Watch out: Copenhagen Flames’ new CS:GO lineup is starting to bear fruit

It hasn’t been easy for Copenhagen Flames since the departure of the CS:GO team led by Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen following their playoff run at the PGL Antwerp Major in May. Copenhagen Flames has way fewer resources than its Danish counterparts like Astralis and Heroic, so it had to hit the reset button and look for players who were outside of tier-one.

After a slow start at the beginning of the second half of the competitive calendar, which included not even qualifying for the Europe Regional Major Ranking (RMR) for the IEM Rio Major, Copenhagen Flames are finding their footing. The new lineup led by Thomas “birdfromsky” Due Frederiksen accomplished last week what only a handful of teams have done: they won two CS:GO tournaments in the span of a few days.

Copenhagen Flames won CCT Central Europe No. 3 over ex-Team Finest on Friday, Nov. 18 and beat K23 to win European Development Championship season six on Sunday, Nov. 20. These two smaller online tournaments netted the organization $42,000 in prize pool, plus a guaranteed boot camp in Malta.

Should Copenhagen Flames manage to keep the lineup of birdfromsky, Iulian “regali” Harjău, Rasmus “raalz” Steensborg, Thomas “TMB” Bundsbæk, and Johannes “b0RUP” Borup for 2023, they could upset some bigger teams and fight for a spot in the BLAST Paris Major.

These players survived months of bad results when the project was assembled in the summer player break and are showing signs that they could compete in the higher echelons of CS:GO in 2023 since the year is about to wrap up.