Danish in-game leader Marco “Snappi” Pfeiffer has been ruled out of IEM Winter after testing positive for COVID-19, ENCE announced today. The CS:GO team will be playing their last LAN event of 2021 with a last-minute substitute in the form of FunPlus Phoenix rifler Pavle “Maden” Bošković.
This news comes as a huge blow to the ENCE camp since the team lost their shot caller ahead of one of the last premier CS:GO events of the year. The players were likely looking to get back on track after a lackluster performance at DreamHack Open November earlier this month, in which they were eliminated after one win and two losses.
FPX ceased its CS:GO operations on Nov. 5 after the team failed to qualify for the PGL Stockholm Major and all of its five players have been transfer-listed. Curiously enough, FPX’s last official match was against ENCE at the IEM Winter European closed qualifier, which they lost 2-0.
FPX’s results this year weren’t great, but Maden had decent individual performances. The 23-year-old Montenegrin averaged a 1.09 rating this year, according to HLTV’s statistics, and was statistically the best player on the international team. Even though he’s theoretically playing one event for ENCE, this will be a good opportunity for him to once again prove his value and maybe get some offers for 2022.
IEM Winter will run from Dec. 2 to 12 in a studio environment with no live audience in Stockholm, Sweden. ENCE have been placed in the $250,000’s tournament Group B and will play against Virtus Pro in the opening round on Thursday, Dec. 2 at 7:20am CT.
