paiN qualify for Shanghai Major in style with 13-0 over 9z

17-year-old snow will play at his first Major after paiN embarrassed 9z on Dust2 to close the series.

paiN have locked in a spot at the Perfect World Shanghai Major with an outrageous 13-0 scoreline on Dust2 to close out a two-map series against 9z.

The Brazilians are the third team to qualify from the Americas, joining Wildcard and their countrymen from MIBR who advanced with 3-0 records on day two.

paiN ended day one of the RMR with a 1-1 record after a win over Nouns and loss to Wildcard, but eased past Imperial 13-5 to reach the 2-1 qualifying round where they handled 9z with relative ease.

It is the fourth Major for Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt and third in a row for paiN, who were stopped shy of making the playoffs at PGL Major Copenhagen by Natus Vincere in the 2-2 round.

Mere weeks after that run, paiN were forced into a player change after Vinicius "⁠n1ssim⁠" Pereira's loan deal expired and the organization couldn't come to an agreement with Sharks for a buyout.

Read more

n1ssim returns to Sharks after paiN loan deal expires

17-year-old João "⁠snow⁠" Vinicius was brought in a month later and has now qualified for his first Major, finding early career success under the wing of biguzera.

The Brazilian captain led by example at the start of the series, allowing 9z only sporadic CT rounds on Mirage in what ended as an 8-4 half.

A pistol and conversion extended paiN's edge to 10-4, but their own lackluster defense and 9z's slow defaults brought the game all the way back to 12-11 before a quad kill and half-blind spray transfer from Kaue "⁠kauez⁠" Kaschuk edged out a paiN victory.

Whatever happened during that Mirage defense was quickly forgotten on Dust2, where paiN obliterated 9z round after round in a flawless first half.

"Right now, we were so prepared for their Dust2," Lucas "⁠nqz⁠" Soares said of the domination after the series. "Everything they were doing on the map we kinda knew, and were expecting them to do. The preparation was really good.

"Other than that, we were playing all the situations really well, the comms were really, really good, and aim-wise we were sharp as hell."

9z barely scraped more than two kills per round on the T side, getting their first three-kill round at 8-0, handing snow his first death (9-0 K-D) two rounds later only to lose to another kauez clutch, and getting another three-kill round in the final round of the half. kauez then bagged another quad-kill and clutch to end 9z's night in total misery and qualify paiN to the Major in dominant fashion.

"The confidence is high as ever," nqz said about making it through. "We were expecting to qualify and the way that we lost to Wildcard proved to us that it's not that easy to do it, that we have to put in effort and try to avoid mistakes."