North take down Panda; BIG handle paiN to stay alive at StarSeries

The two favorites survived their elimination matches in Shanghai; North defeated Panda 2-0 (Train 19-17, Dust2 16-2) and BIG were victorious over paiN with the same scoreline (16-6 cache, 16-14 Inferno).

The local side, Panda, took a 6-3 lead on the CT side of Train after a good start on North's map pick. Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller found a double entry on Ivy with the AWP in the following round, with Nicklas "⁠gade⁠" Gade repeating the same next one to swing the flow of the game, allowing the Danes to finish the half with a minimal 8-7 lead.

After the switch, Panda claimed the first four on the T side, and survived a back-and-forth period to find themselves on mappoint, 15-10 up. Just barely clinging on, North secured a very tight round victory holding on to the A site, eventually forcing overtime. In the added rounds, North redeemed themselves with a perfect Terrorist side, closing it out 19-17.

The Danes looked much better on the following map, Dust2, with Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup leading the charge with four frags in the T pistol and three in the following anti-eco. Zhen "⁠HZ⁠" Huang's triple saw the following round go Panda's way, but North got back into the swing of things shortly, with the Chinese side only able to get one more round before the end of the half.

After bullying their opponents on the offensive side, cadiaN and co. didn't slow down on the defense, closing it out with a pistol round win to make it 16-2. In the end, it was a 2-0 for the series, with North going on in the tournament and Panda being eliminated.

Cache saw BIG grab a strong start on their map pick, 8-1, before Vinicios "⁠PKL⁠" Coelho's 1v2 clutch gave a lifeline to paiN. The Brazilian underdogs managed to get up to five rounds off the back of that, but didn't manage to close out the half on a high as Johannes "⁠tabseN⁠" Wodarz showed off some of his AWPing, taking down two on the B retake.

The Germans added another pistol round win to their tally, and then any chances of a comeback were killed off when Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş secured a 1v2 on A with a fast readjustment (14-6) and they soon brought the map to an end, moving to Inferno.

paiN's 3-0 lead from the beginning of the offensive side of Inferno was washed away swiftly as BIG put up stalwart defenses on Inferno, easily locking down Banana with the combination of tabseN and XANTARES. Tizian "⁠tiziaN⁠" Feldbusch joined into the action with an ace on A to make it 6-3, before Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt replied with one of his own, securing an A site afterplant.

tabseN denied paiN the bombplant through the smoke, which got BIG back on track and kept the Brazilian side on just five rounds for the first half, and the lead was extended with a pistol round win by BIG. Looking down the barrel of elimination, paiN didn't falter, bringing the score back to 15-14 with a strong CT side, but a good fake in the final round got the Germans over the line, 16-14.