paiN win GET Rio 2024 over Imperial

paiN lost to Imperial in the upper bracket final at 4 AM on day two, but completed a lower bracket run to earn revenge and the lion's share of the $200,000 prize pool.

paiN are the champions of GET Rio 2024 after winning back-to-back series on day three over MIBR in the lower bracket and Imperial in the grand final.

The $200,000 LAN suffered from over-optimistic scheduling, a clash with the online EWC qualifiers — paiN have played 20 maps over the last three days —, and technical issues, but the final day ran smoothly as Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt and company confirmed themselves as the best Brazilian team of 2024 on home soil.

Playing with academy prospect Marcelo "⁠nyezin⁠" Ramos after failing to negotiate a buyout for Vinicius "⁠n1ssim⁠" Pereira from Sharks, paiN barely missed a beat with biguzera's calling and the firepower of his young side on show.

19-year-old sniper Lucas "⁠nqz⁠" Soares ended the event as their highest-rated player on a 1.21 rating, with Lucas "⁠lux⁠" Meneghini in second on 1.14, as paiN proved their depth ran beyond emblematic skipper biguzera on stage at the Ginásio do Maracanãzinho.

The day opened with MIBR's elimination of OG, the latter ending the event in fourth place with stand-in AWPer Mădălin-Andrei "⁠MoDo⁠" Mirea on a 1.23 rating over nine maps.

MIBR then moved on to face paiN in the lower bracket final, with a small break of an hour or so between series.

That ended up showing on the server, as MIBR were blown out of the water on Anubis before finding a brief second wind on Vertigo to push the game to overtime.

Rafael "⁠saffee⁠" Costa ended the series on 42 frags — 12 more than biguzera in second — but MIBR's AWPer could not turn his rating into a win.

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Imperial through to GET Rio grand final as day 2 ends after 19 hours of CS

paiN had only finished their upper bracket final against Imperial after 04:00 local time the night before, and their 2-0 win versus MIBR ensured a rematch between Brazil's two most in-form sides for the title.

That scheduling disaster was the subject of a public disagreement between paiN's biguzera and Imperial's Vinicius "⁠VINI⁠" Figueiredo, after the latter was accused of blocking attempts to reschedule the two teams' meeting late on day two to the final day.

The reason for Imperial's enforcement of the game going ahead, at a 01:00 AM local start time, was to ensure they could catch pre-arranged flights to Malta for their ESL Pro League Season 19 campaign.

The final was originally scheduled for 13:00 local time, with Imperial's flights at 20:25 in the evening, but was pushed back to 16:00 after earlier delays in the tournament. Delaying the upper bracket final may have pushed the grand final even further back.

As it happens, ESL re-booked Imperial's flights to a later time regardless to ensure they could play out the grand final, but the early-morning match was played with Imperial the victors.

The overnight drama added some bite to the grand final rematch but, like MIBR earlier on, paiN entered map one of their second series of the day cold.

Imperial swept them aside 13-6, but as action moved to paiN's pick of Nuke biguzera's side started to look more like themselves with a seven-round streak on the T-side for a 7-5 half that was eventually closed out 13-9.

That momentum was carried into a 9-2 T side lead lead on the decider of Ancient, and though Imperial began to mount a comeback paiN rallied to end their old-school run of five series in three days with the trophy and a $100,000 check.