paiN-ful end for the Brazilians in Paris
Monte performed the reverse sweep in their do-or-die match against paiN as they came back from being a map down to secure the series 2-1 and book a spot in the Legends Stage. paiN had the match in their hands after winning Monte's pick of Anubis but Monte demolished paiN on Nuke and secured the series on Mirage.
The action kicked off on Monte's pick of Anubis with the Brazilians starting on the defensive side. paiN won the pistol on time as NEKIZ won an easy 1v1 clutch. A double Tec9 from the man at the helm of Monte, sdy, saw Monte win their force-buy to make sure paiN didn't take an early lead. paiN though, responded with their own force-buy to retake the lead at 2-1 but it was a BOROS quad kill that saw Monte tie up the score as both teams kept trading rounds. It was paiN though, who was the first team to put back-to-back rounds and on the back of biguzera and skullz's strong firepower, paiN strung together five rounds in a row before Monte took their third on the back of a Woro2k 1v1 clutch. Woro2k came in with an incredible ace on round 11 but, it was paiN who won the round out on time with Woro2k's final kill coming after the round was over. A couple of rounds right at the end of the saw Monte end the half with a 6-9 deficit.
Monte took the pistol the close the gap to paiN. A sdy quad kill on the FAMAS saw Monte get to eight before paiN bounced back as soon as the Brazilians bought out the guns. A Woro2K 1v3 clutch saw Monte put up their tenth. Ten though was all Monte could manage as a biguzera quad kill saw paiN close the map at 16-10. biguzera ended the map with one kill shy of 30 and a 1.70 rating.
Monte, starting on the CT side, on paiN's pick of Nuke took the pistol and the two following rounds before paiN turned around a 2v3 to put their first round on the board. Monte responded with eleven of their own as sdy and his men put up a stellar defence to shut down every single paiN execute as the Brazilians seemed clueless on their T side. Monte ended the first half with a 14-1 lead as kRaSnaL was on top of the board with 18 kills.
sdy kicked off the second half with a 1v4 clutch in the pistol round to put Monte on map point. It was a comfortable wrap up as Monte took the series to a third map after securing Nuke 16-1.
The decider was played on Mirage and it was paiN on the defensive side, who took the pistol to kick things off. An early dominance from biguzera saw paiN take a 5-0 lead before Monte responded with their first two rounds. BOROS denied hardzao a 1v2 clutch which helped Monte break paiN economy and the Ukrainian said closed up the game 5-6. A NEKIZ quad kill saw paiN secure eight on the CT half as they eventually ended the half with a slender 8-7 lead.
paiN took the pistol but Monte answered back with the force-buy and tied the game at 9-9 in the first gun round which put paiN back on the eco buy. It was a hardzao triple kill on round 22 that saw paiN put up their first T round after winning the pistol to get the score to 10-12. Monte's defence was unbreakable as they secured the map at 16-10 with sdy ending the final map with 26 kills and a 1. 57 rating that saw Monte secure a spot in the Legends Stage.