ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018

The eight teams were split into two groups. Group A played on October 26, 2017, and Group B played on October 27, 2017.

The Boston Asia Minor started with Renegades dominating The MongolZ 16–6. Kings Gaming Club faced off against MVP PK in the next match. The second Australian defeated the Koreans; although MVP PK had a better scoreline than The MongolZ at 16–9, but Kings came up on top. In the winner's match, Renegades completely dominated Kings 16–2 to move on to the bracket stage. In the loser's series, MVP PK easily closed out the first map 16–3 against The MongolZ on Cobblestone. On the second map, MVP PK had a massive lead and looked to eliminate The MongolZ with ease, but The MongolZ swept the second half and went on to win 16–12. On the third map, The MongolZ appeared to make another comeback, but MVP PK was able to clutch it out after Kim "HSK" Hae-sung stuck a defuse on the bomb without Enkhtaivan "Machinegun" Lkhagva knowing to send The MongolZ home. In the decider series, Kings took the first map as expected 16–12, but two close maps at 16-13 and 16–14 in favor of MVP PK, including a massive comeback on the third map after being down 11–5, put the Koreans through to the bracket phase. Kings was sent home. In group B, TyLoo easily took down Tainted Minds 16-4 and Flash Gaming did the same to B.O.O.T.-dream[S]cape 16–7. In the winners match, TyLoo took a close 16–13 game over Flash to take the first seed and to face MVP PK. In the losers series, Tainted Minds took the first map 16-9 then took a close second map 16–13 to eliminate B.O.O.T. from the minor. In the losers series, Flash easily took the first game from Tainted Minds 16–6; the second map was closer, but Flash came out on top again 16–10 to take the last spot in the top four.

Renegades just about took a 2–0 victory over Flash in two 16-14 wins. After TyLoo came back on the first map against MVP PK 16–12, China's best team rode that wave of momentum to the next map to dominate the Koreans 16-4 and TyLoo went on to face off its historic Asian rival. In winners finals, the first game was an extremely tense one, but TyLoo prevailed in double overtime to take the game 22–19.; Renegades came back quickly on the second map and cruised to a 16–6 victory and then a 16–4 win on the third map to guarantee the Australians a spot in the offline qualifier. In two relatively close games, Flash Gaming took full advantage of MVP PK's mistakes in the losers semifinals and took the games 16-9 and 16-13 as a Korean team was eliminated in fourth place at the minor for the second straight Asia Minor. TyLoo cruised its way past Flash in the first map 16–6, but Flash came back with a 16–12 victory on the second map; on the third map, TyLoo was able to mount a huge comeback from 11–4 to take the game 16–14 to avoid the upset and guarantee a spot once again in Atlanta. In the Asia Minor finals, Renegades had to come back twice against TyLoo to take the first map 16-14 and then 16–12 on the second map to officially take the first seed.^[13]

With TyLoo dropping out of the Major and Flash Gaming taking the spot, this meant Andrew "kaze" Khong was the first Malaysian to play at a Major.

This minor started with Team Spirit defeating NOTBAD 16–6. pro100 vs. Nemiga Gaming proved to closer, but it was pro100 to pull off a 16–11 win. pro100 then pulled off the upset win against Team Spirit in the winners match 16–13 to take first seed in the group. In the losers series, NOTBAD took a surprising first match against Nemiga, but Nemiga bounced back to take the second map 16-5 and then survived a scare at 16–14 to stay alive. NOTBAD was eliminated. Team Spirit then swept the best of three in the decider series, 16-12 and 16–10, to move on as the second seed of group A. forZe easily pulled off an upset win over Tengri 16-5 while AVANGAR pulled off a tough match against Quantum Bellator Fire 16–12. AVANGAR defeated forZe 16–9 to take first seed in the group. Quantum scraped past Tengri in the closest three game set out of any of the Boston minors; after Tengri took the first map 16–14, Quantum took the second game in overtime 19-15 and then the third game 16–14. Quantum proceeded to take out forZe, 16-8 and then 19–16, to take the last spot in the CIS minor playoffs.

