The hype for this year’s iteration of IEM Cologne 2023 is at breaking point. With the Play-Ins for the famed CS:GO tournament almost wrapped up, fans now turn to the group stage as the world’s best jostle for a spot inside the Cathedral of Counter-Strike—but a late snag may see one team stall before making its season debut.
A late update from Cloud9 via Twitter on July 27 has confirmed the worst—the squad will be without their full lineup for their much-anticipated debut this week. Visa issues will mean Cloud9 will be without star Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov with benched rifler Timur “buster” Tulepov returning to the lineup in the interim.
There is hope for Ax1Le’s arrival later in the tournament, with Cloud9 sharing that the Russian may have his visa accepted by the Cologne playoff stage via Twitter. The amalgamation of the CIS region’s top talent is something fans were likely excited to see, however, we’ll have to wait until the visa issue is sorted before seeing a fully operational Cloud9 this season.
Cloud9’s upcoming match against Fnatic would have been their first official game since the CIS shuffle mid-way through June. Losing Ax1Le is problematic for their first event as a squad, with the team deprived of the fourth-best player of 2022 likely causing issues in their opening matches.
In order for us to see Ax1Le on stage at Cologne, the roster has to make it through multiple best-of-three matchups. With any luck, the squad will be able to survive until then. Otherwise, we’ll be waiting until Gamers8 2023, which commences mid-way through August.
Related: IEM Cologne CS:GO 2023: Scores, standings, results
Ax1Le has been a consistent force on the Cloud9 and Gambit squads since its rise to fame in October 2022. The roster managed to surprise countless top-tier squads and eventually win multiple titles throughout their Gambit tenure.
After a series of poor results with a selection of high-caliber players, the org looked toward a fresh start during the player break and capitalized on chaos in a rival camp, acquiring electronic and Perfecto from NAVI—and in doing so, creating one of the most stacked lineups in CS:GO history.
Unfortunately for Cloud9 and CS:GO fans who are hungry to see the superteam in action, they might have to wait until August for them to play together in the server, barring a late visa application and a playoffs run from the squad.
IEM Cologne’s Play-In wraps up later today with the group stage starting on July 29.
