The BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 Quarter Finals are in full swing, and the matches for the day had just started when the tournament smashed a major viewership milestone. During the very first elimination match, the event peaked at 1.4 million concurrent viewers, officially becoming the most popular Counter-Strike tournament ever held on American soil. Add in the fact that the Moody Center, where the event is held, sold out within hours of opening its Playoff tickets sales and, well, success seems like too small a word.
Blast.tv Austin Major Match 1: MOUZ vs Team Spirit
MOUZ vs Team Spirit is single-handedly the best Counter-Strike match I have seen. The opening match of the playoffs put defending champs Team Spirit against an extremely hungry MOUZ, who were booed repeatedly by the crowd, only to fuel that hate into astounding play.
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The match delivered everything fans could hope for with the first Map going into OT 4, and the two teams in a fierce head-to-head, all leading up to a thrilling decider where MOUZ ultimately succeeded, securing a spot in the Major semifinals for the third time in the organization’s history. This is also when viewership hit its peak, and over time, pushed the schedule back with thrilling gameplay.
Mouz and Team Spirit didn’t immediately seem evenly matched in the early rounds of Mirage. Spirit opened up the map with 5-0 push, only for MOUZ to play from behind, pushing the map into quadruple overtime. Still, Donk reigned supreme, pulling his team to a 25-21 win, and he topped the server with a 37-32 statline.
Dust2 was the next map, and the combo of sh1ro and donk kept forcing more of the mistakes that plagued MOUZ on Mirage. Shutting down that duo was important, and ultimately MOUZ did, with Jimpphat pulling off crucial plays that led them to an 8-4 lead at half. While Mirage showed that MOUZ was struggling to convert map points, they did manage to do so on Dust2, leaving with a 13-9 win and a strong team performance that reduced donk’s 23 kills to a negligible thorn in the side and not a giant wound.
Nuke put Spirit in the hot seat, and they responded. They opened the map with an 8-4 at the half, with Brollan struggling to get any traction, holding a 0-14 statline. Keeping MOUZ in the match was up to xertioN and Jimpphat, and that proved to be the difference. Ultimately, after batting the wins back and forth, MOUZ won the series with a 13-10 scoreline. With Spirit’s mistakes mounting up into a deficit, they couldn’t overcome.
Blast.tv Austin Major Match 2: FURIA vs paiN Gaming
The second series of the day is a Brazilian derby between FURIA and paiN Gaming. While this match was primarily for the team’s home audiences in Latin America, FURIA’s “YEKINDAR” Gaļinskis and Danil “molodoy” Golubenko were on the roster, allowing some CIS support. But that wasn’t enough to win them the match, with paiN rallying to take the following two maps, granting them a semifinal berth in their first Major playoff appearance.
FURIA got a strong start on Nuke despite the map being paiN Gaming’s pick. With an 8-4 CT lead Half. The team had the chance to maintain the advantage throughout the map, leaving paiN in a position to come from behind. However, after some rallying attempts and good shots, paiN Gaming couldn’t catch up playing from behind. paiN only won two more rounds on their map pick, while FURIA remained strong throughout the second half to quickly record the five rounds they needed to take Nuke 13-6.
But for the last two maps, paiN Gaming was like a different team for the most part anyway. For Anubis, the second map of the match, paiN was able to secure a dominant win, even if FURIA did everything they could to stay in the game 13-8 win going ot paiN Gaming. Chilean player, dav1deuS, topped the server on map two, ending with a 19-13 statline and a 1.53 rating.
But dav1deuS wouldn’t come in clutch again. Inferno was where the real upset happened. While paiN wasn’t able to play from behind on Nuke, an early 6-0 dominance from FURIA couldn’t bury them. Still, paiN did end up getting some rounds on the board, though, and biguzera and nqz knew precisely how to keep KSCERATO on the ropes in the 2v1.
Coming from a massive deficit, paiN flipped into high gear and left mistakes behind with snow securing an eleventh round after an incredible defence. But the longer the match went, FURIA just couldn’t keep up. Inferno proved to be a marathon and not a sprint, and FURIA ended up collapsing under pressure in OT, where they lost four consecutive rounds. paiN Gaming was ultimately able to pull out a 6-12 win, an upset for anyone who only tuned in for map one.
Updated BLAST.TV Austin Major 2025 Bracket Going Into Day 2
The BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025 is being held in Austin, TX at The Moody Center from June 19 to June 24, 2025.