In two close games, Quantum Bellator Fire swept the pro100 squad 16-14 and 16–10 to move on to winners finals. AVANGAR dominated Team Spirit the first map 16-4 and then shut down a comeback bid by Spirit and AVANGAR moved on to the winners final. AVANGAR proceeded to take a relatively close best of three against Quantum Bellator Fire – 13–16, 16–6, 16-13 – and guarantee the team a spot in the major qualifier. Team Spirit crushed pro100 16-5 and 16–3, which included a 14–0 start to the series for Spirit. Quantum Bellator took down Team Spirit in losers finals – 9–16, 16–9, 16-12 – to take guarantee the team a spot in the major qualifier as Spirit, which was the favorite to go to Atlanta, was knocked out. In another tense minor final, AVANGAR just about took the first seed of the minor after barely scraping past Quantum Bellator, 16–14, 14–16, and 19–16.^[14]

Group A started with Team EnVyUs as a clear favorite to make it out of the minor, but the experienced French team barely scraped past Windigo Gaming 19–15 in overtime. AGO Gaming pulled off the upset win over GODSENT in a 16–8 win. EnVyUs later easily took 16–7 victory over AGO to guarantee a top four spot at the minor. In the losers series, GODSENT thrashed Windigo, 16-2 and 16–3, to eliminate the Bulgarians. In the deciders series, AGO just about took the first match 16–13, but then dominated the second map 16–5 to eliminated GODSENT. This would be the first time Dennis "dennis" Edman would not qualify for the major as an active player. Group B had Space Soldiers easily taking a 16–8 game over eXatus and OpTic Gaming had an even easier time against Pride Gaming with a 16–3 win. In the winners series, OpTic took a close 16–13 victory over the Turks of Space Soldiers to move on to the top four. Pride defeated eXatus on the first map 16-10 and then took a close 16–12 win in game two to eliminate eXatus. In the deciders series, Pride took a surprise first map off of Space Soldiers at 16–11, but Space Soldiers easily took the next two maps at 16-7 and 16–6 to move on to the playoffs and eliminating Pride.

EnVyUs started the third day of the minor well with a 16–10 victory over Space Soldiers. However, the Turks readjusted and went on to win the next to maps by scores of 16-9 and 16–6. OpTic easily took out AGO with two 16-2 victories. In the winners series, OpTic had no trouble on Overpass 16-7 and Space Soldiers had an easy time on Cache 16–3. On the third map on Mirage, Space Soldiers blew an 11–4 lead and the game went into double overtime. There, Space Soldiers were able to win 22-20 and was surprisingly the first team to move on to the major qualifier in Europe. In losers semifinals, AGO took the first game 16–8, but EnVyUs bounced back to win the second map 16–10. In the third map, EnVyUs came back from a huge 11-4 disadvantage to come out on top 16–13 to move on. In losers finals, EnVyUs defeated OpTic in two close maps, 16-10 and 16–14, as the French eliminated the favorite to win the minor and guarantee themselves a spot at the offline qualifier. In the grand finals, Space Soldiers had an easy time against EnVyUs – 16-5 and 16-10 – to take the top spot.^[16]

Team Liquid kicked off the Americas Minor with a strong 16–5 win over Team One. In the other initial match, NRG Esports and compLexity Gaming took the game to overtime, where NRG took a 19–17 victory. Liquid continued to cruise as it took down NRG 16–5. In the losers series, Team One came close to defeating its first international opponent, but compLexity came through to win 16-10 and 16–12. In the deciders series, NRG took a close first game at 16–11, but compLexity came back to win the next two maps at 16-10 and 16–14 to move on to the playoffs. In Group B, Counter Logic Gaming (CLG) nearly blew a massive 12–3 lead against Misifts, but held on at 16–13. Luminosity Gaming (LG) easily took the inexperienced Rise Nation 16–3. In the winners match, CLG barely held on 16–14 to defeat LG and to move on to the playoffs. Misfits took the first game against Rise in the loser series 16-8 and stifled a comeback attempt at 16–12 to stay alive. In the deciders series, Misfits took a close 16–12 win in game one and LG dominated the second map at 16–6. After LG started to come back in game three, Misfits pulled through for a 16–9 win to put the team through.

