The final step before the BLAST Premier Spring Finals is over, and paiN Gaming has won the American Showdown to take the last ticket to Lisbon. They won the single elimination bracket following victories against Team Liquid, MIBR and FURIA, proving that they deserve to be one of the eight best teams in the world participating in the Spring Finals.
Aside from paiN, TL, MIBR and FURIA, GODSENT, Evil Geniuses, ATK and Complexity Gaming joined the race to become the last man standing, but the single elimination bracket didn’t treat them nicely at all. Funnily enough, the only game that ended 2-1 was paiN’s first game against Team Liquid. You can find more details about the matches below.
Quarterfinals
GODSENT faced Evil Geniuses in the first quarterfinals game of the BLAST Premier Spring American Showdown 2022. EG’s US-based roster wasn’t a match for GODSENT’s Brazilian sensation, taking Overpass 16-8 and Mirage 16-11.
FURIA Esports played ATK the following day, and the difference was too big once again. KSCERATO’s 38-14 K-D led his team to a 16-8 Inferno and 16-1 Vertigo victories, advancing to the next round.
Complexity Gaming faced MIBR next, and once again, the Brazilians showed that they are the leaders of CS:GO in the Americas. Although Complexity tried to stay in the game, thanks to junior’s clutch attempts, MIBR won Dust II 16-9 and Inferno 16-10 and moved on to the semifinals.
The best quarterfinals series followed that: Team Liquid vs paiN Gaming. TL became the only US team that could challenge the Brazilians here at the Spring American Showdown. After paiN’s 16-9 win on Vertigo, TL pulled the upset on their pick, defeating paiN 16-13 on Ancient. NAF’s 83-60 K-D performance wasn’t enough to bring another victory to TL’s side as paiN Gaming took the win in overtime on Overpass, 19-17.
Semifinals
With all four Brazilian rosters qualifying for the semifinals, we expected better matches but we were proved wrong a second time. FURIA and paiN proved to be stronger than their opponents and deserved the tickets to grand final.
FURIA Esports’ rival was GODSENT in the semifinals. After a 12-3 start on Overpass, FURIA only needed to take four rounds in the second half. Following that, they advanced to Nuke. It looked close for the most of the game, but FURIA slowly took control, winning the first half 9-6 and second 7-5, securing the grand finals ticket.
It was time for another biguzera show where paiN Gaming faced MIBR. paiN played their own pick Vertigo incredibly well, taking an early advantage and finishing it on CT side 16-10. Following that, they were able to stop MIBR’s strong T side on Dust II, and managed a 8-2 score after the switch, becoming the second finalists of the Spring American Showdown.
The grand final: paiN vs FURIA
A rivalry in Brazil spanning across many games, we witnessed it once again at BLAST Premier Spring American Showdown 2022 Grand Final: paiN Gaming vs FURIA Esports. Both these teams looked very strong during their games before, so it surely would be an amazing final, fitting for such a great tournament so far. However, paiN proved us wrong with their dominating performance.
For the first game of the BO3 series, we were headed to Vertigo, paiN Gaming’s pick. Although paiN started with a 9-6 advantage in the first half, FURIA, led by drop and KSCERATO, managed to slow their pace and take it to extra time in the second half. After almost letting FURIA take it home in the first overtime, paiN managed to take four in the second one, finishing it 22-20.
The next stop was Inferno. Inferno was a hardzao show for certain, and paiN Gaming had such an advantage that after the first half, they almost secured Spring Finals participation: it was 12-3. On CT side, FURIA managed to take 6 rounds in a row but it wasn’t enough as all paiN needed was three rounds, and they found three rounds in a row to finish it and make it to Lisbon.
paiN Gaming’s biguzera was definitely the MVP of the tournament, even though hardzao stood out in the last game. biguzera was great during that series too and he carried paiN team to victory all tournament long. He managed a +58 K-D diff in 7 maps, and although his K/D percentage was surpassed by HEN1’s 1.59, biguzera stood in second place with 1.47.
Spring American Showdown 2022’s peak viewer count was 196,129 according to Esports Charts, with the competition averaging 120,443. The most watched game was paiN vs FURIA grand final, followed by GODSENT vs FURIA, Complexity vs MIBR, Liquid vs paiN and MIBR vs paiN.
paiN took the $20,000 and Spring Finals ticket home, and also earned 1600 BLAST Premier points. Sadly, they aren’t participating ath the PGL Major Antwerp 2022, but the Spring Finals will be played in June, so it isn’t that far anymore. If you are interested, you can find those events, watch the games live and place your bets on Luckbox.
