Team Liquid are unrecognizable in the Legends Stage of BLAST.tv Paris Major

The first day of the Legends Stage of BLAST.tv Paris Major started with some very surprising results. Team Liquid, after going 0 W – 2 L in the Challengers Stage and barely advancing, are now dominating even the strongest competitors in the tournament.

Meanwhile, four of the favorites are one step away from elimination. FURIA Esports, 9INE, G2 Esports, and FaZe Clan started this stage of the tournament with two consecutive defeats. This was an absolute disappointment and something that we almost never see at a CS:GO Major.

We sometimes see one or two top teams struggling and often recovering from a 0 W – 2 L start. But to see four teams that could have won the tournament completely missing their start is quite sad. Some of the best players in the world will miss the playoffs because of these results and we will not get to see them in the Accor Arena.

Day one results

Day one of the Legends Stage started well for Heroic, Team Vitality, Monte, and Team Liquid. The first two of these teams were expected to win their matches simply because they both played in the Grand Final of the most recent tournament, IEM Rio 2023.

But the other two should not have done so well. A 1 W – 1 L record would have been a lot closer to what the analysts were predicting.

Team Liquid went from smashing 9INE (9-16) to smashing Natus Vincere (16-8). In both matches, their top players were much better than those of their opponents.

The eight teams that finished the day with a 1 W – 1 L record are listed below:

• Natus Vincere
• Fnatic
• ENCE
• Apeks
• Into The Breach
• Bad News Eagles
• Ninjas in Pyjamas
• GamerLegion

All of them had to beat tough opponents and get out of really bad situations. For example, BNE were five rounds behind G2 after the first half. ITB did much better against FaZe Clan, winning the first half with a score of 10-5 and then closing the map 16-12.

In a lot of the matches, the scores were very close. It was essentially a situation where anyone could have won and the difference was made by a very small number of kills. In round 2, only two matches were stomps: Liquid vs. Na’Vi (16-8) and FURIA vs. NiP (8-16). Every other match was really difficult for both sides.

Header: ESL