“You’ve never seen CS:GO like this” was the proud announcement from PGL, the next CS:GO Major hosts.
The Romanian organisation, alongside publishers Valve, has announced the next CS:GO Major to be held in Krakow, Poland. It’ll take place over the 16th to the 23rd of July.
The play-offs for the Major are set to be held in the TAURON Arena Krakow, the venue for the 2016 EU LCS Summer finals. The venue seats up to 18,000 people, which could theoretically all be sold out due to Poland being one of Counter-Strike’s spiritual homes.
PGL are no strangers to hosting Major events for Valve; they’ve hosted the previous two DOTA 2 Majors and will host the next one in Kiev. They also have form in CS:GO, being partners to DreamHack during the Cluj-Napoca Major in 2015.
The organisers have stated in a Reddit thread that they will be announcing the upcoming features for the Series over the next few months. The first of which is the announcement that, for the first time ever, every single game from the Minors to the Grand Final will be streamed in 1080p/60fps on Twitch.
The prize pool from the previous three Major events will remain the same at $1,000,000 (£814,587). The team count is also being kept consistent at 16, of which eight “Legends” receive a direct invite from the previous ELEAGUE Atlanta Major.
The eight Legend teams include the champions Astralis, who are set to defend their first Major championship. Alongside them are Virtus.pro, Fnatic, SK Gaming, Natus Vincere, Gambit, North and FaZe. They will be joined by eight teams from the Offline Qualifier.
In the announcement, PGL also announced they’re set to host all four Minor Championship events, the qualifiers for CS:GO’s largest event, as part of the “2017 Krakow CS:GO Major Championship Series”. This represents eight weeks of games, kicking off on June 1st with the Asian Minor and ending with the Major itself.
The full Series calendar is as follows:
June 1-4 – Asia Regional Minor Championship
June 8-11 – CIS Regional Minor Championship
June 8-11 – Americas Regional Minor Championship
June 15-18 – Europe Regional Minor Championship
June 29 – July 2 – Major Championship LAN Qualifier
July 16 – 19 – Major Championship Group Stage
July 21 – 23 – Major Championship Playoffs
More information can be found on the post from Valve as well as the website set up for the PGL Major. Ticket details, and locations for the Minor Championships, are set to “be revealed in the near future”.
Esports Insider says: Whilst it’s possibly a few months too late, the announcement is here. With PGL no strangers to Major events, and having a lot up their sleeves for this one, we could be seeing a very exciting event in Krakow come July.