With all of the Perfect World Shanghai Major RMR events now completed, we have our full list of 24 teams that will be attending the final Valve Major of 2024. A lot went down in those two weeks of brutal qualification gauntlets. Some teams had their Major aspirations crushed, while some rose out of nowhere to take a spot at the prestigious event.
The Best: Who Climbed the Mountain?
Wildcard
First up on our list is Wildcard. This sprightly North American organization successfully made the Major while being low on, or not even on most people’s potential qualifications list. I certainly didn’t expect them to beat the likes of Team Liquid, even in a best-of-one. Of course, Wildcard then went on to beat paiN Gaming and sweep 9z in the advancement match, giving them a perfect record.
With a Bucholz score of 3, their road was one of the more difficult ones in the entire RMR cycle. In a different world, the Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz-led squad would have had a chance at a guaranteed-spot in the top 16 of a Major. It’s already an amazing result just making it to the Major for a team that replaced half their roster four months ago.
3DMAX
Speaking of teams that went 3-0, try 3DMAX who did so while beating Eternal Fire and G2 Esports. French Counter-Strike has been on a decline for years, so seeing an all-French squad storming their way to a Major was a welcome change.
This core has been grinding for years together under different orgs such as Double Poney and HEET. It seems fitting that a legacy Counter-Strike org like 3DMAX picked them up in CS2 and made it back to a Major. Not only that, due to just sneaking into the top eight of Valve’s official team rankings for qualified teams, 3DMAX has earned the privilege of a direct Elimination Stage invite.
For a team that has worked tirelessly to get back to the highest level of the game, securing top 16 at the Shanghai Major is an incredible accomplishment. Hopefully they can really show their stuff on the biggest stage in the game.
Passion UA
The Cinderella story of the RMRs, Passion UA has become the first full-Ukrainian team to ever qualify for a Counter-Strike Major. Right off the bat, they made waves in best-of-ones with wins over favorites Virtus.pro and Team Spirit. However, Passion UA struggled to make it over the final hurdle, losing the next two qualification matches and going all the way into round five of Swiss.
Their final opponent was Astralis, a team full of veterans hungry to make it back to the Major after missing it many times in a row. In the end, the young guns conquered the Danes to earn one of the final two spots at the Shanghai Major.
Passion UA is one of, if not the youngest team at the Major. This will be an invaluable experience for them, as well as a chance to show off their fledgling stars like Dmytro “jambo” Semera on the big stage.
👊PUA's moment of qualification for the #ShanghaiMajor2024! A crazy debut and victory, the result of hard work and practice. GGs to the young Ukrainians🇺🇦 and see you on stage!
More Moments here: https://t.co/ng05IqwNa8 pic.twitter.com/pvp6gKoSgz
— CS_PerfectWorld (@CS_PerfectWorld) November 24, 2024
The Busts: Who Failed to Meet Expectations?
M80
This one hurts as an NA Counter-Strike fan. M80 was the latest North American project to make a splash on the international stage. After having their young star Mario “malbsMd” Samayoa poached by G2 Esports, they still managed to find a suitable replacement and qualify for top 8 at ESL Pro League S20.
An early BO1 loss to BOSS set them back, and an unfortunate meeting with Complexity in round four forced them into the final round of Swiss. Despite winning that round five match against Bestia, the strength-of-schedule forced M80 down to the final tiebreaker game for the last Americas Major spot.
Their opponent? FURIA. Ouch. FURIA should have been long qualified, but they also dropped a BO1 to a weak squad then got a round four match against Liquid. These two hopefuls were in the same boat, and unfortunately for M80, they were on the losing end this time. Hopefully Wildcard fills the void that they leave.
Team Falcons
While it’s a shock on paper that Falcons failed to qualify for the Major, if you told me that they would miss it prior to the RMR, I’d believe you. Even signing the likes of Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev to a temporary contract couldn’t save this sinking ship.
A loss to FaZe Clan is excusable, but leaving with a 1-3 record with losses to SAW and GamerLegion is just not acceptable for this squad. And it seems like the Falcons project is finally going to be blown up after this failure. They’ve already benched the entire roster apart from Emil “Magisk” Reif, and we have rumors of some top tier stars having the bag thrown at them to come save Falcons CS.
With this chapter in Counter-Strike now finished, we can say with utmost certainty that the original Falcons roster was the most expensive failure in the history of the game, and maybe even all of esports.
Astralis
A team that once dominated the entire world year after year, Astralis has continued to be a resident of rock bottom. They really pulled out all the stops following their failure to qualify for the Copenhagen Major too. Signing Casper “cadiaN” Møller to transition to a rifling IGL was a bold move that did show promise in some events.
Coming into the RMR, their biggest star Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz announced that he wouldn’t be able to play due to health issues. They had a suitable substitute in Alexander “br0” Bro that even let cadiaN take up AWPing duties again, but it was still an uphill climb.
Astralis lost both opening BO1’s to 9Pandas and Sachi Esports, both games they should win. Despite clawing back with wins over B8 and Eternal Fire, Astralis simply couldn’t overcome the Passion UA ascension.
Astralis has now missed four Majors in a row. On top of that, there is not a single full Danish team present at the Shanghai Major and only five Danish players spread throughout. Astralis’ efforts to form a team that can recreate their peak has so far not bore fruit. They likely keep the roster for another Major cycle, but at this point, hopes for Danish CS are at an all-time low.
