The first day of Stake Ranked Episode 3 came to a close with the new Phantom side pulling off an upset over paiN in their debut with Nico "nicoodoz" Tamjidi and Jan "cej0t" Dyl.
The Danish AWPer in particular was key in Phantom getting the 2-1 series over the finish line, putting up 14 kills and +8.23% Round Swing in a 10-2 Terrorist side on the deciding Nuke.
It's the second tough loss for paiN in a matter of days after the Brazilian side, who came into the tournament in Barcelona as the highest-ranked team, missed out on a spot at BLAST Open Porto after a loss to Sharks in the South American qualifier.
Now, they've fallen to the lower bracket in Spain, where they will face off against 3DMAX for survival.
The French squad came on the losing side of a three-map series against the new HEROIC. The recent additions, Antonio "MartinezSa" Martinez and Ludvig "Brollan" Brolin, played key roles in convincing wins on Inferno and Nuke on either side of a loss on Cache.
In the other two matches, Roman "n0te" Hamze led the way as Ninjas in Pyjamas took down K27 in a two-map affair, and Gentle Mates made quick work of Wildcard despite playing the event with Joey "CRUC1AL" Steusel as a stand-in.
The upper bracket semi-finals and the first elimination round will be played next on Thursday:
Ludvig 'Brollan' Brolin
HEROIC
Ludvig 'Brollan' Brolin
Linus 'nilo' Bergman
Tim 'susp' Ångström
Antonio 'MartinezSa' Martinez
Christoffer 'Chr1zN' Storgaard
Joonas 'doto' Forss
Nico 'nicoodoz' Tamjidi
3DMAX
Bryan 'Maka' Canda
Lucas 'Lucky' Chastang
Kévin 'misutaaa' Rabier
Jeremy 'Kursy' Gast
Filip 'Graviti' Brankovic
Damien 'wasiNk' Dufour
Wildcard
Nemanja 'nEMANHA' Đukić
Miłosz 'mhL' Knasiak
Danny 'Cxzi' Strzelczyk
Ethan 'reck' Serrano
Jadan 'HexT' Postma
Łukasz 'splawik' Jahns
Sharks
Victor 'gafolo' Andrade
João 'koala' Pfeffer
Máximo 'maxxkor' Cortina
Daniel 'rdnzao' Monteiro
Danilo 'doc' Barros
Hélder 'coachi' Sancho
Jan 'cej0t' Dyl
Roman 'n0te' Hamze
Gentle Mates
Alejandro 'alex' Masanet
Alejandro 'mopoz' Fernández-Quejo Cano
Pere 'sausol' Solsona Saumell
David 'dav1g' Granado Bermudo
Angel 'repk3ys' Gracia Navarro
Ninjas in Pyjamas
Roman 'n0te' Hamze
Marco 'Snappi' Pfeiffer
Martin 'stavn' Lund
Rasmus 'sjuush' Beck
Kacper 'xKacpersky' Gabara
Richard 'Xizt' Landström
Antonio 'MartinezSa' Martinez
paiN
Vinicius 'vsm' Moreira
Rodrigo 'biguzera' Bittencourt
Guilherme 'piriajr' Barbosa
Rafael 'saffee' Costa
João 'snow' Vinicius
Henrique 'rikz' Waku
Joey 'CRUC1AL' Steusel
Phantom
Thomas 'TMB' Bundsbæk
Nico 'nicoodoz' Tamjidi
Kamil 'KEi' Pietkun
Kacper 'Kylar' Walukiewicz
Jan 'cej0t' Dyl
Dawid 'lunAtic' Cieślak
K27
Timur 'clax' Sabirov
Daniil 'X5G7V' Maryshev
Aleksey 'xeedo' Mikulich
Danila 'kashl1d' Dronov
Daniil 'qw1nk1' Kabilov
Gregory 'balblna' Oleinick