Entering the New Legends Stage at Starladder Berlin Major 2019

CS:GO

August 28, 2019

The Berlin Major enters the New Legends Stage. For over a week now Starladder’s first CS:GO Major is going down without a hitch. There were a few surprises for us during the previous stage. After we said goodbye to FURIA and Hellraisers and welcomed underdog DreamEaters to the big leagues, we also witnessed Vitality play their hearts out in a 2-1 series against Grayhound to secure their next stage placement. We now bid farewell to the eight teams that failed the New Challengers Stage as we are entering the prize pooled stage in the battle for $1,000,000 in prize funds.

Read also our StarLadder CSGO Major 2019 predictions.

The New Legends Stage - Dream Heaters at Starladder Berlin Major 2019

Sixteen teams will battle once again through the Swiss System Format between August 28^th and September 1^st. Eight will gain entry to the New Champions Stage while the remaining will “join” the previous stage losers with $8,750 in pocket change. Seeding was based on March through August ELO ratings and will be updated as the tournament progresses. With the The New Legends Stage featuring the same format as its predecessor we are poised to witness some of best best-of-three progression and elimination series in over a month.

The New Legends Stage Round 1

Round 1 kicks off today with eight intense matches featuring the world’s top CS:GO teams in 2019. The “all you can watch” buffet starts with:

ENCE vs AVANGAR
Astralis vs DreamEaters
Renegades vs NRG
Liquid vs CR4ZY
Vitality vs North
FaZe vs mousesports
Natus Vincere vs G2
MIBR vs NiP

With all matches being highly competitive it is hard to pick ones to be featured in an article. Three matchups are of utmost importance at this stage. Two of them are a probe in the current form of tournament favorites and one is a personal revenge fiesta.

The best team in the world, Team Liquid will battle the Balkan boys from CR4ZY (ex Valiance) in this highly anticipated matchup. The importance of the match is not so much in the strength of opponents as it is to show us the current form of the world’s #1 seed. Last time that Liquid played an event was at IEM Chicago as they absolutely crushed their opposition. But a lot can change in a month and we now await to see how dominating will Liquid be in Berlin and potentially in the rest of the 2019 season.

Read about Team Liquid's victory in our IEM Chicago recap.

The DreamEaters were the pick of very few oddsters as a team that would advance forward from the New Challengers Stage. To the delight of every Cinderella story fanboy, they made it out of the initial stage and are now prepared to show the world what they can do. “Luckily” they have the current defending champion Astralis as an opponent in Round 1. This matchup is a test for Astralis who have fallen on hard times this past three months. If they struggle against the lowest seed at the event, there isn’t much hope for the declining powerhouse.

The third and most intense match of the day is between FaZe Clan and mousesports where Karrigan is pitted against his former FaZe teammates in battle for dominance and revenge for the bench. This is also the best New Challenger versus Legends matchup in Round 1.

On top of the evolving battle at the Major, there is an ongoing battle in the battle for biggest ADR (average damage per round) in 2019. EliGE sits at ~86 trailed by s1imple and ZywOo with ~84.