The beginning of May will be a historic milestone for eSports. Counter-Strike fans will witness the last CS:GO main event and twenty-four teams will compete for two weeks to become the "last CS:GO champion"! This is also the first major event for tournament organizer BLAST. BLAST often entertains its audience with great live performances during its broadcasts. When will the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 take place? What's the prize for the winner? Which teams will play in the Challengers Stage and which will play in the Legends Stage? Telecomasia.net answers all these questions in this article.
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BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 start date
The Major starts on May 8th and runs until May 21st. The most heated matches will take place at the Accor Arena in the French capital, Paris. The arena, located in the center of the city, can accommodate 20,300 spectators. Fans of traditional sports will remember it as the site of the spectacular World Handball Championship final. Culture lovers will remember that the band Rammstein held one of its concerts here in 2012. Now the history of the arena will also include a cyber sports event.
Traditionally, CS:GO majors have three stages: Challengers, Legends, and Champions. There are already eight teams in the Legends stage that have been the most successful in qualifying in their regions. There are another 16 teams that will compete in the Challengers stage. The first two stages will be played using the Swiss system. Teams with three points in their group advance to the next stage. Teams that lose three times will be eliminated from the championship. The matches will be played as BO1, but if the teams are playing to advance to the next stage or to exit the tournament, they will play BO3. The Champions Stage is an Olympic-style playoff. The top eight teams from the Legends Stage form the bracket and play a BO3 series until the first defeat.
Bet on CS:GO with Bet365BLAST.tv Paris Major Prize Pool 2023
The prize pool for the major has been increased to $1,250,000 since 2022. All participants in the major will receive cash prizes. Teams that reach the playoffs will receive BLAST Premier points in addition to the cash prize. The winner of the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 will receive $500,000, 3,500 BLAST Premier points, and an invitation to the IEM Cologne 2023 and the BLAST Premier World Final. The complete distribution is shown below:
| Place | Cash prize | Invitations | BLAST Premier Points |
| 1 | 500 000 | IEM Cologne 2023 BLAST Premier: World Final 2023 | 3 500 |
| 2 | 170 000 | 2 750 | |
| 3-4 | 80 000 | 1 775 | |
| 5-8 | 45 000 | 1 050 | |
| 9-16 | 20 000 | ||
| 17-24 | 10 000 |
BLAST.tv Paris Major participants 2023
At the latest CS:GO Major, the teams' lineups were completely different from the last event of a similar scale in Rio. The European Qualifiers were full of sensations, so there will not only be the regular favorites, but also many new names competing for the right to be called the Champion. 9INE sensationally made it to the Challengers stage, with the famous former professional player PashaBiceps and Into The Breach team from the UK cheering for them. Degster and OG, m0NESY and G2 made it to the major too. The complete list of participants is shown below:
Legends Stage
- Bad News Eagles;
- Fnatic;
- FURIA Esports;
- Heroic;
- Into The Breach;
- Natus Vincere;
- Team Vitality;
- 9INE.
Challengers stage
- Apeks;
- Complexity Gaming;
- ENCE;
- FaZe Clan;
- Fluxo;
- FORZE Esports;
- G2 Esports;
- Grayhound Gaming;
- GamerLegion;
- Monte;
- MOUZ;
- Ninjas in Pyjamas;
- OG;
- paIN Gaming;
- Team Liquid;
- The MongolZ.
BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 schedule
Challengers stage
May 8 (time zone GMT+3)
- 12:30 Monte vs FaZe Clan;
- 12:30 paIN Gaming vs Fluxo;
- 14:00 G2 vs The MongolZ;
- 14:00 GamerLegion vs Complexity Gaming;
- 15:30 FORZE Esports vs Grayhound Gaming;
- 15:30 Apeks vs Team Liquid;
- 17:00 Ninjas in Pyjamas vs MOUZ;
- 17:00 OG vs ENCE.
BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 favorites
Qualifications in Europe have become an overwhelming challenge for many teams from the CIS, so Natus Vincere is the favorite of Eastern Europe for the tournament. The "Born to Win" swapped sdy for npl, slowly integrated the academy player into their system and now they are steadily fighting for trophies. Natus Vincere consistently ranked in the top 4 at the last three S-class tournaments, but never overcame the semifinals. The best player of the recent years, s1mple, also plays there. The sniper of the "born to win" has played perfectly at the last tournaments and was consistently among the top 10 players of the events. So the team will be a threat to every opponent in the majors, just like before.
FaZe Clan, the best team of 2022, added the Intel Grand Slam gold bars to their trophy case after winning the ESL Pro League Season 17 title. Karrigan's team had a poor season last fall, but it feels like the captain found the right words for his teammates and inspired them to work harder. Even though FaZe Clan did not make the playoffs at the last event in Rio, they will be a different team at the Major, motivated and eager to keep building their trophy shelf. Every player on the team is a star at his position.
The start of 2023 was marked by total domination of G2. NiKo can finally talk about winning tournaments again! He and his cousin huNter have become even more dangerous, and m0NESY completes the trio of stars. Ilya proved himself to be the future of the professional CS:GO scene last year, and before the Paris Major he was seriously considered to be the number one sniper in the world. But there are three fantastic players who have started to turn their talent into results with the help of hard work - jks and HooXi. The latter received a tremendous wave of criticism in the fall of 2022, and now he makes the haters gape and admire G2's play after every tournament. And if the team wins the Paris Major, it won't come as a surprise.
But the last CS:GO Major is remarkable because every team will do everything to make history. That's why the winner can be both the obvious favorite and one of the dark horses. The most heated CS:GO matches will take place in Paris! The Telecomasia.net staff will follow the events closely and inform you about the progress of the BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023!
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