HLTV.org: "The home crowd will sing as one once again"
HLTV.org listed Virtus.pro G2A among the three favorites of the tournament in an article on IEM Katowice 2017. Besides our CS:GO roster, the “Big Three” includes Astralis and SK Gaming.
While Astralis traveled the world picking up a couple of titles shortly after their change, Virtus.pro took things more slowly at the brink of 2016 and 2017, as they disappointed at ELEAGUE Season 2 and WESG.
Nevertheless, they picked up the pace in time for the Major, where they clinched second place due to dropping a 13-7 lead on the CT side of Train, the decider of the grand final against the aforementioned Danes. Following Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye's remarks that his team underperformed in the grand final despite the win, Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas promised to crush Astralis at the next event.
VP did just that at DreamHack Masters Las Vegas, passing Kjaerbye & co. without breaking much of a sweat on two of the three maps, Nuke and Train, and went on to take down SK in the final for their first big title in over six months.
With that, the Big Three was formed, as Astralis and Virtus.pro are within five points from each other in our ranking and SK aren't too far behind in third place, while teams from number four downwards have a lot of catching up to do.
Placing second at the Major and first at the latest big event in Las Vegas, the Poles are in a great place just in time for their home event at the Spodek Arena, where they picked up their first victory at the second-ever Major, EMS One Katowice in 2014. The home crowd will sing as one once again, provided VIR-TUS-PRO make playoffs from Group B.
That in itself is a hard task, as their group is packed with three other top-five teams. However, TaZ's side have the comfort of not being affected by the latest change of maps as they used to avoid Dust2 anyway, while four of the six teams in Group B were forced to adjust. Once Virtus.pro pass the dangerous best-of-one stage, they'll have a high chance of picking up their second consecutive title to overtake Astralis in the ranking.