paiN fall in the clutch
paiN might have crushed the hearts of American fans everywhere when they demolished Complexity in the 1-1 matchup, but the community remained rallied behind them as one of their own. Today, there was high hopes and pressure on the team as they looked to defeat Monte, but in the end they would fall, a disappointing end to one of the region's most exciting teams.
For paiN, this is just the start of what has been several months and even years of investment in the North American region, where the organization first entered the region back in 2016. While they were unable to win today, with Rodrigo "biguzera" Bittencourt as IGL, this team has only become bigger and better, finally threatening on the international stage.
The match began on Anubis, which paiN were unable to convert last night against Apeks. Despite an early lead in their match against the Europeans, the Brazilian squad could not come together and pull through, seeing a collapse on their CT-side and an incredibly ineffectual T-side. Today, it looks like paiN were preparing the whole time to play Monte on this map as they stormed ahead on their CT-side, gaining an incredible nine rounds which would prove invaluable.
Despite switching to the T-side, the momentum behind paiN would not stop. Whereas yesterday the team were routinely stopped short, today they looked to breeze onto the bombsite and convert round after round, only losing in the most extraordinary of ways.
However, the next map pick would spell disaster for the Brazilians. Their own pick of Nuke would not go their way at all and it was like the Brazilians didn't even make it into the server. They would only get a single round on their T-side as they got absolutely blown away 16-1. An emotional devastation, paiN clearly had work to do in order to make it back.
The decider would be Mirage, where both Monte and paiN are comfortable. With paiN on the CT side to start off the match, there was hope they could establish a quick advantage and take control. For their credit, they did. A quick 5-0 lead was thanks to biguzera's impressive 12-0 line to start the game, but they would squander that lead and go to the half with only a 8-7 advantage.
A second half would go from bad to worse as a pistol round win would turn into a force-buy loss and then suddenly the game was turned upside down with Monte ahead 10-9. From there, paiN looked unable to comeback and slowly, painstakingly, would fall 16-12 and lose the series 2-1.
MontepaiN| Monte |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Viktor 'sdy' Orudzhev |
63 - 36 | +27 | 88.0 | 82.6% | 1.39 |
 Mohammad 'BOROS' Malhas |
49 - 48 | +1 | 85.0 | 73.9% | 1.19 |
 Szymon 'kRaSnaL' Mrozek |
51 - 47 | +4 | 86.4 | 69.6% | 1.16 |
| Sergiy 'DemQQ' Demchenko |
46 - 42 | +4 | 75.8 | 66.7% | 1.14 |
| Volodymyr 'Woro2k' Veletniuk |
45 - 41 | +4 | 64.9 | 71.0% | 1.06 |
| paiN |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Rodrigo 'biguzera' Bittencourt |
63 - 52 | +11 | 96.6 | 69.6% | 1.33 |
| Wesley 'hardzao' Lopes |
44 - 45 | -1 | 69.9 | 65.2% | 0.94 |
| Felipe 'skullz' Medeiros |
38 - 52 | -14 | 70.9 | 58.0% | 0.86 |
| Gabriel 'NEKIZ' Schenato |
35 - 52 | -17 | 57.9 | 56.5% | 0.73 |
| Romeu 'zevy' Rocco |
34 - 53 | -19 | 53.2 | 63.8% | 0.68 |