Misfits had an easy time defeating Team Liquid on the first map 16–8. Liquid was able stop a Misfits comeback on the second map to go on to a 16–14 win. On the third map, Misfits was able to pull off the upset win at 16–13 to go on to the winners finals. CLG was able to take the first map with relative ease 16-7 and then had a close game in the next map 16–13. The winners match proved to be a thriller. On the first map, Misfits barely took it over the edge with a 16–13 win. In game two, a Ricky "Rickeh" Mulholland 1 vs. 3 clutch in round 29 proved to be the deciding round as CLG took the map 16–14. In the final map, Misfits came back from a 12–4 deficit and ended up winning 16–14 to guarantee a spot in the qualifier after not even qualifying for the minor. Liquid had an easy time against compLexity – 16-9 and 16-8 – to eliminate the organization that reached the semifinals at the very first CS:GO major. The losers finals had the two favorites to make it out of the minor alive fight to stave off elimination. Liquid dominated CLG 16–1 on the first map and then closed it out 16–12 on the second map to have the Cologne 2016 runners-up through to the major qualifiers. In the grand finals, Misfits was able to pull off another upset by winning 16–13 on the first map, but Liquid bounced back to dominate the next two maps at 16-4 and 16–7 to take home the first seed at the minor.^[17]

World ranking
Place	Team	Points	Move1	Peak2	Low2	Best Major placing3	Best achievements2
1	SK Gaming	998		1	3	1st at Columbus 2016 (as Luminosity) 1st at Cologne 2016	EPICENTER 2017 winner ESL Pro League Season 6 winner BLAST Pro Series winner
2	FaZe Clan	946		1	8	5th at Atlanta 2017	ESL One New York 2017 winner ELEAGUE Premier winner ECS Season 4 winner
3	Astralis	570		2	5	1st at Atlanta 2017	ELEAGUE Premier runner-up BLAST Pro Series runner-up
5	Cloud9	400		5	11	5th at Cologne 2014	DreamHack Open Denver 2017 winner iBUYPOWER Masters 2017 winner
6	Fnatic	346		6	15	1st at Winter 2013 1st at Katowice 2015 1st Cologne 2015	3rd at ESL Pro League Season 6 3rd at ECS Season 4
7	G2 Esports	346		2	7	1st at Cluj-Napoca 2015 (as EnVyUs)	DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017 winner 3rd at EPICENTER 2017
8	mousesports	326		8	17	9th at Cluj-Napoca 2015 9th at Columbus 2016 9th at Cologne 2016	ESG Tour Mykonos 2017 winner DreamHack Open Winter 2017 runner-up ECS Season 4 runner-up
9	North	286		3	9	5th at Atlanta 2017 5th at Kraków 2017	DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017 runner-up DreamHack Open Montreal 2017 winner,
10	Virtus.pro	239		6	13	1st at Katowice 2014	EPICENTER 2017 runner-up StarLadder i-League Invitational #2 runner-up
11	Gambit Esports	222	1	4	12	1st at Kraków 2017	PGL Major 2017 winner 3rd at DreamHack Masters Malmö ROG Masters 2017 winner
13	Misfits Gaming	193		13	29	2nd at Boston 2018 Americas Minor	5th at DreamHack Open Atlanta 2017 3rd at ESL Pro League Season 6
14	Natus Vincere	186		7	17	2nd at Cluj-Napoca 2015 2nd at Columbus 2016	5th at DreamHack Masters Malmö 2017 DreamHack Open Winter 2017 winner
15	Team EnVyUs	157	1	13	18	2nd at Boston 2018 Europe Minor	DreamHack Open Atlanta 2017 winner 5th at ELEAGUE Premier 3rd at DreamHack Open Winter 2017
17	Team Liquid	146	1	6	17	2nd at Cologne 2016	ESG Tour Mykonos 2017 runner-up ESL One New York 2017 runner-up
20	Renegades	123	2	12	26	9th at Cologne 2015	3rd at DreamHack Open Denver 2017 StarLadder i-League Invitational #2 winner iBUYPOWER Masters 2017 runner-up
22	BIG	85		10	24	5th at Kraków 2017	5th at PGL Major 2017 DreamHack Open Denver 2017 runner-up
23	Space Soldiers	79	1	18	25	1st at Boston 2018 Europe Minor	ESEA Season 25 winner 3rd at World Electronic Sports Games 2017 Europe Finals
24	Vega Squadron	66	1	23	30	15th at Kraków 2017	3rd at ROG Masters 2017
27	100 Thieves	45	1	4	29	2nd at Kraków 2017 (as Immortals)	PGL Major runner-up
29	Sprout Esports	43	2	21	32	5th at Winter 2014 (as PENTA) 5th at Katowice 2015 (as PENTA)	MID.TV Challenge Cup winner 3rd at Legend Series: Europe #4
37	AVANGAR	–	7	30	62	1st at Boston 2018 CIS Minor	3rd at FCDB Cup 2017
60	Quantum Bellator Fire	–	14	48	86	2nd at Boston 2018 CIS Minor	5th at MakeMy.bet Championship 1 3rd at MakeMy.bet Cup #2
61	Flash Gaming	–	14	31	75	3rd at Boston 2018 Asia Minor	eXTREMESLAND Asia Finals 2017 winner
NR	FlipSid3 Tactics	–	?	18	103	5th at Cologne 2016	9th at PGL Major 2017 ESEA Season 25 runner-up

