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The favorites were mostly back in the driving seat during the second day of the Legends Stage.

A return to normalcy, more or less

After an upset-filled day one, the second day went a long way to restore normality. Not all of the favorites survived day two unscathed, as another big team fell at the hands of Into the Breach, this time ENCE after they let one of the British team's favorite maps, Vertigo, through.

Though not quite in as large of a disparity, fnatic were another big brand to falter in the final best-of-ones, against GamerLegion. Natus Vincere and Apeks won the last two single map affairs, facing off against Ninjas in Pyjamas and Bad News Eagles, to make it to within one victory from the playoffs.

IEM Rio finalists Vitality and Heroic secured the first two playoffs spots

The winning quartet from the 1-1 pool was soon joined by Monte and Liquid after the duo fell in the first two qualification matches of the Legends Stage. Vitality dispatched of the Ukrainian-majority side with relative comfort to secure an appearance in front of the French organization's home crowd, while HEROIC had to sweat for their place in the Accor Arena by the revitalized North American team.

The two teams had met in the IEM Rio grand final just two weeks ahead of the Major and went on to live up to expectations as they are the first to lock in a place in the Paris Champions Stage, with three more to follow on day three.

FaZe and G2 dream of a comeback

Day one brought FaZe and G2 to their knees as they fell to elimination matches early, in part due to unfortunate first-round seeding up against other big teams and in part due to faltering against the underdogs in their second matches. On day two, both favorites got back on their feet as they breezed past the opposition in the 0-2 pool series.

9INE were no match for Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's team as they felt forced to try their luck at playing Inferno, their permaban, instead of Ancient, where they have a 14-map losing streak. Even on their typically strong Anubis, the Poles did not turn up to bow out of the competition early.

G2 formally ended FURIA's Major playoffs streak to stay alive

After putting up woeful Terrorist sides on the first day and having none of their stars turn up, FURIA got outclassed by G2 in the final series of the day. The Brazilians once again had no one step up to the plate, with every player finishing the event rated below 1.00, which brought an end to the team's streak of making it to the playoffs at the previous three Majors.

As luck would have it, or rather an act of god (his name is Buchholz), none of the three big names in the 1-2 pool — FaZe, G2, and ENCE — happened to be pitted against each other in round three and there is a world where they can all still make it to playoffs. It is still a long road ahead, though, especially for FaZe, who have a nemesis awaiting them in the next round in Bad News Eagles, a bane of their existence at the last Major and in the RMR leading up to Paris.

Standings after day two

Group Legends Stage 3W - 0L HEROIC Vitality 2W - 1L Liquid Apeks Into the Breach Natus Vincere GamerLegion Monte 1W - 2L G2 FaZe fnatic Ninjas in Pyjamas ENCE Bad News Eagles 0W - 3L 9INE FURIA

Day three matchups

1-2 pool (BO3) - losers eliminated from the Paris Major

Date	Matches
BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023
15/05/2023	ENCE11:30 Ninjas in Pyjamas	Match
15/05/2023	FaZe11:30 Bad News Eagles	Match
15/05/2023	fnatic15:45 G2	Match

2-1 pool (BO3) - winners advance to Champions Stage

Date	Matches
BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023
15/05/2023	Monte14:00 Natus Vincere	Match
15/05/2023	Liquid16:25 Into the Breach	Match
15/05/2023	Apeks20:00 GamerLegion	Match

Player of the day

A few performances stand out from the crowd, such as another great map from Joey "⁠CRUC1AL⁠" Steusel in Into the Breach's second upset victory and solid form from Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool and Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač in their teams' comfortable wins in the elimination series.

Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund outshone them all, though, as the top fragger in HEROIC's map victories over Liquid. He stood head and shoulders above his team on the deciding Ancient especially, rounding out the Legends Stage with a 30-bomb and a key 1v2 clutch late in the game to carry his team to the playoffs.

Highlights of the day

HLTV coverage

The full photo gallery from day two of the Paris Major Legends Stage, captured by Josip "brcho" Brtan and Radosław "MAKKU" Makuch, can be found below:

Legends Stage day 2 photo gallery

Our writers on the ground, Lucas "LucasAM" Aznar Miles, Danish "Nohte" Allana, and Harry "NER0" Richards conducted the following interviews during the day:

