One of the greatest surprises last year in CS:GO was Outsiders winning the $1.25 million IEM Rio Major in November. The CIS team had lost its former star YEKINDAR in May and saw the new gun Petr “fame” Bolyshev become the co-protagonist alongside Jame in their championship run in Rio de Janeiro.
Fame joined Outsiders from K23 on May 31 with little to no experience against the best CS:GO teams in the world and played his first big LAN tournament in July 2022 at IEM Cologne. Outsiders weren’t considered much of a threat at IEM Rio Major, but they were incredibly consistent in the competition, having dropped only three of the 17 maps they played.
Not only was Outsiders’ tactical game on point, but they also got to count on fame’s firepower to win rounds. The 19-year-old finished the Challengers Stage with a 1.15 rating after five maps, according to HLTV, and averaged even better numbers in the Legends Stage and Champions Stage of IEM Rio Major.
Fame had a 1.24 rating in these two stages, according to HLTV, which is slightly below what Jame and FL1T got (1.30 and 1.25, respectively). For that, Jame has described fame as one of the best CS:GO players of the moment.
“He is a generational player,” Jame said about fame in an interview with Pley. “I’ve never met someone like him. He is a fast learner, he’s very disciplined, he always gives himself fully and as a human being, he’s really a decent one. Just a simple kind of guy.”
Both fame and Outsiders’ challenge for 2023 is to replicate what they displayed at IEM Rio Major. The CIS team struggled at BLAST Premier World Final in December, the last S-tier CS:GO tournament of the year, and didn’t even reach the playoffs of the tournament.
Published: Jan 2, 2023 08:24 am