PaiN Gaming finally won today after an hours-long series against Sharks Esports in the Challengers Stage of the PGL Stockholm Major. With this win, paiN stay alive while Sharks join GODSENT on the plane home to Brazil.
The two 0-2 teams first met on Vertigo, where both CS:GO squads relied on sound queues and quick rotates to have successful CT sides. PaiN led 9-6 at halftime and quickly built that into a 12-6 lead early in their T-side half. But Sharks answered back with a big CT side and 16 second-half kills from Romeu “zevy” Rocco alone.
Sharks won five of the last six rounds of regulation to send it to overtime, where they continued their strong CT showing with three straight overtime rounds. PaiN could only muster one round on CT in overtime, though. Sharks outplayed them with utility in the fifth overtime round to take control of the B bombsite and shut down a retake. Sharks won Vertigo 19-16.
On paiN’s pick of Ancient, Sharks were the ones to take control of the map, delivering another strong CT performance in the later rounds of the first half. They led 9-6 at halftime, then increased it to 15-9 to go to match point. But this time, paiN were the ones to rally with six straight rounds to send the second map to overtime as well.
Some heroic clutches from Sharks gave them a 3-0 lead to start out overtime, but paiN fired back with three straight of their own. Both teams surprisingly couldn’t convert a single CT round in the first overtime. The second overtime came down to the final round with paiN on map point (21-20 on the CT side) and a terrific triple from Rafael “saffee” Costa on 메이저놀이터 the AWP sent the series to Nuke.
On Nuke, the AWPs of paiN were ringing throughout the entire first half, especially from saffee, resulting in an 11-4 lead for paiN at halftime after their CT side. PaiN won a hectic pistol round to put a ton of pressure on the shoulders of Sharks and build a 14-4 lead. A disastrous gun round for Sharks at that point sealed their fate, though, and the marathon series ended with a decisive 16-4 win for paiN on Nuke.
PaiN’s eventual victory in this lengthy series means they’ll survive at least one more day at PGL Stockholm, but they still need to win two straight series to make it to the Legends Stage. Sharks are one of two Brazilian teams to get knocked out of the Challengers Stage at 0-3 after GODSENT fell hard to an awoken Astralis team earlier today.
