shox's Major streak set to end as Apeks bomb out of qualifier

The French veteran's record will come to an end after 17 Majors.

Apeks will not be attending the IEM Rio Major as the European squad has suffered a 19-15 loss to GamerLegion in the final open qualifier for the Europe RMR. This result de facto puts an end to Richard "⁠shox⁠" Papillon's record of attending every CS:GO Major since the game's release.

There is a theoretical chance of shox's streak continuing, though, as he could switch to a team that qualified for the Major or the RMR in the following months. But having joined Apeks just 16 days ago, that prospect seems unlikely.

shox's record is all but done

"Life goes on and it will be important to quickly move on to other things," shox said on Twitter after the match, in which he posted a bottom-of-the-scoreboard 0.78 rating. "We were clearly not ready to qualify, the sanction is heavy and heartbreaking, but it is realistic."

Apeks's international squad has now failed to reach consecutive RMR events, as the pre-season refresh of the roster with shox and Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius did not bear fruit in the short term.

With shox out, there are just two players left that have attended every single Major and are capable of extending that streak in Rio: Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth and Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen. While the latter is at least sure to attend the Europe RMR with Vitality, the former still needs to fight his way through the final open qualifier with Astralis, having bombed out of the first three.

IEM Road to Rio 2022 Europe Open Qualifier 4Best of 1 Apeks

Apeks

Matchpage 15 19 27th August 2022

GamerLegion 15Mirage 19

Apeks	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Tim 'nawwk' Jonassonnawwk	29 - 20	+9	85.6	1.25
Justinas 'jL' LekaviciusjL	29 - 23	+6	91.5	1.19
Martin 'STYKO' StykSTYKO	23 - 23	0	81.9	1.07
Joakim 'jkaem' Myrbostadjkaem	18 - 23	-5	56.1	0.79
Richard 'shox' Papillonshox	15 - 23	-8	53.1	0.78

GamerLegion	K - D	+/-	ADR	Rating 2.0
Frederik 'acoR' GyldstrandacoR	26 - 18	+8	77.9	1.18
Mihai 'iM' IvaniM	25 - 24	+1	79.9	1.11
Nicolas 'Keoz' DgusKeoz	19 - 23	-4	75.5	0.97
Isak 'isak' Fahlénisak	21 - 25	-4	71.2	0.90
Kamil 'siuhy' Szkaradeksiuhy	21 - 24	-3	64.9	0.88