Heroic overcome Virtus Pro to advance to PGL Stockholm Major semifinals

Heroic came out on top of the first PGL Stockholm Major playoff match in front of the Stockholm crowd, defeating Virtus Pro today in three maps to advance to the semifinals.

Starting out on VP’s pick of Mirage, it was Heroic’s Martin “stavn” Lund who anchored the opening CT side for his team in his first match in front of a crowd. He had 13 kills in the first six rounds, including a one-vs-one clutch against Jame that helped Heroic jump out to a 5-1 lead. But one of the CS:GO Major rookies to watch in YEKINDAR started to heat up with his AK, winning key opening duels to help VP close the distance. Despite trailing 5-1, VP went into halftime only behind 8-7.

Both refrezh and sjuush got some big kills to jumpstart Heroic’s T-side and increase their lead to 11-7. The two squads started trading rounds, but Heroic pulled away late to cap off the game on Mirage and steal away VP’s pick, 16-10. Heroic won eight of 11 T-side rounds to close out Mirage.

The first half of Ancient was an exciting one, with the two teams trading rounds back and forth. Neither team had a firm grim on their economy and refrezh produced an impressive Deagle 3K clutch. Heroic ended their T-side half on a high note with a stavn one-vs-three clutch to go into their CT-side only trailing 8-7.

Five kills from YEKINDAR in the first two rounds of the second half allowed VP to grow their lead up to 11-7 before a cadiaN AWP clutch gifted Heroic their first round of the half, leading to a run that let them close the distance. After a 13-13 tie, VP recovered with three straight rounds to secure the map 16-13, sending it to Inferno. Buster, Jame, and FL1T all finished with 25 or more kills.

TeSeS delivered for Heroic in the pistol of Inferno, with a gorgeous clutch triple with the USP. VP claimed the first gun round but struggled at first to get past a Heroic CT side that had won seven of their last eight Inferno maps. They were able to salvage six rounds on their T-side before halftime.

Despite winning their CT-side pistol, some cadiaN-led heroics in the anti-eco kept Heroic firmly in the lead. Some brutal misses from Jame just fueled the Heroic momentum, though, and the Danes turned a 9-7 lead into 15-8 before VP finally answered with some pivotal gun rounds on the brink of elimination. They were able to reduce the lead to 15-12 before Heroic finally pushed themselves over the finish line and into the semifinals.

Heroic now await the winner of Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. G2 Esports.