Bad News Eagles, the orgless CS:GO project hailing from Kosovo, took down the giant international powerhouse of FaZe Clan at IEM Rio Major and eliminated the PGL Antwerp Major winner from the Brazilian tournament today.
Finn “karrigan” Andersen, Helvijs “broky” Saukants, Håvard “rain” Nygaard, Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken, and Robin “ropz” Kool arrived in Rio de Janeiro with their minds set on becoming back-to-back Major champions and taking the Intel Grand Slam, but instead, they exited the $1.25 million tournament winless with a 0-3 record, becoming the first Major champions to be eliminated in the next Major in this fashion.
FaZe did a risky maneuver in the map-veto against Bad News Eagles by removing Ancient and leaving Vertigo, their perma-ban, open for the Kosovar team to pick. That didn’t go well for FaZe as Bad News Eagles defeated them by 19-16 to start the best-of-three series.
FaZe tied the series after an easy 16-8 victory on Nuke and left all to be decided on Mirage, one of the CS:GO maps that almost every team in the world knows how to play. And Bad News Eagles took advantage of that by running their PUG-esque strats and relying on the firepower of Dionis “sinnopsyy” Budeci, Flatron “juanflatroo” Halimi, and Rigon Gashi to eliminate FaZe after a hard-fought 22-20 battle in which karrigan and his men threw away five map points during regulation.
“Over and out, responsibility is on me,” karrigan said on Twitter after the elimination. “Sorry for letting [you] all down. GG WP BNE.”
FaZe’s 5th-8th result at ESL Pro League season 16 at the end of September had already exposed some flaws in the game of the once-best team in the world, but absolutely no one was expecting FaZe to go 0-3 in IEM Rio Major Legends Stage. They lost 14-16 to Cloud9 in the opening round yesterday and were dominated 6-16 by Vitality in the second round, which put them in the 0-2 pool of the Major today.
This miraculous victory over FaZe leave Bad News Eagles in the 1-2 pool of IEM Rio Major and has certainly raised their confidence for their next series. The Kosovar team will have to win two more in order to advance to playoffs.
