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Image via ESL Gaming

BIG to play with academy player at IEM Rio CS:GO Major

The 20-year-old helped BIG qualify for the event via the Europe RMR.

German CS:GO team BIG will use academy player Elias “⁠s1n⁠” Stein in place of Josef “⁠faveN⁠” Baumann during the BLAST Premier Fall Showdown Europe and, most notably, the IEM Rio Major, the second Valve-sponsored event of 2022.

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S1n made his way onto the first team earlier this month during the Regional Major Ranking (RMR) B tournament as a result of faveN falling ill ahead of the IEM Rio Major qualifier. S1n helped BIG qualify for the Major with a 3-2 record, beating Sangal, Vitality, and K23 throughout their journey.

The 20-year-old was the best player on BIG Academy before stepping into the first team but is yet to prove his value against tier-one opposition. He averaged just a 0.92 rating during the Europe RMR B event, according to HLTV’s statistics, but still was praised by in-game leader Johannes “⁠tabseN⁠” Wodarz.

“Thankfully, s1n is a very good player for that, for his age and also for his experience,” tabseN said in an interview with HLTV during the RMR. “He managed to play all the things which I needed to call on the fly very good. We had a bootcamp where he arrived two days later than us, he was grinding a lot, he was just living CS, he was breathing CS, and it was one of the steps which we needed to make to be able to play this Counter-Strike, especially on the T side. As I said, he’s doing a fantastic job as a stand-in, and he’s far better than we all expected I would say.”

It’s unclear at the moment when and if faveN will return to the active lineup of BIG. The German rifler has fallen ill two times this year already and didn’t participate in BIG’s championship run at the Roobet Cup in June.

BIG will debut against FURIA in the IEM Rio Major Challengers Stage on Oct. 31 at 11:30am CT.


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Author
Image of Leonardo Biazzi
Leonardo Biazzi
Staff writer and CS:GO lead. Leonardo has been passionate about games since he was a kid and graduated in Journalism in 2018. Before Leonardo joined Dot Esports in 2019, he worked for Brazilian outlet Globo Esporte. Leonardo also worked for HLTV.org between 2020 and 2021 as a senior writer, until he returned to Dot Esports and became part of the staff team.