paiN send HEROIC packing with 1-3 record

The young Brazilian side nearly squandered a 12-0 lead on Mirage before closing out the series.

paiN have kept their run alive at PGL Major Copenhagen, eliminating HEROIC from the aptly-named Elimination Stage in 2-0 fashion to secure a place in the 2-2 pool. While Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt's troops were in the driver's seat for much of this series, a valiant comeback effort by HEROIC on the second map did raise fears of a forced decider before a 1v2 clutch from Vinicius "⁠n1ssim⁠" Pereira brought it over the line.

After a dismal start to the Major's second stage, which saw the Brazilians immediately enter the 0-2 pool after losses to Complexity and Virtus.pro, paiN rebounded with a hotly-contested win over The MongolZ, one that concluded with triple overtime on the deciding map.

paiN's victory over HEROIC has them one step closer to replicating FURIA's 0-2 to 3-2 reverse sweep in the Opening Stage, with just one series now separating them from playoffs.

Date	Matches
PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024
21/03/2024	Complexity Finished 13:9 paiN	Match
21/03/2024	Virtus.pro Finished 13:9 paiN	Match
22/03/2024	paiN Finished 2:1 The MongolZ	Match
23/03/2024	HEROIC Finished 0:2 paiN	Match

The series kicked off on paiN's selection of Nuke, where the Brazilians rebounded from an early deficit on their T side to take control of the first half, with HEROIC unable to garner more than two rounds after their initial streak from winning the pistol. This trend only continued as the two swapped sides, with HEROIC securing only one more round before paiN locked down their pick with a confident 13-6 scoreline.

paiN hit the ground running on HEROIC's pick of Mirage, with the Brazilians posting a formidable defense thanks to a masterful performance from biguzera. After securing a 2v4 conversion in one of the few man-disadvantage situations that paiN faced, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before this map was wrapped up quickly as the defenders accrued a flawless 12-0 half.

After being denied the 13-0 by a triple kill from René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen on the defense, paiN struggled to find their footing on the offense, visibly shaken as HEROIC slowly pieced together more rounds. With the deficit eventually whittled to just three rounds, biguzera managed to find a fortunate timing on the B site offense where he scored his first kill of the second half, paving the way for a n1ssim clutch that finally got paiN over the line.