Apeks vs paIN Gaming Prediction: Apeks should start the Major with a win

Prediction for the match between Apeks and paIN Gaming which will take place on March 17. Who will turn out to be stronger? Check the team conditions! Several betting options are available.

At the last CS:GO Major in Paris, Apeks made it to the top 4 and became one of the sensations at the tournament. Ten months have passed since then iM and kyxsan left the team, but the team did not break down and confidently passed RMR at PGL Copenhagen Major 2024. STYKO.

Apeks' recent results on the professional scene cannot be called stable. After the Paris Majors, they couldn't compete with the top players at other D-1 tournaments, usually finishing after two defeats. The situation improved a bit in December at the tier-2 tournaments. Apeks reached the finals of Elisa Masters Espoo 2023 and ESL Challenger at DreamHack Atlanta 2023. In those, they lost to FURIA Esports and Virtus.pro, respectively, but at least they had some good events and wins against top-15 HLTV teams. At the RMR for PGL Copenhagen Major 2024, the team got lucky with the seeding - first OG with young players, then Monte, who had problems with the game, and Apeks fought with ECSTATIC to get to the majors.

The team in CS2 achieved local victories over top-10 HLTV opponents, but rarely. However, against lower level teams Apeks has problems less often. They have been lucky with seeding again, only in Copenhagen, and this is a great opportunity to start with a win.

The story of paIN Gaming is partly similar to Apeks. Somewhere, the Brazilians played in domestic tournaments, and sometimes they won, but the main success can be called CCT Online Finals #4 and $40,000 prize money. It's not the level of a tier-1 team, but it's a solid enough team that can win one or two sensational encounters on a good day.

At the last major paIN Gaming took 17th-19th place and was one step away from going to Legends. In Copenhagen from that squad only captain biguzera remained, and the rest of his teammates will play in the majors for the first time. At RMR paIN Gaming avoided dangerous opponents: first they beat Legacy with coldzera. The seeding gave RED Canids - a regular tier-3 Brazilian team, and ODDIK got caught in the match to qualify for the majors. The American RMR this year raised a lot of questions, and it was frustrating to see Team Liquid and M80 miss the tournament, while paIN Gaming took the easiest route.

In theory, the team can snatch one or two wins at the Challengers stage, but a pass to Legends is not believable. Brazilians, of course, can compete with European teams, but if they practice consistently. And paIN Gaming mostly played inside Brazil, and even there they were not the best.

Both teams got lucky on seeding, but the level of Europe in CS2 is now much higher than in South America. Apeks should take advantage of another gift in the tournament grid and start the majors with a win.