Read more HooXi on going down 0-2: "We got hit a little bit by the nerves, the pressure" Read more ZywOo: "When I play in front of the French crowd it will be the best feeling" Read more CRUC1AL: "I believe in my teammates, in myself, and as long as everyone does that we can beat anyone" Read more dupreeh: "Rio gave me more confidence in my own abilities" FURIA #8 Andrei 'arT' PiovezanYuri 'yuurih' SantosKaike 'KSCERATO' CeratoRafael 'saffee' CostaAndré 'drop' Abreu Nicholas 'guerri' Nogueira fnatic #15 Freddy 'KRIMZ' JohanssonDion 'FASHR' DerksenNico 'nicoodoz' TamjidiFredrik 'roeJ' JørgensenWilliam 'mezii' Merriman Jamie 'keita' Hall Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač Age: 27 Team: G2 Rating 1.0: 1.12 Maps played: 1567 KPR: 0.77 DPR: 0.66 Robin 'ropz' Kool Age: 23 Team: FaZe Rating 1.0: 1.12 Maps played: 1257 KPR: 0.74 DPR: 0.61 Ninjas in Pyjamas #14 Kristian 'k0nfig' WieneckeFredrik 'REZ' SternerAleksi 'Aleksib' VirolainenLudvig 'Brollan' BrolinDaniil 'headtr1ck' Valitov Daniel 'djL' Narancic FaZe #5 Finn 'karrigan' AndersenHåvard 'rain' NygaardRussel 'Twistzz' Van DulkenRobin 'ropz' KoolHelvijs 'broky' Saukants Robert 'RobbaN' Dahlström Apeks #24 Martin 'STYKO' StykJoakim 'jkaem' MyrbostadTim 'nawwk' JonassonJustinas 'jL' LekaviciusDamjan 'kyxsan' Stoilkovski Jakub 'kuben' Gurczyński Finn 'karrigan' Andersen Age: 33 Team: FaZe Rating 1.0: 0.91 Maps played: 2140 KPR: 0.62 DPR: 0.69 Bad News Eagles #20 Rigon 'rigoN' GashiSener 'SENER1' MahmutiFlatron 'juanflatroo' HalimiDionis 'sinnopsyy' BudeciGenc 'gxx-' Kolgeci Jonatan 'Devilwalk' Lundberg HEROIC #1 Casper 'cadiaN' MøllerMartin 'stavn' LundRené 'TeSeS' MadsenRasmus 'sjuush' BeckJakob 'jabbi' Nygaard Richard 'Xizt' Landström Into the Breach #27 Karol 'rallen' RodowiczJoey 'CRUC1AL' SteuselThomas 'Thomas' UttingCai 'CYPHER' WatsonSebastian 'volt' Maloș Gustavo 'Juve' Alexandre Vitality #2 Dan 'apEX' MadesclairePeter 'dupreeh' RasmussenEmil 'Magisk' ReifMathieu 'ZywOo' HerbautLotan 'Spinx' Giladi Danny 'zonic' Sørensen ENCE #9 Marco 'Snappi' PfeifferGuy 'NertZ' IluzPavle 'Maden' BoškovićPaweł 'dycha' DychaÁlvaro 'SunPayus' García Eetu 'sAw' Saha Martin 'stavn' Lund Age: 21 Team: HEROIC Rating 1.0: 1.05 Maps played: 1249 KPR: 0.73 DPR: 0.67 9INE #17 Wiktor 'mynio' KrukKrzysztof 'Goofy' GórskiOlek 'hades' MiskiewiczKamil 'KEi' PietkunKacper 'Kylar' Walukiewicz Piotr 'nawrot' Nawrocki Liquid #7 Nick 'nitr0' CannellaKeith 'NAF' MarkovicJonathan 'EliGE' JablonowskiJosh 'oSee' OhmMareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis Damian 'daps' Steele GamerLegion #31 Frederik 'acoR' GyldstrandMihai 'iM' IvanNicolas 'Keoz' DgusKamil 'siuhy' SzkaradekIsak 'isak' Fahlén Ashley 'ash' Battye Natus Vincere #3 Oleksandr 's1mple' KostylievDenis 'electroNic' SharipovIlya 'Perfecto' ZalutskiyValeriy 'b1t' VakhovskiyAndrii 'npl' Kukharskyi Andrey 'B1ad3' Gorodenskiy Monte #22 Viktor 'sdy' OrudzhevVolodymyr 'Woro2k' VeletniukSergiy 'DemQQ' DemchenkoMohammad 'BOROS' MalhasSzymon 'kRaSnaL' Mrozek Sergey 'lmbt' Bezhanov Joey 'CRUC1AL' Steusel Age: 26 Team: Into the Breach Rating 1.0: 1.07 Maps played: 1601 KPR: 0.72 DPR: 0.64 G2 #4 Nikola 'NiKo' KovačNemanja 'huNter-' KovačJustin 'jks' SavageRasmus 'HooXi' NielsenIlya 'm0NESY' Osipov Jan 'Swani' Müller