PGL Major 2021 Challengers Stage Day 3: Astralis Wins, Heroic and BIG Disappoint

The third day of the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 came to end with six teams leaving the Challenger Stage, three of them moving forward in the tournament while the other three went back home. It was an intense day as all the six matches played were either qualifiers or eliminators, raising the level of competition a notch higher as everyone kept their best foot forward.

Five out of the six matches went down to the wire, ending with a '2-1' scoreline. The only team to avoid this was Astralis who continue to survive, eliminating the last Brazilian team left in this stage of the tournament - paiN Gaming.

Two of the qualifying matches also resulted in surprising outcomes as both Heroic and BIG lost their best-of-three series to Entropiq and ENCE, respectively. This has set all of us for an exciting last day of the Challengers Stage as the six remaining teams play their final do-or-die matches.

Viewers Guide: PGL Major 2021 - Challengers Stage Day 3

The third day witnessed its own share of upsets as a couple of big teams failed to win the qualifier. Astralis confidently continued its climb towards the Legends Stage, currently going '4-0' since the opening day collapse. Both the teams from the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region, TYLOO and Renegades, bid farewell to the Major following consecutive '2-1' nail-biters.

Here is a quick recap of PGL Major Stockholm 2021: Challengers Stage Day-3.

Astralis on a hot streak

Astralis after their first day collapse, where they lost consecutive matches, have slowly found its momentum. The Danes have now eliminated GODSENT and paiN Gaming in back-to-back eliminators, going '4-0' into the final day of the Challengers Stage.

The old guards, Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander and Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth carried the baton for Astralis on Nuke and Ancient. They delivered brilliant performances with the remaining players chipping in positively, achieving another clean victory.

They now face the last hurdle, going up against Team Spirit in a final decider match, which will either see them exiting the Major or continue their run ahead into the Legends Stage.

Unexpected losses for BIG and Heroic

Playing their qualifying match on the third day, BIG and Heroic were hot favorites to make it through to the Legends Stage. However, both the teams went down to the wire in thrilling encounters to lose '1-2' against ENCE and ENtropiq, respectively.

Heroic put on a strong performance on Ancient, securing a comfortable '16-10' win on Entropiq's map pick. Many thought the match was over at this point but Entropiq did not give Heroic an inch, stealing a '16-14' victory.

Playing a CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) team on Mirage as the decider map is always going to be a tough job for any team. Unfortunetly, Heroic failed to execute their plans as Entropiq handed them a rough '16-4' loss, sending them down to face a do-or-die match against Movistar Riders.

BIG fared a similar upset as they won the first game on Dust 2 with a '16-10' scoreline, but failed to capitalize on their early advantage by going down on Mirage and Nuke with a '16-8' and '16-10' scoreline respectively.

APAC and Brazilian teams out of contention

It was a grim demise for the APAC teams, TYLOO and Renegades, as they bid farewell to the Major. They both put on quite the fight against Movistar Riders and MOUZ respectively, taking the game down to the last map to finish with a '1-2' scoreline.

Renegades started out hot on their map pick Mirage with a tight '16-14' win, but as MOUZ found its momentum it got hard for the Australian team to stand toe to toe with MOUZ. They bowed out on Inferno with a '16-10' loss and took a final '16-6' blow on Vertigo, resulting in their run at the Major to come to an end.

TYLOO and Movistar Riders had a more intense faceoff as both the teams won their respective maps Inferno and Mirage with '16-14' and '16-7' scores respectively. The decider on Vertigo was really close, TYLOO coming back in the second half to take the game into overtime before conceding a '16-19' loss.

Now, only six more teams are left to fight it out on the final day of the Challengers Stage, three winners moving ahead to the Legends Stage while the losers will be on their way out of the PGL Major Stockholm 2021.