Arguably, the first two quarterfinals of the Austin Major were won by the underdogs. Neither MOUZ nor paiN Gaming looked capable of defeating their opponents but somehow, they peaked exactly when they had to.
Team Spirit vs. MOUZ
Spirit entered this quarterfinal as champions of the previous CS2 Major, which took place in Shanghai in December last year. With Danil “donk” Kryshkovets on their roster, who won the best player in CS2 award in 2024, and MOUZ in poor tournament form, the match looked over even before it started. But in esports, upsets can and often do happen.
MOUZ could have easily won the first map despite being two rounds behind at halftime. After getting to 12 round victories on Mirage, they had plenty of chances to close the map but missed all of them. Then, in overtime, Spirit proved to be just a bit stronger and won 25 – 21 in the 4th OT session!
But it quickly became clear that MOUZ were capable of winning maps against Spirit. On Dust II, the first half ended 4 – 8. In the second half, MOUZ no longer committed the same mistake and won 9 – 13.
On Nuke, the first half was a disaster for Lotan “spinx” Giladi and his teammates, who lost 8 – 4. But in the second half, they won 2 – 9 and advanced to the semifinals.
As expected, donk was the strongest player on the server but his teammates offered too little support, with Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov ending the match with more than 20 kills behind him.
FURIA vs. PaiN Gaming
In the Brazilian derby, paiN Gaming made a spectacular comeback against FURIA. After losing the first map 13 – 6, Lucas “nqz” Soares and his team played with great determination on Anubis (8 – 13) and Inferno (12 – 16).
Thanks to this result, FaZe Clan now have a very high chance of reaching the Grand Final of the Austin Major. All they need to do is defeat The MongolZ in the quarterfinals and then paiN in the semifinals.
Six months ago, this would have been relatively easy to accomplish. We’ll have to wait and see if Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev is strong enough to lead FaZe to another Major Grand Final.
