BLAST Paris Major team list complete; opening matchups set

With the 24 Major-bound teams now determined, the first Challengers Stage matchups have been set.

The fortnight-long Regional Major Ranking tournaments concluded on Saturday, with FaZe besting Cloud9 in the Last Chance Qualifier to earn themselves the final place at CS:GO's last-ever Major, whilst simultaneously forcing the Russians to watch the $1,250,000 spectacle from the sidelines.

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FaZe best Cloud9 to secure final Paris Major spot

As a result, the opening matchups of the Challengers Stage, which gets started on May 8, are also known. Each team is assigned a specific seed based on their region's results from the previous Major — IEM Rio in this case —, according to Valve's official rulebook.

G2 will play TheMongolz in their opening game in Paris

For example, FURIA picked up the lone Legends Stage berth from the BLAST.tv Paris Major Americas RMR. The Brazilians will therefore inherit the third seed of that phase of play earning the Americas a Legends Stage spot back thanks to their 3-4th place campaign at the IEM Rio Major.

Similarly, the top seed of the upcoming BLAST.tv Paris Major Challengers Stage is handed to Monte, the Europe RMR B's fourth-place team. This is thanks to BIG, who earned Europe that specific seeding placement after their own 9-11th place run through the Brazilian Major back in November.

Consequently, the seeding method employed by Valve has created the following Challengers Stage opening matches:

Round 1
Monte vs. FaZe
paiN vs. Fluxo
G2 vs. The MongolZ
GamerLegion vs. Complexity
FORZE vs. Grayhound
Apeks vs. Liquid
Ninjas in Pyjamas vs. MOUZ
OG vs. ENCE

You can see the complete seeding order of each Swiss phase below. This will be further used for round 2 of the Challengers Stage (right column) as well as for the first two rounds of the Legends Stage (left column).

It will also serve as a tiebreaking method when teams are tied in their difficulty score (the combined record of a team's previous opponents, also known as the Buchholz score), which is the primary seeding method for rounds 3-5.

Legends Stage
1. Natus Vincere
2. 9INE
3. FURIA
4. fnatic
5. HEROIC
6. Into the Breach
7. Vitality
8. Bad News Eagles
9-16. Determined based on Challengers Stage results

Challengers Stage
1. Monte
2. paiN
3. G2
4. GamerLegion
5. FORZE
6. Apeks
7. Ninjas in Pyjamas
8. OG
9. ENCE
10. MOUZ
11. Liquid
12. Grayhound
13. Complexity
14. The MongolZ
15. Fluxo
16. FaZe

Be sure to take a look at HLTV's dedicated Major hub, where you can find more information about CS:GO's final Major playing out on May 8-21.