Biggest stories and top plays from day 7 of Paris Major qualifiers

Catch up on the most notable storylines and highlight moments from the third day of BLAST.tv Paris Major Europe RMR B.

Astralis to miss final CS:GO Major

Four-time Major-winning organization Astralis will be absent from the final Valve-sponsored tournament in CS:GO after they suffered an 0-2 defeat at the hands of Ninjas in Pyjamas on Thursday. The Danish roster endured early losses to Vitality and Eternal Fire in their initial best-of-one games before besting Spirit in their first elimination series, but proved unable to overcome Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen's side on Nuke and Vertigo to miss out on their second consecutive Major.

The loss is especially heartbreaking for Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz, who returned to competition at the end of 2022 and has showcased stellar form despite being away from professional competition for over a year. The superstar Danish AWPer continued to put up numbers for his side while in Copenhagen, averaging a 1.22 tournament rating over seven maps, but the rest of his team were unable to step up to help convert the plethora of opening kills (31 opening kills, 9 opening deaths) that he delivered into victories (64.5% rounds won after first kill, 25.6% first kill from device in rounds won).

Monte, Vitality, & G2 make it through

Hometown heroes Vitality will be in attendance at the Major in Paris after they reverse-swept BIG in their own qualifying series, while G2 also ensured they would advance after a 2-0 sweep over Cloud9.

Monte and 9INE have been the ones stealing this spotlight in this qualifier, however: the latter team went through undefeated on Wednesday, while the former secured their spot through the 2-1 pool by defeating FORZE in a best-of-three. The Ukrainian side recorded best-of-one wins over Cloud9 and ENCE on the first day of the tournament but couldn't quite take a map off of HEROIC, pushing the Danes to double-digits on both maps, but made good on their second attempt to book their ticket to Paris.

ENCE also saw to the elimination of 500 and Aurora sent Eternal Fire packing in the 1-2 pool, leaving us with the following matches in the 2-2 round:

Date	Matches
BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Europe RMR B
14/04/2023	BIG 10:00 Ninjas in Pyjamas	Match
14/04/2023	Aurora 10:00 FORZE	Match
14/04/2023	Cloud9 13:05 ENCE	Match

Player of the day

Mohammad "⁠BOROS⁠" Malhas continued to put up incredible individual numbers and was a key factor in helping Monte 2-0 FORZE to qualify for the Major (1.54 series rating), but without Aleksandr "⁠KENSI⁠" Gurkin, Aurora would have had their own aspirations of making it to Paris put to bed by Eternal Fire in the elimination pool.

We had to give the 21-year-old Russian rifler the nod for that reason, as he was a key factor not just throughout the series for his team (1.33 rating, 98.1 ADR, 82-62 K-D), but was the difference-maker on the Inferno decider (1.47 rating, 108 ADR, and 35-23 K-D) which Aurora only narrowly secured in overtime, 19-16.

HLTV's coverage of the day

Gallery

Europe RMR B - Day 3

Interviews

lmbt: "Nothing could affect us because we knew who's standing there in the front lines. We're doing this for them"
apEX: "A player like ZywOo has to play the Major, that's the minimum"

Highlights of the day