paiN secure final Austin Major playoff spot over Virtus.pro

The South American squad denied VP a a ten-round comeback in the final round of regulation on the Dust2 decider map.

paiN beat Virtus.pro in a three-map series to bring the BLAST.tv Austin Major group stage to an end and securing the final spot in the quarter-finals.

Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt and his men got off on the right foot on Mirage, their map pick, where eight T rounds were more than enough to leave Virtus.pro in the dust, as they went on to take it 13-8 after the half, with Lucas "⁠nqz⁠" Soares leading the way with a 1.69 rating.

Virtus.pro's Inferno pick brought the series back to an even 1-1, and they won it in even more dominating fashion, winning the T side 7-5, but then putting up a wall on the defense to close it out 13-6.

Dust2 survived the veto to play host as the tiebreaker, and from the very beginning it was paiN who dominated on the attack. The Spanish-speaking duo of Franco "⁠dgt⁠" Garcia and David "⁠dav1deuS⁠" Tapia Maldonado led the way. Up 9-1, the Chilean rifler downed three with a beautiful spraydown, after which his Uruguayan teammate won a 1vs1 to get paiN on double digits.

After a 10-2 half, paiN couldn't close it out immediately as Virtus.pro worked on setting up a comeback. Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov and company were successful all the way to the final round of regulation after winning six in a row while up against match point, but in the end could not pull through at the final hurdle as the South American team won a 2vs2 retake on B to seal the deal.