The flagship tour of Aleksi “aleksib” Virolainen and the Ninjas in Pajamas ended in an embarrassing defeat.
Aleksi “aleksib” Virolis, the only Finnish player in the Counter-Strike Value tournament being played in Paris, will not appear in the playoffs starting on Thursday.
Ninjas in Pajamas’ journey came to an end in the decisive fifth match of the second group stage, where underdog Apex was the better of two straight maps. For NiP and Virolainen, the tournament ended in quite an embarrassing way.
NiP led the opening map Vertigo 8-2, but lost 17-19 in overtime. In the second map, Ancient, NiP was practically already locked in a win when the game was 14–3 for the Estonian team. Against all expectations, Apex miraculously extended the map to overtime, with NiP losing 16-19.
– This is one of the craziest comebacks I’ve seen in a long time, commented commentator Anders Blume on Apex’s incredible rise.
– really sick choke [pelin hajoaminen], no one could. A total meltdown couldn’t be a worse place, Twitter commentator Arttu Hämälainen.
NiP results in the second group stage of the Major
11-16 vs Fnatic (Nuke)
16–8 vs Furia (Nuke)
9–16 v. Na’Vi (Overpass)
2-0 vs ENCE (16-7 Mirage, 16-10 Ancient)
0-2 V. Vertigo (17-19 Vertigo, 16-19 Chronic)
After the defeat and the end of the major tour, Virolainen appeared for an interview on the live broadcast. The Estonian was silent for a long time before opening his mouth to answer the first question:
At least we were competitive on both maps. Good start, but…
The sentence was left unfinished when Virolainen started smiling brightly at what had happened.
– I smile because it seems unreal.
– I think I am in shock, the Finnish captain added later.
The eight-team playoffs begin with a real treat on Thursday as the rock-hard Heroics take on the always dangerous FaZe Clan. Home crowd favorites Vitality and British surprise Into the Breach clashed in Thursday’s second match. Friday’s matches are Monte – Gamer Legion and Team Liquid – Apex.
Both semi-finals will be played on Saturday, and the final will be played on Sunday, starting at 6 pm. On other days, the first game will start at 4 PM and the second at 8 PM. Arina Ko on Twitch.
The Paris Ranking tournament is the 19th for CS:GO as well as the last one. Valve will release Counter-Strike 2 during the summer, and the first Major to be played alongside it will be held in Denmark in March 2024.
cs:go champion
DreamHack Winter 2013: Fnatic
EMS One Katowice 2014: Virtus.pro
ESL One Cologne 2014: Ninjas in Pajamas
DreamHack Winter 2014: Team LDLC.com
ESL One Katowice 2015: Fnatic
ESL One Cologne 2015: Fnatic
DreamHack Club – Napoca 2015: Team Envy
MLG Columbus 2016: Luminosity Gaming
ESL One Cologne 2016: SK Gaming
ELEAGUE ATLANTA 2017: Astralis
PGL Krakow 2017: Gambit
ELEAGUE Boston 2018: Cloud9
FACEIT London 2018: Astralis
IEM Katowice 2019: Astralis
Star Ladder Berlin 2019: Astralis
PGL Stockholm 2021: Navi
PGL Antwerp 2022: FaZe Clan
IEM Rio 2022: The Outsiders
Blast TV Paris 2023: ?
