Battling back to the top: acoR, sdy, Felps, Styko & Jkaem

Esports are often short, and often a rollercoaster. With constant ups and downs, it’s very rare that a player spends their entire career at the highest level.

Even players like KRIMZ and karrigan have had periods of struggle. fnatic’s roster instability threatened to taint the legacy of KRIMZ’s career, while the fallout of a troubled 2018 for FaZe and karrigan saw him shipped off on loan to a questionable NA Envy team.

The Major cycle always brings players back to the forefront, and the BLAST.tv Paris Major is no exception to that. With the RMRs now concluded, which players will be on our screens again and once again looking to prove why they are some of the best players in the world?

Photo: Michael Konkol

Monte - sdy

A player who made his first Major appearance at the FACEIT London Major way back in 2018 with Team Spirit, sdy would go on to make two more Majors with the team before departing at the start of 2022.

A brief spell with MAD Lions would follow, but sdy was elevated to a level he’d never before seen when NAVI came calling a short while later.

sdy would win a singular event with NAVI, BLAST Spring Finals, but as FaZe became the dominant force and CS:GO then broke into the existing era without dominance, sdy would depart the team for the arrival of former NAVI junior player npl.

The Ukrainian wasn’t out of the game long, quickly finding a new home with Monte. While many experts would have expected that to have been a long descent into the tier two and even three scene, sdy has taken it upon himself to ensure that won’t be the case.

With him now playing as the star on a team, Monte has had impressive online form since sdy’s arrival on the team. Now, following the RMRs, that online form has been translated to LAN form and the organisation will get the opportunity to play at the final CS:GO Major.

Photo: Michael Konkol

GamerLegion - acoR

When acoR joined MOUZ, he was touted as one of the next big things. Part of a Tricked and MAD Lions lineup that had punched well above its weight, the AWPer had become someone who had more than earned his opportunity to play in tier one.

acoR joined a team that at the time included legendary Danish IGL karrigan and a young star in ropz that had quickly established himself as one of the best riflers in the world. However, this team would not last long, as karrigan would soon leave to return to finish his story with FaZe Clan.

While many experts have commented on karrigan’s replacement, dexter, and his ability to utilise AWPers to the best of their ability, acoR never managed to keep up his previous form in his tier one activity. As 2022 rolled around, the Dane was one of the departures as MOUZ began their academy based rebuild.

acoR would spend most of the year out before eventually finding a new home with GamerLegion, where he would instantly find success as he starred in the European RMR for the IEM Rio Major. GamerLegion famously knocked out G2 as they qualified for Rio and would head to South America to play in the organisation’s first CS:GO Major.

At his second RMR with GamerLegion, the team would repeat their heroics from the RMR and once again qualify for the Major. With acoR’s tier one career once looking over, the AWPer has since battled back to successfully make successive Majors with a team many would not have expected to even feature at one.

Photo: Michael Konkol

Fluxo - felps

felps won Dreamhack Open Summer 2016 with Immortals, but it was with SK Gaming that he became a consistent tier one force. Thrust into the environment when he was brought into the two-time Major winning roster as the two organisations swapped him and fnx, he would go on to win multiple tier one trophies with the Brazilian legends.

Alongside FalleN, coldzera, TACO, and fer, felps would win ESL One Cologne 2017, ECS Season 3 Finals, and IEM Sydney during his time with the team, but as many other players would discover, that fifth spot on the SK roster was a rather volatile position.

With the team never really able to rediscover the form of their 2016 glory days, felps was replaced with boltz, a move that would see the former relegated to the merry-go-round of the Brazilian second tier.

felps would go on to play for Nao Tem Como, INTZ, his former teammates again in MIBR, and BOOM, only successfully qualifying for one Major in that time. He would later play in a Major with GODSENT, but would once again find himself benched after disappointing results as a team.

Eventually, felps found a home with Fluxo, although the team was formed too late to play in their home Major, IEM Rio. However, at their first real chance of qualifying for a Major, the BLAST.tv Paris Major, Fluxo would be successful.

Apeks - STYKO and jkaem

Two players that many CS:GO fans will be familiar with, there aren’t many Majors since 2015 that haven’t featured at least one of STYKO or jkaem.

STYKO nearly qualified for the first CS:GO Major with Nostalgie, a team containing names such as GuardiaN, hooch, and edward, but would later play his first Major at ELEAGUE Atlanta 2017 with Hellraisers. Later, he would make multiple successive Majors as part of a successful MOUZ team.

jkaem, on the other hand, played his first Major at ESL One Katowice 2015 with LGB. Later featuring at Majors for both G2, FaZe Clan, and Renegades, the Norwegian star even finished in the top four of a Major at Dreamhack Open Cluj-Napoca in 2015.

As the years that followed left them both in roster limbo, they would come together on Apeks, a team cobbled together at the time players left over from tier one following the online era.

While the first year was difficult and featured multiple roster changes, 2023 has seen the Apeks roster become settled and after reaching their first RMR as roster, qualify for the final Major of CS:GO with a 3-2 record.

Photo: Michael Konkol