The best CS:GO player duos from the Road to Rio RMR events

Since the transition to RMR events for the purposes of CS:GO Major qualification, the RMR tournaments themselves have produced some exciting drama. At these do-or-die tournaments, the old guard must hold off the new breed of CS:GO talent to earn a spot at one of the most illustrious events in all of esports.

During the Road to Rio RMR events, fans saw teams like Evil Geniuses, NiP, Team Liquid, and Sprout defy expectations and make impressive qualifying runs. But this came at the cost of some of the most legendary names and players, most notably G2 Esports and Astralis.

When looking at the top players from these RMR events, according to stats from HLTV, a trend emerged. Of each of the top three players from all four RMR events, two of them were from a single team that ended up qualifying. These dominant duos helped paved the road for their team to reach the IEM Rio Major, so let’s take a look at each one.

NiP’s brollan and Hampus – Europe RMR A

As mentioned above, NiP’s sudden upward spike came as a surprise. The team made a huge change just a month prior, bringing in IGL Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen and changing the official comms to English. With the change in language and with Akeksib’s stock as an IGL lowered after unsuccessful stints with OG and G2, many anticipated the Ninjas to struggle.

But no one told Hampus Poser and Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin that NiP were supposed to struggle. The Swedish duo carried NiP to a perfect 3-0 record with wins over Astralis, Bad News Eagles, and finally Cloud9 in a best-of-three. Brollan was one of the top players at the event in opening kills, and both players had nine rounds each with three kills or more.

NAVI’s s1mple and electron1c – Europe RMR B

It’s no surprise or shock to see that the duo of Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Denis “electroNic” Sharipov delivered yet again for NAVI. After a little bit of an underwhelming first half of the year, at least compared to a team like NAVI’s expectations, the team seems to be back in form at just the right time.

ElectroNic and s1mple were No. 1 and 2 in player rating by a wide margin as NAVI went four for four on maps played in the Europe RMR B. Both players notched K/D ratings of over 1.7. ElectroNic had six triple kills, five quad kills, and an ace, while s1mple showcased how deadly he is with both the AK and the AWP.

FURIA’s saffee and arT – Americas RMR

Unlike the other names and teams on this list, FURIA did not cruise to a 3-0 record in the Americas RMR. The team stumbled in the second round of best-of-ones against the surprisingly solid-looking EG team but rallied with wins over fellow Brazilian teams O Plano and paiN Gaming.

Against O Plano, it was Andrei “arT” Piovezan who went absolutely lethal on Mirage with his AWP, posting 26 kills (12 with the sniper) against only five deaths in a 16-2 stomp. He notched 20 kills in each map against paiN too, but Rafael “saffee” Costa shined the brightest in that two-map series on Nuke and Vertigo, posting 50 kills across the two maps.

IHC’s bLitz and sk0R – Asia RMR

The Asian CS:GO scene is so often overlooked. The region has so rarely made a deep run at any Major, save for the occasional Renegades run over the past few years. But IHC Esports made a very clear case to be considered the best team out of Asia after their dominant run through the Asia qualifiers and RMR event, failing to drop a single series through the entire run.

At the RMR itself, the Mongolian team was carried by all-star performances from Garidmagnai “bLitz” Byambasuren and Tengis “sk0R” Batjargal. The two sat above the entire field in both player rating and K/D rating and were the heavy hitters in their team’s wins against JiJieHao and Grayhound. Sk0r dropped a staggering 40 kills against Grayhound in overtime on Mirage to secure IHC’s Major spot.