paiN avoid embarrassment, eliminate Lynn Vision from EPL S21

biguzera's side recovered from a 1-13 blowout on Dust2 and avoided disaster on Anubis to stay alive in Sweden.

paiN have barely kept themselves alive in Stage 1 of ESL Pro League after scraping past Lynn Vision in a three-map series, requiring double overtime to close the Anubis decider after being punished for sloppy play and giving up multiple clutches to Junjie "⁠EmiliaQAQ⁠" Tang.

The Brazilians lost Dust2 1-13 and were down 5-9 on the Anubis decider before coming back on the T side, but couldn't get the job done in regulation after two heroic clutches by EmiliaQAQ kept Lynn Vision in the running.

One of those was largely the fault of haphazard, one-by-one peeks by paiN, while an incredible prefire on Lucas "⁠nqz⁠" Soares allowed EmiliaQAQ to convert the other.

But there is little that can be done to explain the third clutch won by EmiliaQAQ, a 1v4 in overtime where he stuck the defuse in front of three paiN players, which allowed Lynn Vision the margin to force a second set of extra rounds before they were eliminated from EPL with a 1-3 record.

Worrying signs at EPL continue for paiN

It was an ending befitting the quality of Counter-Strike paiN have shown in Sweden, where they've had a brutal reality check just two weeks after the high of reaching playoffs at PGL Cluj-Napoca.

They got an opening win over Housebets to kick off Stage 1 of EPL before a one-sided loss to M80 and a surprise defeat to FlyQuest snatched the wind from their sails.

Down 1-2 and facing elimination, paiN then found themselves flattened by Lynn Vision on Dust2.

Sike "⁠z4kr⁠" Zhang's 18-2 K-D and 2.36-rated showing, paired with excellent entries from EmiliaQAQ, ravaged the Brazilian team's defenses for an almost flawless half, with paiN getting their only round of the map in round 12 before it was put to bed.

A 1.84-rated showing and early 1v3 clutch to convert a hero AK, four Glock round by João "⁠snow⁠" Vinicius fired paiN back up, and the 17-year-old remained chipper as the teams yelled back-and-forth for some friendly banter on the Anubis decider.

snow remained confident even after the messy end to the series, where paiN scraped by thanks to a late resurgence by Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt and nqz, but it's unlikely the words he shared are the same as what biguzera will have to say to his team in the locker room.

"We're feeling pretty good," snow told the broadcast after the match.

"It was a hard match against Lynn Vision, they are a really good team. I think the entire Bo3 we were very resilient, we were very good in the match and we had a lot of good rounds. It was so good, so hard."