After a long first day at the first day of the BLAST.tv Major, we have a much clearer idea of who might make it out of the Challengers stage, and who might be heading home altogether. With this being the last full round of BO1s, here is a recap on everything that went down in round two in Paris.
Some heavy hitters and surprising sides head to 2-0
Heading into the Challengers stage, FaZe and G2 were considered the two most likely teams to progress without much fuss and now both are heading to the qualification games after the first day. For FaZe, the Brazilian side paiN awaited after all thirty rounds were required against Monte in the opener. At the half it looked like FaZe would start to pull away considering that they had secured a healthy 8-7 lead on their T-side, before pulling out to 13-7 with minimal response. The Brazilians would have something to say about this, drawing it back to 14-12 but it would not be enough as the European giants closed it out 16-12.
G2 came head to head with North American hopefuls Complexity in their opener, taking to Inferno just as they had done against The Mongolz in their previous match. The first half was much more competitive than G2 probably expected, with Complexity taking an 8-7 lead at the half heading into their CT side. One more round is all the NA team could manage, with young AWPer Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov taking over completely, finishing out the 16-9 game with a whopping 34-9 stat line.
Elsewhere, ENCE moved on to the 2-0 column in confident fashion as they dispatched fellow European team Ninjas in Pyjamas 16-9 with Pavle 'Maden' Bošković leading the charge for ENCE. The star of the show for ENCE as of late has been Guy 'Nertz' Iluz, who told Blast.tv following the win that “100% I believe that we can win the Major if we will keep playing like that and we will have good preparation, it will be good.”
The final 2-0 team was a surprising one from start to finish, as Apeks made Major history by securing only the third 16-0 the competition has ever seen over Grayhound. With the dominating scoreline, one would expect pure excitement from the winning team, but Justinas "jL" Lekavicius showed his compassion to the embarrassed Australians after when he told BLAST.tv “I mean it was quite sad that it was Grayhound because I feel for the boys. They probably came in here with no expectations but I want to see them do well because they are the kind of underdog team that no one appreciates and overlooks.”
Photo: Michal KonkolOne more BO1 to go for these 1-1 teams
Monte bounced back after their unfortunate run-in with FaZe earlier in the day against Fluxo on Overpass. It was a much more straightforward affair against the Brazilians, imposing their will on the South American outfit on the CT side as they went in at the break up 12-3. Fluxo had minimal to offer in response in the second half as Monte ran out victorious 16-8. On an interesting note, Volodymyr "Woro2k" Veletnjuk shared with BLAST.tv that the decision to change the IGL role to Viktor "sdy" Orudzhev came from Woro2k himself saying “Our coach has a good vibe with Viktor so I was thinking that Viktor said before he wanted to try be an IGL so let’s try it and I will focus on my game.”
TheMongolz moved to 1-1 following their victory over GamerLegion on Inferno. The Mongolian side beat the Europeans 16-11, with the highlight of the match coming from the second half pistol round as Sodbayar 'Techno' Munkhbold shut out his opponents with an ace on Banana with dual berettas.
Photo: Michal KonkolBig names starting down the barrel of elimination
Liquid will be having nightmares tonight of their time at PGL Antwerp this time last year as the American lineup fell to 0-2 yet again. Having their hearts broken by Forze 16-14 on Nuke, Liquid struggled to shut out Aleksandr "zorte" Zagodyrenko who finished the map with a 31-13 stat line and Josh "oSee" Ohm was crushingly stopped on the defuse with 0.26 seconds left in the final round.
Finally, OG condemned MOUZ to the 0-2 games following their clash on Ancient. MOUZ could only muster 6 rounds on their T-side, with OG’s offensive half looking much crisper and the AWP of Abdul 'degster' Gasanov wreaking havoc. Nikolaj "niko" Kristensen’s men closed out 16-11, thus bringing an end to the first day of the final CS:GO Major.
Photo: Michal Konkol