Road to BLAST.tv Paris Major: Top 3 Contenders

BLAST.tv Paris Major will likely be the most significant CS:GO event of this year. It will also be the first CS:GO Major organized by BLAST.

Like all CS:GO Majors, the Paris one will have three stages. The first stage consists of a battle between 16 teams and uses the Swiss System format. Eight of the participants have the Challenger status while the other eight have the Contender status.

Who the Challengers and the Contenders are was determined based on the results of the RMRs. The Contenders are considered to be the weakest teams in the tournament, so they will be paired with Challengers for the first series of matches. The only problem is that many Contenders are, in fact, world-class teams.

The strongest Contenders of BLAST.tv Paris Major

The strongest Contenders of the tournament are not hard to determine. Of course, the final determination will be made by the results themselves. But on paper, here are the teams that are most likely to survive the Challengers Stage from the Contenders group:

• FaZe Clan
• Team Liquid
• MOUZ

FaZe Clan were the strongest competitor in CS:GO last year and they had good results this season as well, finishing first-third at BLAST Premier: Spring Groups, seventh-eight at IEM Katowice, and first at ESL Pro League S17. Thanks to the trophy they got there and the results they obtained in 2022, FaZe received the Intel Grand Slam S4 title.

At the more recent IEM Rio 2023, FaZe finished 9th-12th, which was certainly not ideal. But the team has what it takes not only to survive the first stage of a Major but to actually win it. Globally, the team led by Finn “karrigan” Andersen is ranked fifth at the moment, which easily makes them one of the favorites to win the tournament.

For Team Liquid, a failure at the Paris Major would almost certainly lead to important roster changes. They already failed at their previous Major, so they probably don’t want to repeat that performance. When a top team is pressured to deliver great results, their training is usually much more intense.

Combined with the fact that Liquid’s recent performance has been decent (top-four at IEM Katowice and top-three in the RMRs for the Major), it’s safe to say that they are one of the strongest Contenders in the tournament and should easily survive the first stage.

MOUZ are the third-best Contender but their spot in the Legends Stage is far from guaranteed. That’s because there are plenty of solid Challengers that can take their spot. In the global rankings table, MOUZ are currently sitting at number 11.

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