Astralis – Spirit: a controversial battle of the legends

The PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Challengers Stage is the most anticipated event for CS:GO fans this year. Previously the majors were held twice a year, but due to coronavirus restrictions tournaments of this level have been held very infrequently recently, and therefore have become much more significant than before. Nowadays, the title won in the majors is much more important than the cash prize, which is also very big – $1 million.

To qualify for the PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Challengers Stage, each participating team had to go through a very difficult qualifying phase. Therefore, the best of the best will compete in the main stage.

The Challengers Stage is the first part of the main tournament with 16 teams participating and only eight teams advance to the next stage. The Challengers Stage is a Swiss system – the 3-winners advance to the next stage, while the 3-losers drop out. Most matches will be played in BO1 format, with the knock-out rounds in BO3 format.

The Danish team Astralis has not had the best of recent history. With very good players, the lack of chemistry was a problem that could not be solved. The players, while individually very strong, could not form a united “fist”. The lack of a sharpshooter was also a very serious problem for the team. But it was solved by the incorporation of a young, but very promising Farlig. With the addition of the sharpshooter the team looked amazingly transformed and started to show a very good teamwork.

The Astralis were facing a formidable opponent, HEET, for the main event, and won with a very hard battle and a narrow 3-2 victory.

The PGL Major Antwerp 2022 Challengers Stage got off to a poor start for the Danes as they started the tournament with a loss to Vitality. Each round saw the opponents snatch victory in the dying minutes, and experts agree that the Danes simply weren’t very lucky despite their obvious level advantage.

The match with MIBR was also very difficult. This time, in spite of their opponent’s high level, Astralis managed to turn the tide in their favour in an extremely tense struggle.

One of the most awaited events of the major was the match between the Danish team, which was the favourite of the tournament, and such a strong opponent as Spirit, a team that was revived after a suspension due to serious problems. And Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov has managed to revive the team with some very promising newcomers, among whom Pavel “s1ren” Ogloblin and Robert “Patsi” Isyanov stand out.

The team won a place in the Majors at the PMP, where they put up a very good show by beating the big Brazilians from Imperial. The team showed a very good level at this tournament, in spite of the defeat by G2. But in the match against Eternal Fire, also a very difficult one, Spirit was able to rehabilitate themselves in front of the fans with a very nice victory. Recently, the team’s head coach was replaced with Sergey “hally” Shavaev.

The rivalry between the two teams will no doubt be spiced up by the fact that this will be the first meeting between the two teams in the history of both Astralis and Spirit.