Top 5 prospects to follow at BLAST.tv Paris Major

With BLAST.tv Paris Major starting soon, i’d like to talk not only about Into The Breach and 9INE, who surprisingly made it right to the Legends Stage, but also about some young players you have to follow.

The Paris Major is going to be full of talented players that you might not have heard about if you only follow the tier-1 scene.

Mohammad “BOROS” Malhas

You might have heard about Boros if you watched One-Punch Man… well, nevermind. BOROS is a 19-year-old Jordanian rifler. He appeared on the professional CS:GO scene at the beginning of 2020.

A year and half later, Endpoint picked up Malhas from NASR eSports and his journey started. With Endpoint, he participated in PGL Antwerp Major European RMR, but the British organization didn’t manage to qualify for the Antwerp Major. Several months after that, he joined Monte, and now he’ll be attending his first Counter-Strike Major event.

The current Monte lineup has dominated the tier-2 scene in 2023 so far. Monte won five online events and took one second place. As for BOROS, i’m not going to lie: I feel that especially for him, having a great coach like Serhij “LMBT” Bezhanov and a player with tier-1 experience (Viktor “sdy” Orudzev) helps a lot.

The Jordanian has amazing potential and is still far, far from his ceiling, but BOROS has already been shining recently.

If he keeps developing, an invite from a tier-1 team will be reaching him soon.

Cai “CYPHER” Watson

Into The Breach will try to make the UK’s CS dream live in Paris, and CYPHER is a hot young UK gun who will shine brightly there, I feel. Despite a not-outstanding rating 2.0 of 1.02 in the last three months, I feel like Watson does a lot of work and has a lot of impact on some maps, including Vertigo, the key map in ITB’s mappool.

I would mention his decision-making and positioning on the map in midround as something where he has room to improve even more, but those things are already on a decent level for CYPHER.

But I also have the feeling that CYPHER is not 100% comfortable in how he has been playing with ITB so far. If the team manage to improve that, CYPHER will levelup really quickly.

ITB could become a “surprise” Pick’Em choice for the Legends Stage.

Damjan “kyxsan” Stoilkovski

Some might not call kyxsan a real “prospect” as he’s already 22 years old, but… Apeks is his first team at that level of play and ambition. Taking into account the fact that he is IGL, Damjan clearly deserves some attention.

We don’t have too many bright young IGLs on the scene now, and kyxsan’s been really proving himself in the last few months with Apeks.

Yes, sometimes Apeks’ game seems too chaotic; yes, kyxsan needs to grab more experience, but it’s still impressive that he can perform in a high-level international roster.

Evgeniy “r3salt” Frolov

r3salt is an 18-year-old rifler for FORZE, and his aim is crisp. That’s what you have to know about him. Actually, r3salt is from the new generation of Counter-Strike players, who are already skilled but still far from reaching their ceiling. I feel that with some proper guidance, r3salt will develop into a stable tier-1 player in a year or two.

Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek

I’d like to end the article by introducing someone who honestly needs no introduction. Before joining GamerLegion, the Polish IGL won 4 seasons of the WePlay Academy League. And now he’s managed to qualify with GL for two Majors in a row.

siuhy is one of the most promising IGLs of the younger generation, and already he’s not like kyxsan – siuhy has plenty of experience, including LAN tournaments.
For now, siuhy seems to be the strongest young IGL, and that’s one reason to follow GamerLegion’s playing.