The upcoming Major Qualifiers have the highest amount of top tier teams, compared to any tournament from the last sixth months and even have more top tier teams than the actual major itself. With teams such as Counter-Logic Gaming, Renegades and GODSENT – the qualifiers promise to be a championship full of upsets with only the best teams taking the eight spots at the major championships.

After so many top tier analysts published their predictions for the Major Qualifiers, Global Defensive realised that they could gain a lot of ad revenue if they posted their own.

“This is a huge opportunity for me,” the lead Global Defensive writer told Global Defensive, “If I can get just one of the matches predicted correctly, then I might get invited to be an analyst at some huge tournament, as I’ll have set a new high score.”

Below are the teams that Global Defensive reckons you will see make the Major. If we’re wrong, we’ll write an article about how cool Cloud9 are and then eat our own penis or something like that. (Will probably just make a new website and start over, wouldn’t actually do that – can’t even think of anything nice to say about Cloud9)

1. EnvyUs

EnvyUs are a shit tier team and if they do make it to the major, they’ll go out last in groups. However, there’s just something about the “Boys in Blue” that gives the Global Defensive head writer the feeling that they will make it past the Qualifiers, either due to some lucky match-ups or due to, simply, being less shit than any other team there.

“We’re pretty confident,” Happy told Global Defensive, “It will be a tough tournament, there are a lot of top teams here and we haven’t had the best of years but I think we can make it to the Major, which would be a pretty good result for such an inexperienced side.”

2. FAZE Clan

FAZE Clan have improved massively in the past few months, since the addition of Karrigan; as they have went from winning no matches (except against Virtus Pro) to winning a few matches (and all against Virtus Pro).

“This is going to be really easy tournament for us,” FAZE player, allu, told Global Defensive, “We’ve been doing really good lately, thanks to the fact that the random seeding of groups keep putting us in the same group as Cloud9.”

Many FAZE Clan fans were left disappointed, last major, as the team was drawn in to a group of death – with three of the best teams in the world. FAZE Rain was, reportedly, very happy to hear the announcement that the group stage at the major would be Swiss-styled, which would prevent this from happening.

“It’s great,” he told Global Defensive, “We can still get drawn against three difficult opponents, but at least now we don’t know until we have to face them.”

3. Ninjas in Pyjamas

The Ninjas in Pyjamas have been praised, recently, as being the best team in the world by the HLTV “extremely accurate” ranking algorithm. While Reddit argued about the fact that no team is currently number one and how every team can now beat anyone (except for Cloud9, who can’t beat anyone) – the NiP fangays at Global Defensive took the week off to celebrate with a week full of masturbation to beautiful pictures of f0rest’s eyebrows.

“I’ve lost all respect for HLTV,” Thorin told Global Defensive, “NiP aren’t even Top 10, they won all their tournaments with luck.”

However, being the NiP fangays that we are, Global Defensive is well aware of the team’s tendency to be god awful and they are well prepared for the disappointment when they end up losing to the CIS teams.

“We’re going to do great this tournament,” Xizt told Global Defensive, “Friberg played an hour of casual, last week, so he should be hitting his shots. I’ve jerked off to some old videos of f0rest hitting great shots so my strategies are all ready to go.”

“Yes,” GeT_RiGhT agreed.

4. Renegades

While Global Defensive has criticised the Renegades, in the past, for just being another team that is over-hyped by the CSGO subreddit; they cannot deny just how dominant the Aussies looked in their great victory over top tier Polish team, Kinguin.

“This is a new era for the Renegades team,” one excited fan posted on the subreddit, “They haven’t had this hot form since they almost beat Fnatic that one time, a year ago. Things are looking up!”

Some fans have, however, been quick to criticise the Minor system and how it favours the Renegades. They argue that Renegades have too easy of a path to the qualifier – only having to beat some Asian teams to make their way to the finals. “It’s ridiculous,” one fan argues, “While Cloud9 had to beat extremely tough teams like TSM and Muffin Lightning, Renegades get a cakewalk against a bunch of people who can’t even afford keyboards.”

“It’ll be tough for the boys,” ex-player, Spunj, told Global Defensive, “Getting through the Minor is always tough, emotionally, as you know that every team they beat is getting executed by their country’s dictator, when they arrive home.”

5. Godsent

That’s right boys, girls and Dosias who are reading this article, we went there.

If the Global Offensive subreddit is allowed to circlejerk and believe in Cloud9 no matter what, we are allowed to circlejerk about Godsent. Watch this face. They will make it through to the Major – I bet a cute picture of my dog on it!

6. Dignitas

While Global Defensive do agree that Dignitas had some great results that could justify a top 5 placing (three months ago), they do question if they have what it takes to make it through this qualifier. We spoke to an expert for advice.

“Dignitas will make it through 3-0,” the /r/vacsucks moderator told us, “They always conveniently make it through whenever they’re in a tough spot, I’d keep an eye on their config, if you know what I mean.”

“Personally, I don’t think the major will ever happen as the third round of qualifiers will never end, as Dignitas and Immortals will just go on to achieve endless amounts of overtimes, since they’re both so obvious.”

While Global Defensive did want to be edgy and make the prediction that Dignitas would not qualify and then make a Thorin joke regarding them being the best team in the world, they were informed by their lawyer that they have reached the joke quota on Thorin for this month, and could risk community backlash if they continued their horrific bullying of this poor soul.

7. OpTic

OpTic are a strong team that has really been putting in the work recently. While we would love to slate them and make a good paragraph of NA banter, they haven’t left any room for us to do so. Massive credit to them for achieving so highly, despite coming from such an undeveloped scene with very little infrastructure.

That said, the head writer of Global Defensive is sitting back with a cup of coffee and waiting for OpTic’s run to end. “It’ll be a good one,” she told herself, “Maybe not as enjoyable as Liquid’s, but I always love the fresh smell of NA tears.”

8. Gamers2

While the French side has been disappointing over the past forever, Global Defensive realised that they would alienate all of their potential viewers if they told them that Immortals would qualify.

While Gamers2 have had a rough time, top analyst Richard Lewis points out that none of them have yet made a statement saying that they are confident they are going to win this tournament, so things are looking up for them.

I predict that you found this article awful. I also predict that you’ll check out our Twitter at @GlobalDefensive regardless.