Wildcard see off paiN to reach quarter-finals in Copenhagen

The Brazilian outfit leaves the tournament in last place after a rough showing.

Wildcard are through to the quarter-final stage of BLAST Rivals Season 1 following a 2-0 victory against paiN, who are still winless with Franco "⁠dgt⁠" Garcia. The Brazilian team put up a good fight on Inferno - a messy game from both sides - but couldn't get much going on Anubis and barely avoided another 13-0 rout.

Heading into the series, Love "⁠phzy⁠" Smidebrant had talked about the need for his team to come in sharp to counter the Brazilians' somewhat puggy style because of the little practice time with dgt.

Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz's troops came out of the gate strong and raced to a 7-1 lead on the T side of Inferno, with paiN bringing the deficit down to two rounds before the side switch with a 2v4 clutch in the final round.

The game descended into chaos in the second half as mistakes crept in and neither side managed to take control of proceedings. Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt pulled off a massive 1v4 clutch late in the half to keep paiN in it, but Aran "⁠Sonic⁠" Groesbeek responded with a clutch of his own to turn the tide back in Wildcard's favor.

paiN looked sluggish and disjointed on their map pick of Anubis as they couldn't get a single round on the CT side, with phzy leading the charge in the first half with a 17-2 score and a 127 ADR.

The Brazilians refused to throw in the towel and strung a few rounds together on the offense, but their comeback was halted six rounds into the second half, when Josh "⁠JBa⁠" Barutt pulled off a 1v2 clutch.

Still early days for paiN

The BLAST Rivals simply came too soon for paiN, who had just one practice day with dgt ahead of the event. The Danish tournament also marked biguzera's return to the team after he missed IEM Melbourne because of health issues.

After taking a map off MOUZ on day, the Brazilians posed little threat to Wildcard and surprisingly fell flat on their pick of Anubis. João "⁠snow⁠" Vinicius was one of the few positives for paiN from today's 0-2 loss, putting up some impactful rounds across the series, which he finished with a 1.32 rating.

paiN leave the tournament in last place and without having won either map pick - a clear indication that they are still trying to figure out how to play with the Uruguayan star.

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It would be silly to draw conclusions until this new paiN squad has had more time to gel, also considering this was dgt's first tournament in nearly three months. PGL Astana should give us a much more accurate view of what to expect from the Brazilian side at the Austin Major.

"We're going to use this whole week to practice and talk about the things we played," Lucas "⁠nqz⁠" Soares said after the match. "Since we didn't practice too much, the most important part is talking about those things.

"In Astana we hope to show a much better CS than we showed here."