FURIA Esports and paiN Gaming won their third-round high matches on Saturday to advance to the first-place match at the BLAST.tv Paris Major American Regional Major Ranking event in Monterrey, Mexico.
The tournament features 16 teams battling for berths in the $1.25 million BLAST.tv Paris Major, scheduled for May 8-21.
The champion at Monterrey will enter the Paris Major in the Legends round, while the Monterrey runner-up will enter at the Challenger round. The third-, fourth- and fifth-place finishers in Monterrey will open play in the Paris Major’s Contender round.
The qualifier is being played using the Swiss system, with elimination and advancement matches best-of-three and other matches best-of-one. The first-place decider also will be best-of-three. The tournament runs through Sunday.
FURIA defeated Team Liquid 2-1, using a 16-13 win on Inferno and a 16-4 triumph on Mirage to bounce back from a match-opening 19-16 setback on Nuke. Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato led the all-Brazilian winners with 66 kills and a plus-19 kills-deaths differential, while Josh “oSee” Ohm of the United States posted a team-high 58 kills for Liquid.
In a meeting between two fully Brazilian squads, paiN Gaming had a much easier time with their opponent, Fluxo, picking up compelling victories on Mirage (16-1) and Nuke (16-8) to cruise to a 2-0 sweep. Gabriel “NEKIZ” Schenato went for 42 kills and a plus-20 K-D ratio for paiN. Joao “felps” Vasconcellos and Allan “history” Lawrenz each supplied 27 kills for Fluxo, which saw all five of their players finish with negative K-D differentials.
Saturday’s action also featured four third-round low matches. Paqueta Gaming, MIBR and Nouns Esports all earned 2-1 wins, beating Evil Geniuses, BESTIA and Flamengo Esports, respectively. Complexity Gaming was also victorious, sweeping Imperial Esports 2-0.
The first-place match between FURIA and paiN will be held Sunday.
BLAST.tv Paris Major American Regional Major Ranking placement:
1. BLAST Paris Major Legend berth — Team TBD
2. BLAST Paris Major Challenger berth — Team TBD
3-5. BLAST Paris Major Contender berths — Team Liquid, Complexity Gaming, Fluxo
6-8. Paqueta Gaming, MIBR, Noun Esports
9-12. Flamengo Esports, BESTIA, Evil Geniuses, Imperial Esports
13-16. yur, 00 Nation, LOS + oNe, Team Solid
–Field Level Media
