2 CS:GO titans are on the brink of elimination early at BLAST Paris Major

Two teams that many thought would be in contention for reaching the grand finals of the BLAST Paris Major now face the rest of the Legends Stage with their backs to the wall, in what is the last ever CS:GO Major.

At the end of day one of the Legends Stage on May 13, both G2 Esports and FaZe Clan hold 0-2 records after consecutive best-of-one losses each. Given that both teams entered the Major as top-ranked rosters, and considering how well they both did in the Challengers Stage, seeing both teams at 0-2 is truly shocking.

Both squads came up short in their opening matches of the day, but both also lost to teams that could also be labeled as contenders, with G2 falling to Vitality in their own backyard, while FaZe lost to Heroic. But both G2 and FaZe took shocking losses at the hands of Bad News Eagles and Into the Breach, respectively: teams that many believe overperformed at the RMR, and teams that many viewer pass users thought would go 0-3 in Legends.

Against Into the Breach, no one on FaZe except for Broky seemed to find any consistent opening kills, and just days after dismissing retirement rumors, rain put up one of his worst recorded individual map performances ever on Inferno. Meanwhile, G2 squandered both a first half lead and a splendid game from NiKo with a putrid CT performance on Ancient.

FaZe and G2 have both felt the sting of best-of-one losses before. FaZe followed up on their Major victory at PGL Stockholm with an 0-3 performance at IEM Rio, which started with two best-of-one losses to Cloud9 and Vitality. G2’s losses to C9 and 1win back at the IEM Rio EU RMR led to them missing the Major altogether last year.

The two teams have at least avoided drawing against each other in the 0-2 pool; G2 will face off against FURIA while FaZe takes on 9INE. While this means that one of the two is not guaranteed to go home 0-3, there is a chance that both teams could somehow get eliminated. It’s hard to imagine many Pick ‘Em players picking either of these teams to go 0-3, but it’s doubtful you’d find anyone at all that thought they could both end the Legends stage winless.