Swiss stage:

SK Gaming > HellRaisers

Playday 1 - 22nd of January 2017

16:7 (11:4; 5:3) on Mirage

FaZe < SK Gaming

Playday 2 - 23rd of January 2017

17:19 (9:6; 6:9, OT: 2:4) on Mirage

SK Gaming < Natus Vincere

Playday 3 - 24th of January 2017

3:16 (3:12; 0:4) on Dust II

SK Gaming > Astralis Denmark

Playday 4 - 25th of January 2017

19:17 (7:8; 8:7, OT: 4:2) on Dust II

Playoffs:

FaZe < SK Gaming

Quarter-finals - 28th of January 2017

16:7 (12:3; 4:4) on Mirage

3:16 (3:12; 0:4) on Train

5:16 (5:10; 0:6) on Overpass

Virtus.pro > SK Gaming

Semi-finals - 29th of January 2017

19:17 (10:5; 5:10, OT: 4:2) on Train

16:14 (6:9; 10:5) on Cobblestone

It is less than a week since we closed yet another successful year for our organization, brand and players.SK Gaming was established two decades ago and during that timeline we have witnessed hundreds of intensive and aspiring competitions held all around the globe. From one of the founding pillars of competitive gaming: the Dallas CPLs ( Cyberathlete Professional League ) back in the days, to World Cyber Games and DreamHack, to the next modern generation of eSports events such as Intel Extreme Masters, ESL One, and so on.Yet, we are impatient to start 2018 with a blast! Our Brazilian Counter-Strike: Global Offensive division is heading towards the next Major, ELEAGUE Major Boston 2018, where they will try their best to win a third championship and claim the title as undisputed number one team in the game's history and reign supreme over the Swedish powerhouses Ninjas in Pyjamas and Fnatic's dominant eras.We are going to further discuss the upcoming Major and our team's preparation in the next couple of days. This short article is a throwback to last year's Atlanta Major and serves as an introduction to the series.The ELEAGUE Major Atlanta 2017 was the tenth official Major tournament in association with Valve Corporation and second to be held on North American soil.It was also the first prestigious CS:GO competition to be broadcasted live on cable TV network. The event had a traditional for Majors structure and ran from 22nd to 29th of January 2017 with the playoffs stage held inside the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, GA.ELEAGUE was founded in May of 2016 by the Atlanta-based corporation Turner Broadcasting System and the American talent agency WME | IME. The newly established brand had two successful Counter-Strike: Global Offensive seasons before being granted the opportunity to host Valve's next Major tournament in the beginning of 2017.After over a six months of anticipation since the previous event of the series held in early July of 2016, ESL One Cologne 2016 , we had the chance to witness the American event and what ELEAGUE had in store for us.Due to the limited size of the Fox Theatre compared to enormous venues such as the Lanxess Arena, which is the prime location of the ESL One Cologne series, the Atlanta Major could not reach an on-site audience record. However, the Turner-backed organization managed to break the record of most concurrent viewers of a single channel on the Twitch platform, which surpassed over 1,400,000 viewers.The Danish powerhouse Astralis, led by Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander , scored their first Major title after multiple tries by taking down Virtus.pro in the grand final in the capital of the state of Georgia.Without a doubt the Atlanta Major was of a huge importance for Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo and the squad, as the team had the chance to be the first ever to win three back-to-back Major championship titles and was furthermore only fractions away of achieving this goal. At the time the Brazilians were even more motivated as the team dropped from the first place in HLTV.org's rankings a month or so prior.Unfortunately, we had to use the Portuguese prodigy Ricardo 'fox' Pacheco as a stand-in due to the departure of Lincoln 'fnx' Lau and despite that his individual performance during the tournament exceeded our expectations, the team was subject to several in-game limitations, which denied our team's third consecutive Major triumph.Our Brazilian division finished 3rd-4th after narrowly losing to the Polish pride Virtus.pro in the semi-finals. These are our team's results at the Atlanta Major:More information and detailed statistics from the ELEAGUE Major Atlanta 2017 can be found in our esport index The ELEAGUE Major Atlanta 2017 was an excellent event and experience for all of us - players, viewers, fans, etc.We couldn't cement ourselves as the undisputed world's best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team of all times by winning a third consecutive Major championship title during the Atlanta Major, but we still have the opportunity open to surpass the aforementioned Swedish teams' achievements during this month's Major, which will be held from 12th to 28th with the "Champions Stage" in Boston, Massachusetts.SK Gaming, for good or bad, will once more participate in a Major circuit while using a stand-in. We are welcoming back Joao 'felps' Vasconcellos as a temporary replacement for ex-Immortals' player Ricardo 'boltz' Prass , who is unable to join us due to the enforced roster lock.Stay tuned to SK Gaming as we will continue to roll more content about the upcoming Boston Major on daily basis.