¹Change since December 25, 2017 ranking

²Since end of PGL Major

³Best major placements may not necessarily reflect teams' current rosters

Day one of the major kicked off with an upset win, with Vega Squadron defeating Renegades in a close match after Renegades nearly came back from a 15–9 deficit; Nikolay "mir" Bityukov and Dmitriy "jR" Chervak carried their team to victory despite Aaron "AZR" Ward's 25 kills. AVANGAR surprised everyone by putting up a strong first half, but mousesports took control in the second half to close out the game despite AVANGAR pulling it close towards the end as Chris "chrisJ" de Jong took home a 30 bomb and Robin "ropz" Kool helped out; on AVANGAR's side, Timur "buster" Tulepov and Alexey "qikert" Golubev put up impressive numbers by obtaining impactful kills. FaZe Clan came into the tournament as the favorite to win the major while Team Liquid was crippled as it did not have its complete roster. However, despite FaZe's fast start, Liquid might have taken the map had it not been for Finn "karrigan" Andersen desperate call in the second to last round. Håvard "rain" Nygaard continued to be consistent as two of FaZe's stars lagged behind; Nicholas "nitr0" Cannella showed what he could do despite underperforming at certain events with 31 kills while Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken clutches nearly gave Liquid the win. In a match in which the winner was a toss-up, Misfits Gaming dominated its map against FlipSid3 Tactics. Jan "wayLander" Rahkonen was the only player for FlipSid3 to do well as everyone else had 10 kills or fewer. The French duo of David "devoduvek" Dobrosavljevic and François "AmaNEk" Delaunay did very well to lead Misfits. After a strong first half, the Turks of Space Soldiers failed to deliver in the second half. The Space Soldier phenom Ismailcan "XANTARES" Dörtkardeş had 23 kills, but Denis "denis" Howell of Sprout Esports bettered him with 24, with Paweł "innocent" Mocek close by with 21. The second CIS team also had a surprisingly strong performance against Natus Vincere, as Quantum Bellator Fire (QBF) got within one round by the end of the first half. However, QBF could not get much done against Na'Vi's defense later as Na'Vi took the game. Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev turned up in the second half to end the game with 29 kills and Egor "flamie" Vasilyev had 21. Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov lead his team with 16 kills and Savelii "jmqa" Bragin lead his team in player rating, but not a single player on QBF's side got over the 1.00 rating mark. Flash Gaming surprised G2 Esports early with a 9–2 lead, but G2 only allowed two rounds afterwards as the French avoided the upset thanks to Richard "shox" Papillon performing well for the first time in a while and Nathan "NBK-" Schmitt supporting with 21 with Alexandre "bodyy" Pianaro getting some impact kills late into the game. YuanZhang "AttackeR" Sheng and Andrew "kaze" Khong did well in separate halves, but the two could not get the team going late in the game. Cloud9 vs. Team EnVyUs ended the first day of the major. While Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom and Cédric "RpK" Guipouy performed well, the rest of the French team did not as Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham continued to shut EnVyUs down, with three other players getting at least 20 kills on the Cloud9 side.

