.


PENTA
The five latest offline events:
3-5th at PGL major offline qualifier 2017
2nd at PGL offline minor 2017
Lost vs EXtaTus 3-0 at ROG extreme gaming #6
5-8th at GeForce Cup 2017
1st at ESEA season 24: Global challenge

Kevin ”kRYSTAL” Amend
Miikka ”suNny” Kemppi
Jesse ”zehN” Linjala
Kevin ”HS” Tarn
Paweł ”innocent” Mocek

In the start of 2017 PENTA decided to go international, and picked up ENCE’s suNny, former Kinguin member innocent and the Estonian player HS, who had never found a stable team in the past. The team won ESEA Season 24 Global Challenge over BIG, crashed out of GeForce Cup versus Gatekeepers, consisting of a few relatively unknown Swedes, and then lost to BIG in the grand final of the European minor with a score of 0-2. But PENTA defeated EnVyUs and dignitas in Bucharest, and then qualified for the major with a 3-1 record, after winning over OpTic, Liquid and Vega Squadron.

It is unclear how competitive PENTA will be against the elite teams – they qualified by beating OpTic and Liquid, two inconsistent performers who did not make it, and then Vega Squadron. The team does not have any wins over any of the top teams on their offline record – which they are bound to face in Krakow – with kRYSTAL and zehN having a poor performance against the current level of competition. HS and suNny have really stepped up for PENTA, with innocent acting as their backup.

PENTA’s not that good on Nuke, and the map is their permanent veto when it comes to offline events. They’ve had some wins on the map online, but they’ve had more losses than wins. Since the team has a lack of structure, their best maps are cache, mirage and inferno, who doesn’t require as much structure as cobblestone for example. Overpass should be tough for them, but somehow they have managed to win on it twice. Their record on train is also better than one might expect of a team without a top-tier AWPer or a clear leadership figure. There are teams PENTA could beat, but it gets much tougher against the teams that are legends. The major will be a nice stepping stone and a chance to gain valuable experience, but it would be quite a surprise to see PENTA go through to the playoffs.

SK
The five latest offline events:
1st at ESL One Cologne 2017
1st at ECS Season 3 Finals
1st at DreamHack Open Summer 2017
3rd at ESL Pro League Season
1st at IEM Sydney 2017

Marcelo "coldzera" David
Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo
Joao "felps" Vasconcellos
Fernando "fer" Alvarenga
Epitacio "TACO" Pessoa

Sk made a roster change in the beginning of the year, where they kicked fnx and added felps from immortals. SK’s debut with felps saw them finish top-two at DreamHack Masters Las Vegas, but the team then got knocked out of the groups at both IEM Katowice and SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals – although they lost to FaZe, Astralis, G2, Na`Vi and Virtus.pro in best-of-ones, which shouldn’t be the end of the world. SK have played six events leading up to the PGL major and out of those six events they’ve managed to win 4, including three consecutive titles.

Sk have played against G2 six times this year. G2 have won 5 out of those six games, and knocked them out of ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals at the end of May, which was their only their only tournament loss since cs_summit. While they were moving in the same speed as FaZe before ESL One Cologne, the one-sided semi-final opened up a gap between the two teams, and SK have always gotten along well versus Astralis – who have never defeated the new SK with felps offline in a best-of-three series. SK has a mental strength unlike many teams. They constantly bury teams when they do their well-known late-game comebacks. One example is the final against FaZe at the ECS Season 3 Finals, where FaZe brought SK’s 11-0 lead to a 14-15 tournament point in London, but SK didn’t give up and managed to win the final map.

SK does not play nuke at all, not since they lost to Cloud9 on the map, but otherwise their map pool is very strong. Their overpass game has looked inconsistent with fnatic winning over the Brazilians at Dreamhack Summer, but then SK obliterated FaZe on it in Cologne. They have won 12 out of the 13 games that they’ve played on cobblestone with their only loss coming against G2, 12-3 on cache, and 14-4 on mirage. You are going to have a tough time if you can’t veto these maps away in the group stage. They are unavoidable in the playoffs, since they’ll always get to play at least one of these maps there. The addition of cache to their map pool has been a game-changer with many teams moving away from it, and they are 8-0 on train since a couple of months back. G2’s the only team to beat them on inferno since June.

The Brazilians are the favorites to win PGL Krakow, which would be their third major championship in CS:GO. The way they won ESL One Cologne made everyone aware about their current form. But there’ll always remain some danger, with FaZe steadily coming close and Astralis deciding that it’s better to practice for the upcoming major than going to Cologne.


Vega Squadron
The five latest offline events:
1st at the CIS minor Championship 2017
5-6th at Dreamhack Leipzig 2017
9-11th at ELEAGUE major offline qualifier

Dmitriy ”jR” Chervak
Nikolay ”mir” Bityukov
Sergey ”keshandr” Nikishin
Pavel ”hutji” Lashkov
Leonid ”chopper” Vishnyakov

I don’t think that there were anyone who knew who Vega Squadron were before their 16-2 win over NiP at the ELEAGUE major qualifier last year. After losing with 12-16 to EnVyUs in the decider game, Vega Squadron fell short 14-16 versus FlipSid3 and 0-2 against BIG – after a close game that went to overtime on train – at DreamHack Open Leipzig in January, their first international tournament and also their last, thus far.

The CIS team defended their championship at the CIS minor, and won over dignitas in the decider match in Bucharest with 16-5, who have more experience than Vega Squadron. the team's star player mir has a superstarish-rating for 2017, but it is obviously impacted by their lack of top-level competition and a few of their games – only 21 offline maps up until now.

Vega Squadron don’t play cobblestone and avoid overpass, but normally play the remaining maps. Sure, they won over NiP on cache in last year's major qualifier, which most likely is enough reason for most teams to veto it against them. They managed to win over TyLoo and dignitas on inferno at the major qualifier, and have had solid results on train. But if you take away those maps from them, they are left with nuke or mirage, two maps which they have had far more issues on. Vega Squadron might not win a single game, it depends on their draw. Although, it’s safe to say that their ability to upset teams is now well-documented, and they keep moving in the right direction. A win or two at the major would still be a win for Vega Squadron, despite getting knocked out.