The biggest stories and plays from day two of the BLAST.tv Paris Major Legends Stage

14-5-2023 22:30

The favorites were mostly back in the driving seat during the second day of the Legends Stage.

A return to normalcy, more or less

After an upset-filled day one, the second day went a long way to restore normality. Not all of the favorites survived day two unscathed, as another big team fell at the hands of Into the Breach, this time ENCE after they let one of the British team's favorite maps, Vertigo, through.

Though not quite in as large of a disparity, fnatic were another big brand to falter in the final best-of-ones, against GamerLegion. Natus Vincere and Apeks won the last two single map affairs, facing off against Ninjas in Pyjamas and Bad News Eagles, to make it to within one victory from the playoffs.

IEM Rio finalists Vitality and Heroic secured the first two playoffs spots

The winning quartet from the 1-1 pool was soon joined by Monte and Liquid after the duo fell in the first two qualification matches of the Legends Stage. Vitality dispatched of the Ukrainian-majority side with relative comfort to secure an appearance in front of the French organization's home crowd, while HEROIC had to sweat for their place in the Accor Arena by the revitalized North American team.

The two teams had met in the IEM Rio grand final just two weeks ahead of the Major and went on to live up to expectations as they are the first to lock in a place in the Paris Champions Stage, with three more to follow on day three.

FaZe and G2 dream of a comeback

Day one brought FaZe and G2 to their knees as they fell to elimination matches early, in part due to unfortunate first-round seeding up against other big teams and in part due to faltering against the underdogs in their second matches. On day two, both favorites got back on their feet as they breezed past the opposition in the 0-2 pool series.

9INE were no match for Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's team as they felt forced to try their luck at playing Inferno, their permaban, instead of Ancient, where they have a 14-map losing streak. Even on their typically strong Anubis, the Poles did not turn up to bow out of the competition early.

G2 formally ended FURIA's Major playoffs streak to stay alive

After putting up woeful Terrorist sides on the first day and having none of their stars turn up, FURIA got outclassed by G2 in the final series of the day. The Brazilians once again had no one step up to the plate, with every player finishing the event rated below 1.00, which brought an end to the team's streak of making it to the playoffs at the previous three Majors.

As luck would have it, or rather an act of god (his name is Buchholz), none of the three big names in the 1-2 pool — FaZe, G2, and ENCE — happened to be pitted against each other in round three and there is a world where they can all still make it to playoffs. It is still a long road ahead, though, especially for FaZe, who have a nemesis awaiting them in the next round in Bad News Eagles, a bane of their existence at the last Major and in the RMR leading up to Paris.

Standings after day two

Group Legends Stage

3W - 0L

HEROIC

Vitality

2W - 1L

Liquid

Apeks

Into the Breach

Natus Vincere

1W - 2L

0W - 3L

Day three matchups

1-2 pool (BO3) - losers eliminated from the Paris Major

Date	Matches
BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023
15/05/2023	ENCE 11:30 Ninjas in Pyjamas	Match
15/05/2023	FaZe 11:30 Bad News Eagles	Match
15/05/2023	fnatic 15:45 G2	Match

2-1 pool (BO3) - winners advance to Champions Stage

Date	Matches
BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023
15/05/2023	Monte 14:00 Natus Vincere	Match
15/05/2023	Liquid 16:25 Into the Breach	Match
15/05/2023	Apeks 20:00 GamerLegion	Match

Player of the day

A few performances stand out from the crowd, such as another great map from Joey "⁠CRUC1AL⁠" Steusel in Into the Breach's second upset victory and solid form from Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool and Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač in their teams' comfortable wins in the elimination series.

Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund outshone them all, though, as the top fragger in HEROIC's map victories over Liquid. He stood head and shoulders above his team on the deciding Ancient especially, rounding out the Legends Stage with a 30-bomb and a key 1v2 clutch late in the game to carry his team to the playoffs.

Highlights of the day

HLTV coverage

The full photo gallery from day two of the Paris Major Legends Stage, captured by Josip "brcho" Brtan and Radosław "MAKKU" Makuch, can be found below:

Legends Stage day 2 photo gallery

Our writers on the ground, Lucas "LucasAM" Aznar Miles, Danish "Nohte" Allana, and Harry "NER0" Richards conducted the following interviews during the day:

HooXi on going down 0-2: "We got hit a little bit by the nerves, the pressure"