Day 2 began with FlipSid3 continuing to struggle, despite taking a slim halftime lead. Yegor "markeloff" Markelov and Georgi "WorldEdit" Yaskin both broke the 20 kill mark, but Denis "seized" Kostin continued to underperform, coming over from Na'Vi as Andrey "B1ad3" Gorodenskiy's crew fell to Twistzz, Josh "jdm64" Marzano, and Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski's firepower. Na'Vi and mousesports played the first high match on Mirage, a map that mousesports had proven it could easily beat the Ukrainian team on time and time again and it showed again. s1mple, as usual, did his best to carry the team, but with Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko on just 3 kills, compared to Chris "chrisJ" de Jong's 23 kills in the statistical department between the two in-game leaders, mousesports was able to easily take the win. buster kept surprising the world with another strong performance against a well-known European team, but Ahmet "paz" Karahoca's 23 kills and XANTARES's 20 were too much. Aidyn "KrizzeN'" Turlybekov continued to struggle with just 11 kills and Ali "Jame" Djami had only 13. Renegades came into the major as the hottest team in the challengers stage while Rpk was in the best form of his Global Offensive career with ScreaM also returning to good form. However, a massive misplay from the French side game Renegades the momentum to close the game out. Renegades showed that teamwork played off better than individual performance as Keith "NAF" Markovic's 21 kills and Noah "Nifty" Francis's 20 aided in the process. In the match of arguably the two weakest teams at the major, Flash threw away two rounds in which the Chinese team was against only very weak pistols and no armor protection, but Flash could not pull away against QBF; AttackeR had a massive performance at 33 kills and YuLun "Summer" Cai had 23, but Gregory "balblna" Oleinick and Aurimas "Kvik" Kvakšys lead the way for QBF to earn a win. Cloud9 had a very strong first half against Sprout and they went on to a win after a Timothy "autimatic" Ta and Will "RUSH" Wierzba 2 vs. 4 clutch. Jesse "zehN" Linjala and Paweł "innocent" Mocek did as much as they could, but Tarik "tarik" Celik and Jake "Stewie2K" Yip did much better to go on to 2–0. Vega Squadron pulled off a massive upset after a 12-3 halftime lead against FaZe Clan as Leonid "chopper" Vishnyakov and Dmitriy "jR" Chervak lead the way; star players such as Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer or Nikola "NiKo" Kovač of FaZe did not deliver their full potential as Vega simply ran over the Europeans. shox and Kenny "kennyS" Schrub were ruthless against Misfits, who had AmaNEk sitting at single digit kills and Shahzeb "ShahZaM" Khan not hitting his peak form, as G2 easily took the game.

FaZe bounced back from yesterday to easily defeat QBF as NiKo and Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács went huge for FaZe; players such as Nikita "waterfaLLZ" Matveyev of QBF did not pick themselves up as they got crushed. The first elimination match of the major proved to be a close one, as EnVyUs nearly blew a 12–3 lead as QiFang "Karsa" Su's team nearly brought it back. Players such as KunHua "LOVEYY" Bai and Andrew "kaze" Khong had better performances than they did against QBF, but EnVyUs was able to pull it together and eliminate Flash thanks to Vincent "Happy" Schopenhauer's 26 kills. In a game that was close from start to finish, Space Soldiers was able to stop the AWP firepower of ShahZaM as the Turks were one step close to making the New Legends stage, thanks to XANTARES and Buğra "Calyx" Arkın going big. Sprout could not find the same form it did during the first day as Na'Vi demolished the German team. Timo "Spiidi" Richter was the only player for Sprout to get his kill stat to double digits while flamie and Denis "electronic" Sharipov let s1mple rest for a bit. Vega Squadron struggled against G2's defense, but G2 struggled just as much; however, G2 was able to take it into overtime and take the game and avoid the upset to the relief of Dan "apEX" Madesclaire and his teammates; this game was the most viewed game of New Challengers Stage, with peak viewers reaching 526,833 viewers.^[59] Team Liquid had a 15–6 lead, but ever since the semifinals match against Luminosity Gaming at MLG Columbus 2016, Liquid were known to choke massive leads; however, nitr0's 36 kills, Liquid was able to just barely take the game. AVANGAR had a strong game against FlipSid3 as buster and KrizzeN lead the way; B1ad3 only had 3 kills in the loss; B1ad3 had the worst rating in major history for teams that played at least three maps in a major. All of Cloud9 performed well. Although Miikka "suNny" Kemppi and ropz performed well, Tomáš "oskar" Šťastný was absent from the map while autimatic pulled away from the pack by fishing out mousesports. and Cloud9 joined G2 to be the second team to move on.

