Rio Major Winner: Outsiders celebrate first CSGO Major title

The world of CS:GO has its latest Major champions. Outsiders were the winners of the Grand Final best-of-three series against Heroic, taking the win in just two maps (16-12 on Mirage, 16-5 on Overpass) in front of the Brazilian crowd in the Jeunesse Arena.

IEM Rio 2022 will certainly be an event to go down in the history books for multiple reasons. Huge upsets saw heavy favourites such as FaZe Clan and Team Vitality eliminated before the playoffs, while Cloud9 and Natus Vincere were knocked out in the early stages of that very stage. Hometown heroes FURIA were unable to best Danish opposition from Heroic, who were the ones to meet Outsiders in the Grand Final.

Ignoring a small stumble against MOUZ to open Challengers Stage, Outsiders moved past IHC Esports, Fnatic and Vitality to qualify for Legends. Heroic might have gotten the better of Outsiders in the Legends opening, but they were able to get revenge in the BO3 to reach the Jeunesse, and did the same to Heroic once they met again.

Back From The Brink

Outsiders’ own Major journey started in the IEM Road to Rio Europe RMR B, with the team on the brink of elimination and requiring a flawless performance against the Frenchmen of Team Falcons to go through to Brazil in 3-2 fashion. This down-to-the-wire nature of the journey and the spirit of how Outsiders play the game made the conclusion that much more noteworthy for the CIS lineup.

There are many positives coming from Outsiders’ win beyond the $500,000 prize. The bannerless players will attend both BLAST Premier World Final 2022 and IEM Katowice 2023. These spots are especially important as the team, currently not representing their organisation of Virtus.pro due to the geopolitical climate, are neither ESL nor BLAST Partner teams and must rely on tournament organiser rankings to have a chance to appear in their main events.

A Statement Victory

It marks the first Major victories for the entire Outsiders lineup and is a big statement for a team that lost its star entry fragger YEKINDAR back in May. Huge performances that lit up the scoreboard from fame will certainly ensure people remember his name and now etched onto a Major trophy at just 19.

In-game leader and AWPer Jame was recognised as the MVP of IEM Rio 2022, in what was his 22nd recognised LAN event on HLTV and his first MVP award since the online cs_summit 7 tourney at the start of 2021. After leading the squad to a consistent placement within the top 20 and later top 10 teams in the world, this win will secure this standing for some time to come.

Big Names Face New Challenges

Changes to the Major system means that the top 8 from IEM Rio will no longer be guaranteed spots in the next Major, BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023. Unless announced by Valve, the current RMR system will be maintained leading into the new year, meaning Outsiders, Heroic, FURIA, MOUZ, Cloud9, Team Spirit, Fnatic and NAVI will all have to start from there.

Teams that struggled in Brazil will have to go a step lower, fighting through the gruelling open qualifiers instead. European organisations will be pitting their salaried stars against everyone from fellow professionals to rookies and semi-professionals looking to test their mettle through an opportunity that is becoming rarer and rarer to see.

For IEM Rio, each EU qualifier saw between 565 and 668 teams sign up for each of the four qualifiers and notable names such as Astralis were only able to make it through on their fourth attempt. It is likely that even more teams will sign up once BLAST Major open qualifier details are revealed in the coming months.

Outsiders' Title-winning Roster

Your CS:GO Major Champions are Outsiders:

• Dzhami “Jame” Ali
• Petr “fame” Bolyshev
• David “n0rb3r7” Danielyan
• Alexey “Qikert” Golubev
• Evgenii “FL1T” Lebedev
• Dastan “dastan” Akbayev (coach)

Picture: Copyright ESL | Stephanie Lindgren