BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 Challengers Stage

Apeks annihilate Grayhound in third-ever 16-0 in Major history

8-5-2023 20:41

Apeks join an all-time great in managing a 16-0 win on the Major stage.

Apeks have advanced to the 2-0 pool at the BLAST.tv Paris Major Challengers Stage after a 16-0 thrashing of Grayhound on Mirage in the second round.

The European side is now just one win away from the Legends Stage and will face off against one of the other 2-0 teams — G2, FaZe, and ENCE — for a spot in the next Swiss phase, with the matchup depending on the outcome of the rest of the second round.

Grayhound took the loss on their chin and with a smile on their faces as they congratulated Apeks

Apeks have joined the legendary Astralis lineup as the only other team to win a map 16-0 in CS:GO Major history. The Danes did so on two occasions, in their title-winning campaigns at the FACEIT London and IEM Katowice Majors in 2018 and 2019, against MIBR and against Cloud9, respectively.

No one else has managed the feat at the Majors, and that is even if you include the Main Qualifiers. These used to precede Majors proper from DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca 2015 to PGL Major Krakow 2017 and in essence represented a comparable stage to the current Challengers Stage, before it was joined with the Majors from ELEAGUE Boston in 2018 onwards.

As evidenced by the scoreline, everything simply went right for Apeks in the Mirage match against the Australians. Grayhound did not turn up against a team firing on all cylinders, and even in situations where they had the upper hand they were unable to prevent the embarrassment, as Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk rubbed salt in the wound with 1v2 clutch and a defuse inside smoke in round 15 after previously winning another 1v2 in the opening pistol round of the match.