AVANGAR pulled off an upset win over Misfits as seang@res's team went out in a disappointing 19th place after being up 10–5 in the first half. Although buster had a lackluster game, the other four players, including Dmitry "dimasick" Matvienko and Ali "Jame" Djami, stepped up in the second half; Hunter "SicK" Mims fell behind as he ended the game with just 12 kills. Vega Squadron was part of another close match and came out on top over a handicapped Liquid. nitr0 did all that he could, but Twistzz did not as the Canadian did not perform; chopper went massive with 35 kills and Nikolay "mir" Bityukov helped out while Sergey "keshander" Nikishin did not in the win. FaZe dominated Na'Vi thanks to rain being aggressive with 27 kills, compared to flamie's 5 kills. paz versus suNny was a close one as both had 33 kills, but Space Soldiers was able to edge out mousesports. Engin "ngiN" Kor, Engin "MAJ3R" Küpeli, and Martin "STYKO" Styk all performed fairly poorly for their respective teams, but it was the Turks pulling off the upset in the end. Sprout took a strong five round lead into the second half, but Renegades' defense was too formidable as Sprout got zero rounds on its Terrorist side. Everyone on the Renegades side contributed with NAF leading the way; denis had 20 kills, but Kevin "kRYSTAL" Amend's squad was eliminated. EnvyUs's star player Rpk played in the third day of the major, but he was fighting a suspected bout of pneumonia and had to sit out of the rest of the tournament. EnVyUs's coach Damien "maLeK" Marcel had to stand in despite never having played an international Global Offensive match in his career.^[60] The French proved it didn't need Rpk as ScreaM went huge, nearly tying the record of most kills in one half; however, in the second half, as ScreaM cooled off, the other EnVyUs players stayed cool and could not stop QBF's Terrorist side. Alexandre "xms" Forté struggled throughout the tournament as EnVyUs was sent home in the upset loss.

mousesports easily defeated Renegades with a strong performance from suNny as Justin "jks" Savage, one of the big players for Renegades, was held to just 7 kills. The rematch of the CIS Minor finals. This time, QBF dominated the field as AVANGAR could not get anything going in the second half. Na'Vi rolled over Liquid as nitr0, TwistZz, and ELiGE could not show up as s1mple went off on his former team and Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev had a much better game compared to his other matches.

