Hello fellow Steemians!
Today is the first day of the PGL Krakow Major. This is the second major of the year after the ELEAGUE Major in late January. Eight higher placed teams from the previous major are automatically invited to this event and will come in as "Legends". The "Challengers" had to go through the main qualifier to get to the major. Some teams came all the way from their region's minor tournament to qualify for the main qualifier. Players go head to head fighting tooth and nail for every round they can get in their hands because the winners get to bring home a whopping $500,000 paycheck and a major title under their belts.
The tournament follows a Swiss format which is, in my opinion, the best format to truly showcase how good these teams are compared to the previous system where it was so unforgiving to lose even one match. In the previous format teams would be split into four groups and would only have two chances of making it out. They would have only faced those same people in their group. So teams could have been stacked into one group of death. Whereas in the Swiss format, teams are divided into two groups each getting three chances to stay in the tournament. They start losing one or two and the format diversify who they play against instead of only staying in their selected group. This means more matches and more showcasing of skill + strategy. Once a team loses three matches, they are sent home packing. Those that win all three of their matches are rewarded with a place in the quarter-final.
Winning majors is every teams hope and goal. Everyone wants to be the best. Everyone wants their team name to be chanted in the crowd while clutching a 1v3 retake/hold. The finals for the ELEAGUE major was so hyped up when the crowd started a cheering battle for the teams they supported. It was probably the best and most exciting major final I have watched so far.
Tune into the stream if you want to be apart of all the hype! PGL Stream
I'm going to be cheering on for Cloud 9 because this is the first major tournament they've attended in about a year or so and I've been following them for two years now. Leave a comment on which team you support!
Have fun watching!
Edit: I just remembered that it's 2017 and that I've been following the scene for approx. 3 years.