PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 — Top Players & Highlights of Opening & Elimination Stage

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PGL Major Copenhagen 2024 is the first chance for the newly formed Counter-Strike 2 esports scene to settle. Some teams which were previously strong throughout the later eras of CS:GO are struggling, whereas other players still have that magic even in the newly released title. 

Esports Charts and betting brand GG.BET are here to present the highlights of the Opening & Elimination Stages of the ongoing tournament. From the most Zeus kills to the most-mentioned players of Twitch chat, take a look at some of the top performers of the two initial stages of Counter-Strike 2’s first Major championship. Esports Charts is also grateful to DATA.BET, the premium esports betting solution provider, for assistance in data collection.

A few notable highlights of some top performers at the event, HEN1 was the most effective explosive grenade tosser of the stage, racking up 6 nade kills across 9 games played. Yuurih, another Brazilian player for another Brazilian team, was the most effective utiliser of Molotovs and incendiary grenades, with 4 kills throughout his 8 games. 

The Brazilians were not only the strongest utility players of the event, but some of the sharpest shooters present too. 910 of The Mongolz inched out just ahead of HEN1 for the former’s debut Major appearance, both of them falling just short of 100 AWP frags. Only the original Brazilian GOAT FalleN was able to break 100 snipes, recording 101 AWP frags across 8 games. FalleN won two Majors in 2016 and has since bounced around various teams; the 32-year-old showed up to the first CS2 Major to show he’s still got it, and he did not disappoint. 

As indicated by Twitch chat activity, the #1 most hype moment of the two stages was Kylar’s ace against Imperial. Kylar joined the Finnish esports organisation alongside two other Polish teammates from his time at 9INE, and they have settled in nicely to become one of the globe’s top competitors. The match between Imperial and ENCE was one of the event’s most popular matches, recording 633K Peak Viewers as it extended into Overtime on Anubis. Kylar put the weight of his team on his soldiers and managed an ace to hold down the bombsite alone. 

Kylar’s ace holding down the smoke brought his team to an 18-17 advantage, although they would unfortunately eventually lose the map 19-22. The Twitch Chats of official broadcasters for the event exploded in excitement at his play, and 2 370 Chat messages were recorded in a single minute, or roughly 40 messages a second. Although his play earned him the love of Finnish fans chanting EZ4ENCE, he was not even ENCE’s most popular player of the event in Twitch chats.

Some close runner-ups behind Kylar’s explosive ace was an interview with FalleN after his team FURIA eliminated ENCE 2-0 in a Bo3. FalleN, known as “the teacher” by his loving fanbase, gave a short interview after the match and the official Twitch Chats exploded to 2 220 messages in a minute.

The other runner-up was the moment NAVI edged out a 13-11 victory against G2 Esports on Nuke. Fans have been curious to see NAVI perform on the big stage without their star player s1mple, and the Ukrainian organisation has not disappointed. S1mple’s replacement, w0nderful, has not disappointed, and the new Ukrainian player to NAVI went 21-12 against G2, helping his team secure the win. Twitch chat exploded with 2 157 messages during the minute NAVI closed out the map against their rivals.

FURIA Esports’ players were not only at the top of the raw gameplay statistics but also Twitch Chat’s most popular player by mentions. ArT was the Twitch chat’s favourite, with over 8.2K mentions throughout the two initial stages of the Major. The Brazilian was one of FURIA’s most effective battering rams and one of the event’s strongest entry fraggers overall. 

Close behind him was donk of Team Spirit. The 17-year-old talent made a name for himself at IEM Katowice 2024, quickly gaining notoriety as an explosive and highly mechanical player who wasn’t afraid to leave his heart on his sleeve and be extremely emotional during matches. Team Spirit rolled through way through all stages of the event, and donk’s raw firepower is a driving force for the roster. In total, he was mentioned by the official broadcasters’ Twitch Chats 7.9K times.

Jame of Virtus.pro is as infamous as ever for his saving. The AWPer for VP became known for saving his AWP often, leading to games with lots of downtime, which eventually became known as “Jame Time”. Once Jame (in fact, any other player in any other match) starts walking away from a retake with an AWP in hand, nothing can stop Twitch Chat from spamming their favourite meme, leading to 7.7K mentions for the player.

Dycha of ENCE was the team’s most-mentioned player, even more so than Kylar with his ridiculous ace. Dycha is ENCE’s longest-standing player, having joined the roster in early 2021 and seen many highs and lows with the team. Although he has a history with the team, he is surely not the fan favourite at the moment. Dycha had some rough performances at the Major, at worst going 2-15 against paiN Gaming in the Opening Stage. The Pole’s 5.5K mentions by Twitch chat are likely not all compliments, as fans struggle to come to terms with ENCE’s early exit from the Major.

NiKo of G2 Esports remains a famous name within Counter-Strike, and he was mentioned 4.9K times across official broadcasting Twitch Chats. NiKo’s popularity eclipses his own team, and he is well-known as one of Counter-Strike’s best players ever who never managed to win a Major championship. Throughout the event so far he has been outshone by young talent m0NESY, but NiKo’s popularity remains as fans urge him onwards to that long-awaited Major victory. Although m0NESY was not as popular among Twitch Chat, he did appear in our highlights as one of the three players to achieve 2 Zeus kills, alongside JL of NaVI and Forester of AMKAL.