On May 8, Apeks, one of the tier-two teams that made it to the BLAST Paris Major, made CS:GO history. After defeating Grayhound, the international team equaled the feat previously accomplished by only the prime Astralis, first against MIBR at the FACEIT London Major in 2018 and then against Cloud9 at the IEM Katowice Major in 2019.
Apeks’ 16-0 in the Challengers Stage happened thanks to their stronghold on the CT side. They shut down Grayhound every round on Mirage, and four of their five players died less than five times in the 16 rounds played. Justinas “jL” Lekavicius was the big name of the series, finishing with 23 kills in total and a 2.01 rating. This is Apeks’ first Major ever as an organization and three of its players—jL, Damjan “kyxsan” Stoilkovski, and Tim “nawwk” Jonasson—are also playing the first Major of their lives.
Astralis, on the other hand, were the best team in the world when they defeated MIBR and C9 by 16-0 scores in different Majors and undoubtedly the best CS:GO team of all time. The lineup of dev1ce, dupreeh, gla1ve, Xyp9x, and Magisk won three Majors together between 2018 and 2019, and the first four also won the ELEAGUE Atlanta Major in 2017 with Kjaerbye.
As for Grayhound, most of their players understandably didn’t comment on the loss on their socials. AWPer Alistair Johnston was one of the few to talk about it and wrote on Twitter with a classic meme: “sometimes maybe good sometimes maybe shit.” The official Grayhound account on Twitter took it lightly, and wrote they’re in Paris to lose by 16-0 at the final CS:GO Major and not to take part in the competition.
The victory over Grayhound put Apeks in the 2-0 pool of the Challengers Stage and thus just one best-of-three win away from reaching the Legends Stage of the BLAST Paris Major. The Australians, on the other hand, are in the 1-1 pool and will still play a best-of-one on May 9 while Apeks will play their first best-of-three.