Lynn Vision to Austin Major Stage 3 over B8

Lynn Vision become the first Chinese-majority team to reach the top 16 stage of a Major in seven years.

Lynn Vision have secured a berth in the BLAST.tv Austin Major's third stage following a 2-1 victory over B8.

By doing so, Lynn Vision became the first Chinese-majority team to reach the top 16 stage of a Major since FACEIT London in 2018, where TYLOO did so and placed 12th-14th.

The achievement also means that Asia's spots at the next Major will increase from five to six overall and the directly invited teams by VRS to either Stage 2 or 3 from one to two, with The MongolZ also featuring in the top 16 stage.

In the qualification match, B8 and Lynn Vision began by trading convincing wins on their picks. Lynn Vision struck first on Dust2 with an insurmountable offense led by Qihao "⁠C4LLM3SU3⁠" Su, who kicked it off with a Glock quad-kill and turned it into his best map of the Major so far.

B8 did not let that sway them and came away with a similarly dominant Terrorist side on Ancient, and denied Lynn Vision the comeback despite a promising start to the second half from the Chinese squad.

Anubis was left to decide, and there the Chinese team came prepared with setups that seemed perfectly tailored to B8's approaches.

Sike "⁠z4kr⁠" Zhang stepped up to the plate with huge impact in three consecutive rounds to give Lynn Vision eight on the defensive side, a rarity on the typically T-heavy map. Once sides switched, they rallied to a quick closing after turning two 3v5 situations around.

B8 fall short in promising campaign

The result brought an end to an inspired campaign from B8, who passed through Stage 1 unscathed and went on to show promise in a difficult run of opponents in Stage 2.

But after beating Falcons and HEROIC with a loss to Virtus.pro in between, the Ukrainian side could not convert two chances to qualify for the next stage in the organization's first Major appearance after being outclassed in their map losses to FURIA and Lynn Vision.

"It's a good result, but we could have qualified to the third stage," Andrii "⁠npl⁠" Kukharskyi said on the BLAST broadcast after the match. "A normal, maybe a bit more than normal result."