Paris Major: Liquid saves itself late

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Thomas
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The Challenger Stage of the Paris Major is over. Eight teams made it to the following Legends Stage, eight had to go home already. Among them some top teams.

In the last two games of yesterday, another major sensation failed to materialize. Team Liquid, ranked 7th in the HLTV world rankings, made it to the Legends Stage of the Paris Major after an extremely bumpy start.

Liquid on the last groove

Surprisingly lost to Apeks in their opener, the North American team also lost out to FORZE. After that, Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski and his squad already had their backs to the wall – any further defeat would have meant early elimination in the Challenger Stage.

But with wins over Fluxo, Complexity Gaming and finally Grayhound, they still managed to punch their ticket to the round of 16.

Besides TL, another team has made it to the next round with Monte.

The squad around ex-NaVi star Viktor “sdy” Orudzhev couldn’t afford another failure after defeats against FaZe Clan and FORZE early in the tournament. But against Fluxo, The MongolZ and paiN Gaming the necessary victories were then achieved.

Monte (22) is thus another team from the lower ranks of the HLTV World Rankings that surprisingly made it to the Legends Stage of the Paris Major.

This will start on Saturday at 11:30 am and will follow the same format as the Challengers Stage: first in the Swiss system and from round two on in the Buchholz system. Here, too, the top eight teams will advance to the final Champions Stage, which will then usher in the knockout phase of the tournament.

First surprises at the Major in Paris

The last major of the current CSGO calendar year has been underway in Paris for three days now.

The tournament was played in the usual Swiss System format, which changes to the Buchholz system from the second round onwards, where only teams with the same win-loss records compete against each other. As always, whoever had three wins would advance, whoever lost three times would be out.

And also this time some teams had to pack their bags, which were expected differently in the run-up to the tournament.

When hunger meets a crisis of form

The biggest name of the early homecomers is probably that of OG. Since the switch from Nemanja “nexa” Isaković to Nikolaj “niko” Kristensen at the in-game leader position, not much is going right for the Denmark-based team. Although they are still ranked 11th in the HLTV world rankings, the trend is clearly pointing in the wrong direction.

The situation is similar for MOUZ. The Hamburg-based team didn’t manage much since the Intel Extreme Master Rio Major 2022 at the end of last year, when a good 3rd-4th place came out. After defeats against the Ninjas in Pyjamas, OG and GamerLegion they even had to leave the server completely winless this time.

In addition to these two, FORZE Esports (26) and Fluxo (outside Top30) were considered unlikely to advance anyway.

Apeks (24) and GamerLegion (outside Top30) proved that it can be done differently. Starting the tournament as underdogs, Apeks beat both Team Liquid, Grayhound and paiN Gaming to surprisingly make it to the Legends Stage. Only G2 Esports was a bit too big for them.

GamerLegion’s performance was even more impressive. Starting with two losses to Complexity Gaming and The Mongolz, GL withstood the pressure and defeated MOUZ, OG and FORZE in succession – all teams ranked near the top10.

In addition to the two surprise qualifiers, at least a few old hands – ENCE, G2 Esports, FaZe Clan, and Ninjas in Pyjamas – advanced to the next round of the major.

Currently, four teams – Grayhound, paiN Gaming, Monte and Team Liquid – are still fighting for the remaining two tickets.