paiN rallies back against FalleN and FURIA, advances to Austin Major semifinals
FURIA and paiN went long into the Austin night, but eventually paiN emerged victorious to close out night one of the BLAST.tv Austin Major playoffs.
FURIA started out beautifully, as Danil "molodoy" Golubenko continued to impress on the AWP. FURIA looked like they had paiN's playbook on Nuke, while every player showed up individually, taking map one 13-6.
But just like in the series prior, the team that took a lead into their own map choice couldn't put their opponents away. On FURIA's pick of Anubis, paiN answered back with a blistering 9-3 T-side, led by the team's LATAM imports in David "dav1deuS" Tapia and Franco "dgt" Garcia. Despite taking the second half pistol, FURIA were unable to close the distance, and paiN evened the series with a 13-8 win on Anubis.
The series was settled on Inferno, where FURIA jumped out to a 7-1 lead on their CT-side. But paiN rallied with four straight to keep it close at the half. A successful paiN forcebuy in the second round of the second half, after FURIA claimed the pistol, proved to be a huge momentum swing. paiN would win seven straight rounds to go up 12-8 before FURIA finally responded. A clutch from Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo kept FURIA alive, and in the final round of regulation, molodoy proved to be magic on the AWP again with a 3K to force overtime.
paiN found the CT rounds they were looking for to close out regulation, taking all three to start overtime. After switching sides, paiN rolled into the A site, planted, and stopped the Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato retake in its tracks to finally close out the map 16-12 and finish the comeback.
Former Liquid man Mareks "YEKINDAR" Gaļinskis, who had had a marvelous series so far, was completely shutout in the second half and overtime. At one point on Inferno he had 18 kills and only six deaths, but he finished with 18 kills and 20 deaths.
FURIApaiN| FURIA |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Yuri 'yuurih' Santos |
53 - 44 | +9 | 90.9 | 80.9% | 1.19 |
 Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis |
46 - 49 | -3 | 81.3 | 73.5% | 1.09 |
| Kaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato |
36 - 44 | -8 | 75.0 | 72.1% | 0.98 |
| Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo |
45 - 47 | -2 | 65.3 | 63.2% | 0.93 |
 Danil 'molodoy' Golubenko |
41 - 42 | -1 | 56.7 | 73.5% | 0.88 |
| paiN |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lucas 'nqz' Soares |
56 - 41 | +15 | 81.8 | 76.5% | 1.21 |
 David 'dav1deuS' Tapia Maldonado |
49 - 48 | +1 | 77.2 | 72.1% | 1.11 |
 Franco 'dgt' Garcia |
50 - 47 | +3 | 72.3 | 73.5% | 1.05 |
| Rodrigo 'biguzera' Bittencourt |
35 - 42 | -7 | 64.8 | 73.5% | 0.97 |
| João 'snow' Vinicius |
35 - 45 | -10 | 61.5 | 67.6% | 0.82 |
paiN will join MOUZ in the semifinals. The playoffs will resume tomorrow with the last two quarterfinals, as NAVI takes on Vitality, while FaZe faces The MongolZ.
