Buchholz seeding to be used in PGL Major Swiss stages

Together with Valve the organizers have brought back the seeding system that was used at the FACEIT Major in 2018.

PGL has announced that the Buchholz seeding system will be used in the Challengers and Legends Swiss stages, a system that utilizes in-tournament results to order teams by the difficulty of their opponents in previous rounds (opponents' combined score) and help determine matchups among teams with the same win-loss record.

With Buchholz only being usable from the third round on, the previously announced initial seeding, which is based on the Regional Major Ranking standings and on the perceived strength of regions, will be used in the second round of each Swiss stage.

The FACEIT Major utilized the Buchholz seeding system

That means that in the Challengers stage, the first and second round will be based entirely on the pre-determined seeding, before Buchholz takes over as the primary seeding system in rounds three, four, and five, to separate the teams with the same record.

The first round of the Legends stage will use a combination of the pre-determined seeding for the eight Legends and the results for the other eight teams coming from the Challengers stage. Round two will once again use the pre-determined seeding based on RMR standings, before round three begins to utilize the Buchholz system.

For the playoffs, Buchholz seeding will be used to separate teams with the same record in the Legends stage (two 3-0 teams, three 3-1, and three 3-2) to determine the matchups in the bracket.

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The PGL rulebook lists the following example to explain how the Buchholz system works:

Buchholz example:
- Your team has a 0-2 record (two losses) and your prior opponents are 2-0 and 1-1. Your tiebreaker score is 2 (your prior opponents have 3 wins total, and 1 loss total, so 3-1 = 2)

- Another team is 0-2 (two losses), and their prior opponents are both 1-1. Their tiebreaker score is 0 (the prior opponents have 2 wins and 2 losses in total, so 2-2 = 0)

- This means your team has the higher seed with a Buchholz score of 2 vs 0 due to stronger opponents.

- In cases where teams are still tied. Initial Team Seeding is used.

As a reminder, the pre-determined seeding used in the early rounds in the two Swiss stages looks as follows:

Challengers stage

1. Spirit
2. Astralis
3. paiN
4. ENCE
5. BIG
6. Movistar Riders
7. HEROIC
8. MOUZ

9. Sharks
10. TYLOO
11. Renegades
12. Entropiq
13. GODSENT
14. Virtus.pro
15. Copenhagen Flames
16. FaZe

Legends stage

1. Ninjas in Pyjamas
2. FURIA
3. Natus Vincere
4. Vitality
5. Liquid
6. Gambit
7. G2
8. Evil Geniuses

9. Challengers stage 3-0 team
10. Challengers stage 3-0 team
11. Challengers stage 3-1 team
12. Challengers stage 3-1 team
13. Challengers stage 3-1 team
14. Challengers stage 3-2 team
15. Challengers stage 3-2 team
16. Challengers stage 3-2 team