NA CS at the Major: PGL Antwerp 2022

Now that the Major is nearly upon us, we here at Dust2.us are heading into the final few Major rewinds with a particular focus on the North American's performances. For today's edition, we take a look at the first of the two Majors in 2022 and the second straight Major for this organizer, PGL Antwerp.

For PGL Antwerp, there was a much different process of qualification compared to the predecessor in Stockholm. For the 2021 PGL Major, teams qualified based on a series of events that they were awarded points for based on their placing. As for Antwerp, there were multiple on-site RMRs that were held in Romania, with 15 teams from the Americas qualifying through several open qualifiers and FURIA making their way to the event based on their placing in Stockholm.

Making their way out of the RMR, FURIA took down MIBR to earn the sole Legends spot available, while the latter qualified alongside Imperial, 9z, and North American sides Liquid and Complexity for the Challengers stage. A new look Evil Geniuses formed around the core of the Cloud9 Major winning team narrowly missed out on qualification after losing to 9z in the 8th place decider.

Evil Geniuses were not the only NA team that fielded a very different roster when compared to the previous Major. Liquid rebuilt their team around Keith "NAF" Markovic and Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski, bringing in young AWPer Joshua "oSee" Ohm to replace Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo who went on to form the last dance roster at Imperial, while also replacing Jake "Stewie2K" Yip and Michael "Grim" Wince with a returning Nick "nitr0" Cannella and French legend Richard "shox" Papillon.

As for Complexity, the organization returned to its North American roots following the dissipation of the Juggernaut roster. Signing the core of Extra Salt which consisted of Ricky "floppy" Kemery, Justin "FaNg" Coakley and Johnny "JT" Theodosiou. The team also brought in Paytyn "junior" Johnson from FURIA to replace the aforementioned oSee, while Grim went the other way to Complexity to round out the roster.

The Challengers stage, like many other tournaments that Complexity had played since the creation of the roster, was brutally unforgiving for the NA side. Matching up against the French behemoth Vitality in the opening round, Complexity managed just a single round on Inferno as they were decimated 16-1. Taking on the Mongolian squad IHC in the 0-1 game, Complexity managed to close out Nuke 16-13 in a tightly contested affair to move into 1-1.

Outsiders awaited Complexity in the 1-1 game, with the future Major winning IGL Dzhami 'Jame' Ali destroying the NA side on Overpass with a 23-5 stat line as the CIS team was victorious 16-9. Unfortunately for Complexity, a familiar face awaited them in their 1-2 elimination game.

In the opening match of their Major campaign, Liquid got off to a similarly dismal start on Inferno against G2 as they were stomped 16-6 by the European squad. Liquid's woes were exacerbated by their former AWPer and his Brazilian colleagues as FalleN and Imperial sent the NA team down to the 0-2 column with a 16-10 win.

With their backs against the wall and having BO3s from that point onward, Liquid knew the pressure was on. Taking on 9z in their 0-2 game, nitr0's men showed their superior experience and firepower with a 2-0 series win after taking both Ancient and Overpass with 16-11 scorelines. At 1-2, the only two NA teams in attendance clashed in a heartbreaking elimination game with Liquid meeting Complexity. Experience shone yet again for Liquid, knocking their compatriot's out of the Major with consecutive 16-12 scorelines on Ancient and Vertigo, subsequently setting themselves up for a clash against Astralis at 2-2.

Rewinding back a little bit to 2019, Liquid vs Astralis was the rivalry that dominated the year, with the Danes taking the spoils virtually every time. By the time PGL Antwerp rolled around, only Lukas ‘gla1ve’ Rossander and Andreas ‘Xyp9x’ Højsleth remained for Astralis. In this crunch match for survival, it would be Liquid's time for revenge as they claimed not only the series but a spot in the Legends stage over their former foes.

Unfortunately for Liquid, revenge over Astralis and a fairytale 0-2 to 3-2 run in the Challengers stage would be followed by bitter disappointment for the remainder of the competition. Facing Heroic on Vertigo, nitr0 and NAF's 1.36 and 1.30 ratings respectively were not enough as the Danes ran out 16-11 winners. Despite facing familiar foes FURIA, Liquid was yet again sent down to the dreaded 0-2 game after a 16-9 loss on Ancient and there was no magical comeback this time as they lost 2-0 on Mirage and Dust2 to Vitality, ending their Major run.

While every North American team had been eliminated by the time playoffs came about, there was one player that the region could still get behind. Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken. The former Liquid player had departed for European juggernaut FaZe in early 2021 and the team was looking like they were well on their way to a Major win after winning IEM Katowice and ESL Pro League Season 15 in the run-up to Antwerp.

FaZe squared off against Ninjas in Pyjamas in their quarter-final fixture, requiring all three maps to take down the Major winning organization. For the Semifinals, a raucous arena witnessed one of the most exciting matches of the tournament as FaZe beat out Spirit 2-0, requiring triple overtime on Dust2 to do so and setting up a finals clash against defending Major champions, NAVI.

Looking at the bracket at the time of the final, this was the most predictable finals matchup that we could have expected, with the winner being virtually unpredictable considering the form and level of both teams. On the server, it would be Håvard 'rain' Nygaard who would step up big time for FaZe as he, Twistzz, and the rest of FaZe all earned their first Major wins, making Twistzz only the 6th NA player to ever lay claim to the prestigious accolade.

When looking at North America's performance as a whole, PGL Antwerp 2022 has to be viewed as a massive disappointment. Although Complexity got valuable experience playing their first Major (apart from Grim), their sole map win against IHC would be their last series win for a stretch that would continue beyond the end of the season at IEM Cologne, following which they would subsequently bench junior.

Liquid's run in Belgium was more fruitful than Complexity's, but the aftermath of the run would see personnel changes. French legend shox was the lowest-rated player for the Legends/Champions stages with a measly 0.64 rating during their 0-3 run. Following the Major Liquid would go on to play IEM Dallas where they massively underperformed yet again, resulting in shox being cut and eventually leading to the exciting signing of Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis.

For Twistzz and FaZe, the Major crowned and solidified the team as the undisputed best team in the world and added the Canadian to an elite group of players. Following the triumph, Twistzz and FaZe's dominance would continue as they closed out the season with a monumental BO5 victory over NAVI at IEM Cologne to cap off a fantastic run and continue to give NA fans a champion to cheer for.

Tomorrow we round out our Major retrospectives with the penultimate CS:GO Major, IEM Rio 2022!