What to know about ELEAGUE and Virtus.pro first opponent
The group stage of ELEAGUE Major 2018 – Legends Stage begins 19 of January. In the first round, Virtus.pro will face Quantum Bellator Fire.
ELEAGUE Major 2018's first stage is already over – Challengers Stage took place 12-16 January in Atlanta. 16 teams battled for the right to advance: 8 Minors' champions and 8 participants of PGL Major Kraków 2017's play-offs.
Legends Stage (or the group stage) will take place in Atlanta using the Swiss system, the Champions Stage (play-offs) – in Boston. The tournament's prize pool - $1 000 000.
What to know about Virtus.pro's first opponents on this Major?
Quantum Bellator Fire has advanced to the Major's second stage with three victories and two losses. The guys lost to Natus Vincere (8:16) and FaZe Clan (6:16) and defeated Flash Gaming (16:13), Team EnVyUs (16:12) and AVANGAR (16:6).
Quantum Bellator Fire's highest picked map is Mirage (59 picks), lowest – Overpass (4 picks). CIS team's highest win-rate is on Inferno (59.1%), lowest – on Overpass (25%). It's no surprise they try to veto this map so much.
On Nuke, the map that is considered to be Virtus.pro's best (the Poles' winrate – 64.8%), the guys from QB.Fire have a 45.5% win-ratio. Most likely, the teams will play on Inferno, Train, or Cobblestone.
QB.Fire's most experienced players are Savely "jmqa" Bragin and Nikita "waterfaLLZ" Matveyev. Jmqa used to play together with Alexandr "s1mple" Kostilyov in Worst Player team, and in team PiTER – with waterfaLLZ.
One of the Quantum Bellator Fire's players made it all the way from Gold Nova to participating in the Major in mere 2 years. Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov started playing CS:GO only in the beginning of 2016 and climbed the ladder from a usual matchmaking player to a pro in the ELEAGUE Major 2018 in a stunning amount of time.
Curiously, Mikhailov's main account has been banned by the Overwatch system. Later the player explained that it was due his account being hacked and stolen.
The English casters have a hard time pronouncing a nickname of one of the QB.Fire's players - Gregory "Balblna" Oleinick's. Actually, it is pronounced “valinah”.
Despite all that, English ELEAGUE casters actually managed to get Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov's nickname down.
What is Virtus.pro's status on this Major?
The Poles from Virtus.pro claimed the Legends status among Gambit Esports, Astralis, Fnatic, BIG, SK Gaming, and North after advancing to the semi-final of the previous Krakow Major.
Starting from their victory in EMS Katowice 2014, the Poles advanced to every Major's play-offs. So far they have claimed 2 finals, 5 semi-finals, and 2 quarter-finals.
Some more numbers and statistics: the way our team played against this Major's participants in the previous Majors.
What tournaments did ELEAGUE organize in the past?
ELEAGUE Season 1 was a debut event for the organizers, taking place from 24 of May throughout 30 of June 2016. ELEAGUE was ahead of its competitors with its $1 400 000 prize pool and a cable TV broadcast. Virtus.pro claimed the title of the first season's champions after defeating fnatic in the grand-final – 2:0.
The Poles didn't advance further than the first round of play-offs in the ELEAGUE's second season but finished in the second place in the next ELEAGUE's event - ELEAGUE Major: Atlanta 2017.
The grand-final turned out to be so spectacular that ELEAGUE has dedicated a stand-alone event to a rematch between Virtus.pro and Astralis.