NAF, sdy and iM Fighting for MVP: BLAST Paris Major 2023 in Metrics

It's no longer trendy to be surprised by the unexpected results of the current major. It is trendy to be surprised by the number of people who made a Pick'em for the playoff stage. Now it's time for many people to watch the Major just for the sporting interest. After all, no one can guarantee that the playoff finale will be a Heroic/FaZe vs. Vitality matchup after such a crazy main stage.

The upcoming stage holds as many surprises as the last two. We'll try to give a rational explanation of the Legends stage in our traditional statistical report of the second week of the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023. Read more about how the support meta is changing and who is a contender for the MVP of the Major in this Telecomasia.net article.

We wake up to a reality where iM, sdy and isak are among the top 10 players in the Major and might stay there until the end of the tournament. What's more, of all the top players who dropped out of the Major, it's not s1mple, NiKo or m0NESY, but jks who stayed in the top 10. So only ZywOo and NAF deserve the title of absolute MVP of the tournament (assuming they make it to at least the semi-finals).

Given the current tournament bracket, where the GamerLegion vs. Monte pairing looks the most unpredictable, iM and isak not only have a chance of not falling any lower, but also of securing a place in the overall standings to fight for the MVP title. Jokes aside, we all remember the conditions of the Best Player of the Tournament award according to Telecomasia: we rely only on ACM3, without taking into account winning the final, like they do on HLTV. So even sdy, who was fired from Natus Vincere as a "weak link", has every chance to restart his career with our award in the Major.

We'd like to point out the abundance of supports in the top ten: there are as many of them (3) as there are entry-fraggers, but we rarely see it in the biggest tournaments. It's too early to make such dramatic statements, but it seems that a new meta of stylistically active supports is finally taking shape in 2023. This could be bad news for players like interz, KRIMZ, or JDC, whose role is more about passive control than constant movement and duels.

Headtr1ck's tears after the exit caused more emotion than GeT_RiGhT's tears after winning the championship. It's not even about the timing: the young talent defended the label for the first time in his career with dignity, becoming the team's best player in the tournament. Daniil Valitov really gave it his all in Paris, winning crucial rounds for Ninjas in Pyjamas against ENCE and FURIA. Headtr1ck will be seen differently after the Major, finally stepping away from the endless comparisons with m0NESY. For the first time an unspoken confrontation between еру former teammates ended with an absolute knockout victory of Valitov, and both are perceived to be on the same level.

Even though we've almost finished the list of MVPs, we completely overlooked broky. The latvian sniper was the main factor of FaZe victories, but then disappeared from the radar for a long time after last year's IEM Katowice 2022. In Paris he became the savior of FaZe again. Rain is not playing the strongest part yet, and more than one English-speaking expert has already commented on the decline of Twistzz. For the team's misfortune, their first meeting in the playoffs will take place against Heroic in their optimal form. So it's up to broky whether the Major will become a «failure» or a «success» for FaZe.

If we look at the past materials, BOROS has not only maintained his skills, but has also proven himself against tier-1 opponents. There is no doubt about his successful career after Paris (even outside of Monte), and regardless of the final place of his team, BOROS can be considered an absolute EVP.

Sdy probably tops a rating for the first time in his career. Yes, the current situation is not final. Yes, after the first loss the stats can drop drastically. However, there is a considerable lead over his nearest pursuer, his first playoff opponent, isak. Victor's number one goal to become the best riffler of the entire tournament is to play the Champions Stage in such a way that those 0.24 points are enough to keep him in first place.

The second surprise was the Into the Breach duo, who played the main stage of the Major just as well. It's nice to see that the tier-2 roster is statistically balanced, and each player has the right to handle some tough moments on their own. They are far from the MVP and even EVP, but the British team has already achieved their mini victory.

NAF got off to a slow start in the Challengers Stage, but by the end of the main stage he had erased any doubts about his form. The average damage per round is simply monstrous for a support, and the focus on shootouts is fully justified by both K/D and percentage of useful rounds. The special metric (rounds without 50% kills) destroys all logic in the Canadian's numbers: with a fairly high K/D of 1.29, Keith Markovic manages to play more than half of his rounds with pure "support" efficiency. For 2023, that's the most perfect performance by a supporting player.

Sadly, we have to say goodbye to jks and Perfecto. We were not prepared for them to lose the fight for the MVP title in the Legends stage. These two of the world's strongest supports had excellent specialty metrics and useful round percentages, but unfortunately it wasn't enough to make it to the playoffs.

The Champions Stage begins on May 18th at 16:00 GMT+3. The first game day at the Accor Arena will kick off with Heroic vs. FaZe, followed by Vitality and Into the Breach. Follow the last CS:GO Major on our website!