The struggling North went up against the red hot Vega Squadron to start the New Legends stage; however, North was still expected to take the map on paper. Although, Valdemar "valde" Bjørn Vangså and Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke tried to lead the way for North, hutji took over the second half after a quiet first and ended the game with 29 kills. Virtus.pro (VP) was another team that struggled throughout 2017 with the exception of a few stellar events, but the Poles always showed up for the major despite how much they struggled in the events prior to the major. However. QBF came out swinging and shut down VP to pull off an upset. The dark horse of the last major was thrashed by Team Liquid on the map BIG was infamous for. BIG's star Johannes "tabseN" Wodarz lead the way, but everyone else fell behind. TwistZz, jdm64, and ELiGE all had 22 kills each in the beating. Jesper "JW" Wecksel showed his old form as he did back in 2015 and early 2016, but the superteam of FaZe stomped the former best team in the world as olofmeister had 25 kills against his old team. The 3rd best team in the world of Astralis went up against a rising mousesports. mousesports went up to a 12–0 lead before Astralis avoided being the first team to be 16-0'd at a major.; however, Astralis would still get pounced on as mousesports easily took the win. oskar and suNny had more kills combined than all of Astralis combined as Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz struggled in his return to competition. Cloud9 and G2 was supposed to be a very even match up, as just 51% of predictions had G2 winning. G2 took a 10–1 lead on one of its favorite maps and then closed out the game despite Cloud9 showing up at certain times. Despite tarik having 26 kills, NBK- did better as G2 went up 1–0. In the first game on Nuke all tournament, Gambit dominated Natus Vincere in the biggest storyline of the first round, as Zeus had left Gambit after winning the major to rejoin Na'Vi; Gambit took a massive 13–2 lead on its Terrorist side on a map in which Counter-Terrorist are heavily favored and then closed out the game after nearly giving Na'Vi the 16–0. The PGL MVP Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev and fan favorite Mikhail "Dosia" Stolyarov both had easy times against their former captain's team as Gambit became the first Legend to win in the first round. Space Soldiers kept it close against the world's number one of SK Gaming; João "felps" Vasconcellos had a successful return to his team and Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo went with a risky call towards the end of the game and ended up winning the game. Calyx and XANATARES lived up to their expectations while Marcelo "coldzera" David, the best player of 2017, struggled in the closest game of the first round.

QBF continued its Cinderella run after defeating the defending champions of Gambit. Dosia and AdreN had big games for Gambit, but players such as Abay "HObbit" Khasenov had little impact. balbina and waterfaLLZ had 29 kills each in the victory. An expected competitive match delivered in the battle between the Turks of Space Soldiers and Cloud9's Turkish in-game leader. A Cloud9 comeback was cut short as MAJ3R and paz stepped up when XANTARES and Calyx couldn't. tarik, autimatic, and RUSH topped the Cloud9 side, but Stewie2K failed to do much. After suffering an upset in the Challenger stage, FaZe Clan was able to flip the roles and blew Vega Squadron out of the water. olofmeister and GuardiaN showed their 2015 form in the win while jR and keshander only had single digit kills. G2 had little issue with Liquid as G2's teamwork beat out individual plays from Liquid members. The double AWP setup between NBK- and kennyS proved effective while Liquid only started to show up late into the game. mousesports historically has a very poor record against SK Gaming, but recent form from mousesports and SK playing with a stand-in was a good chance for the Europeans. coldzera turned things around and had a massive game to help SK leap over chrisJ's team. Fernando "fer" Alvarenga and Epitacio "TACO" de Melo helped out with 22 and 21 kills, respectively, as SK became the last Legend standing to go 2–0. Virtus.pro could not get anything going against Freddy "KRIMZ" Johansson's and Robin "flusha" Rönnquist's firepower. VP struggled as Filip "NEO" Kubski could not obtain many kills and the only player who was consistent during VP's struggles, Jarosław "pashaBiceps" Jarząbkowski, was battered. Fatih "gob b" Dayik's team never got going on the map that brought it to Legends status, as players such as Kevin "keev" Bartholomäus and Johannes "nex" Maget whereas electronic and flamie shut down the Germans after winning the last 16 rounds of the game. In the so-called "Danish Derby," Mathias "MSL" Lauridsen was able to tactically outplay Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander and Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen and major MVP Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye could not hit their shots. However, gla1ve did the same to MSL in the second half and everyone on Astralis started hitting his shots as Astralis completed a massive comeback.

