Ninjas in Pyjamas tame the Hounds to secure a Legends spot

Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) have secured their spot in the top 16 of the Paris Major 2023 after taking down Grayhound in straight maps in their 2-1 bracket game on the third day of the Challengers Stage.

The final game of the third day of the Challengers Stage kicked off on NiP's pick of Mirage with the Australian team starting on the defensive half. It was Grayhound who took the pistol but NiP bounced back with a force buy hit on the B site and k0nfig quad kill gave NiP a 2-1 lead. Grayhound with two saved guns secured their second round in the sixth round of the map. INS came in with a 1v1 clutch against headtr1ck that saw the Australians tie up the game at 4-4. Grayhound shut out NiP to build a 7-4 lead before Aleksib with a singular AK-47 buy sealed a fifth for the Ninjas. Aleksib eventually out-called and out-fragged aliStair to make sure the Ninjas took a 8-7 lead heading into their defensive half.

The Australian team took the second pistol to tie the game at 8-8 as Vexite came in with a triple kill to kick the second half off. Grayhound were the first to hit double digits after converting the force buy and eco from NiP but two multi-kill rounds from headtr1ck saw NiP tie things back at 10-10. A quad kill from headtr1ck saw NiP secure their 13th. It was the young Ukrainian AWP-er who helped NiP secure map point and NiP took an early lead in the series as they secured Mirage 16-11, closing out the map with a 2v4. It was headtr1ck who was the star performer on Mirage as the young AWP-er dropped 30 kills with multiple impactful rounds.

headtr1ck was the defining factor on Mirage

Inferno was Grayhound's pick as the Australian picked up the pistol on their T side. NiP immediately brought things back to an even-keel as they took the second round. A k0nfig quad kill from A short was NiP secure their third round. INS came in with a huge 1v3 post-plant clutch on the A site to secure the second for the Australian team. NiP took a 9-6 lead to close out the half, with k0nfig having a stellar half as he was a major problem for the Australian team on Banana.

Grayhound picked up the pistol but NiP responded back with a force-buy and won the following eco rounds from the Australians to go up 12-7. The first gun round saw REZ win a 1v1 clutch to put the Ninjas up to 13. A double entry from REZ saw NiP secure map and series point. A couple of strong B holds from Grayhound including a quad kill from Vexite saw Grayhound move up to 12 and break NiP's economy. It was k0nfig who secured the map for NiP as they won Inferno 16-12. k0nfig ended the map with 29 kills and a 1.37 rating.

The Dane was unstoppable on Inferno

BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Challengers Stage

Bo3

Grayhound

0 - 2

Ninjas in Pyjamas

All maps

Grayhound	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 2.0
Declan 'Vexite' Portelli	39 - 41	-2	82.6	70.9%	1.11
Jay 'Liazz' Tregillgas	33 - 34	-1	66.6	72.7%	0.99
Simon 'Sico' Williams	29 - 38	-9	61.7	61.8%	0.81
Joshua 'INS' Potter	27 - 41	-14	63.0	56.4%	0.78
Alistair 'aliStair' Johnston	25 - 37	-12	51.2	56.4%	0.70

Ninjas in Pyjamas	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 2.0
Daniil 'headtr1ck' Valitov	49 - 30	+19	92.6	78.2%	1.44
Aleksi 'Aleksib' Virolainen	33 - 26	+7	67.3	87.3%	1.23
Kristian 'k0nfig' Wienecke	45 - 35	+10	86.4	67.3%	1.22
Fredrik 'REZ' Sterner	42 - 30	+12	78.2	69.1%	1.21
Ludvig 'Brollan' Brolin	21 - 32	-11	50.6	70.9%	0.75