Eternal Fire have secured a PGL Major Singapore Stage 1 invite after the November 2 VRS cut-off. The Turkish side turned two October LAN titles into a Major place that looked out of reach after the first of them.
MisteM, regali, soulfly, Kvem and jottAAA form the roster heading to Singapore. Two of them, Kvem and MisteM, are former NA players in the Turkish lineup.
The invite caps a busy October. Eternal Fire won DraculaN Season 7 in Romania, beating SINNERS 2-1 in the grand final. That event ran October 19 to 23 with 24 teams and a $35,000 prize pool. The team took home $14,000. Even after that title, a Major invite still looked a long way off.
A lower-bracket run ended in a five-map comeback
Stake Ranked Episode 5 changed the picture. StarLadder organized the A-Tier LAN in Barcelona from October 27 to 30. Eight teams played for a $100,000 prize pool. Eternal Fire opened with a 2-1 loss to MIBR. Their first lower-bracket win needed three maps against a Nemesis side fielding two stand-ins. A win over BIG followed.
Astralis were next. They had brought in Jakob “jabbi” Nygaard to replace cmtry as a stand-in from the second day. The swap meant cmtry would not reach five matches for Astralis. Two invited rosters sharing one player would have meant only the higher-ranked of the two received a Major invite. Eternal Fire dropped Dust II 10-13 but took Ancient 13-7 and Cache 13-8 to knock Astralis out. They then beat MIBR 2-0 in the lower-bracket final.
The grand final started badly. Fnatic took Anubis 13-8 and Ancient 13-2. Eternal Fire answered with Cache 13-9, Dust II 13-11 and Mirage 13-8. It was only the 14th time a team had come back from 0-2 in a best-of-five LAN grand final, according to HLTV’s records. Samet “jottAAA” Köklü led the side in the final with a 1.21 series rating.
The title moved Eternal Fire into Europe’s Stage 1 group
The defeat cost fnatic heavily, with their projected invite chance falling to 17.5%. The result reshaped the race for the final Singapore places before the VRS cut-off.
The format leaves little room at the bottom of the European list. The top six teams on the November 2 VRS go straight to Stage 3. The next six start in Stage 2. The last six begin in Stage 1.
The final European places still depended on other LANs. HOTU lost the GLuck Moscow Cyber Games final to 1win. That let 100 Thieves take Europe’s 18th and last Major spot by winning FiRe Last Chance in Buenos Aires.
The Major finishes on December 13, with the playoffs at the Singapore Indoor Stadium.
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