Vega Squadron appeared to have stifled in performance at the major as it lost by 13 rounds for a second time as oskar and chrisJ of mousesports gave the Russians no mercy. flamie showed the starpower he had as he took in 24 kills against s1mple's former team, as Liquid could not stop Na'Vi's offense in the second half. G2 became the first team into the Champions stage after stomping QBF, as bodyy went off to help shox made the playoffs for the first time since ESL One Katowice 2015. KRiMZ kept his strong form with 27 kills and Maikil "Golden" Selim also contributed to the team with 17 kills as Fnatic won this battle in the age-old rivalry; despite Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth's best efforts, Astralis fell well-short. Two Legends fought off to stave off elimination as tabseN came alive for BIG and huge clutches from nex; missed shots from René "cajunb" Borg in a round late in the game onto nex proved to be costly as North was eliminated after a year of being Legends. karrigan vs. FalleN appeared at another tournament, this time in the group stage. karrigan was able to take down SK with the help of GuardiaN to go into the playoffs and NiKo made the playoffs for the first time at a major in his career. VP was known as the North American killers as the Poles seemingly never lose to those teams; however, the VP free fall continued as Cloud9 had zero problem with the former Legends. Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski tried his best, but Paweł "byali" Bieliński could not get going despite the efforts of Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas trying to keep his team going. The so-called "Golden Five" missed the playoffs for the first time since DreamHack Winter 2013, the very first CS:GO major. Gambit survived a scare and a comeback attempt from Space Soldiers as Dosia went big and Rustem "mou" Telepov killed MAJ3R to move Gambit up to 2–1.

Nikola "LEGIJA" Ninić had his first positive rating in the tournament, but paz did better as a 1–14 deficit for BIG proved to be too much. mousesports took a massive 13–2 lead, but Boombl4 and Kvik lead QBF to a massive comeback and only allowed mousesports to take one round in the second half as QBF continued it surprise run into the playoffs. The Astralis vs. Cloud9 match proved to mark a spot in history, as Xyp9x, dupreeh, and dev1ce lost their status of being three of just five players to make the playoffs at every major, leaving just olofmeister and KRiMZ as the two remaining players to hold the streak. In the next elimination match, Team Liquid nearly surmounted a comeback against Vega Squadron, but the Russians held their ground and were able to eliminated the Americans. Gambit, despite being the defending champion, had struggles against SK Gaming as the team only won one map against the Brazilians and made a questionable map choice by striking to Overpass, the map in which SK was the best in the world at. SK made Gambit regret its decision as Bektiyar "fitch" Bahytov continued to struggle at the major and SK's domineering first half and SK became the first returning Legend to recertify its status. Edward appeared to return to his 2015 self as he and Na'Vi put Fnatic in a struggle. Fnatic needed players like Jonas "Lekr0" Olofsson to show up big, but Na'Vi headed to Boston early and reclaimed a Legends spot after a downer at the PGL Major.

KRiMZ wanted to join his former teammate olofmeister as he and Lekr0 turned things around from their last match and dominated the defending champions. Gambit was just the second team in major history to exit the group stage in the major after winning the previous major, as Team EnVyUs (its core now with G2 Esports) went out in last place at MLG Columbus 2016 after winning DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015 and now the Fnatic organization joined KRiMZ as being the only organization to be in the playoffs at every major. AdreN had little impact as he could not hit his shots accurately in the loss. Vega Squadron floundered to Cloud9 as Stewie2K shined and Vega's run at the major came to an end. Skadoodle ended his curse of not making the playoffs and Cloud9 had a North American team returned to Legend Status after more than a year. This major appeared to be end many losing streaks for players, as chrisJ of mousesports ended a seven major streak without being in the playoffs; Skadoodle had an eight major streak, shox was at six, and NiKo was at five. Space Soldiers's impressive run came to an end as it just came short against mousesports. oskar came up big for mousesports and MAJ3R had many impact kills as Calyx and XANTARES had a quiet game, but in the end, mousesports took the final ticket to Boston to end chrisJ's curse in a thriller.

World ranking
Place	Team	Points	Move1
1	SK Gaming	916
2	FaZe Clan	914
3	Cloud9	609	2
4	G2 Esports	408	3
5	Astralis	407	2
6	Fnatic	358
7	mousesports	350	1
9	Natus Vincere	287	5
10	Virtus.pro	204
11	Gambit Esports	190
12	North	286	3
14	Team Liquid	145	3
15	Misfits Gaming	140	2
16	Quantum Bellator Fire	130	44
17	Vega Squadron	121	7
18	Space Soldiers	119	5
19	Renegades	114	1
20	Team EnVyUs	109	5
24	BIG	75	2
27	AVANGAR	56	10
28	Sprout Esports	43	1
54	Flash Gaming	–	7
60	FlipSid3 Tactics	–	?

¹Change since January 8, 2018 ranking