paiN’s star player will be taking a step back amidst a steep drop from their 2025 success.
Today, paiN Gaming has announced that nqz will be stepping down from the active roster due to “stress and sensations” that were affecting his in-game performance.
In their statement, nqz said that he will use this break to take care of himself “physically and mentally”. Dust2.br reported that saffee will be returning to paiN to occupy nqz’s spot.
NQZ is paiN’s highest-rated player
The situation is likely to hinder paiN’s ability to compete in 2026, as nqz was their best player by several metrics. He had a 1.20 HLTV rating on LAN across 2026, and Round Swing of about 3%, higher than AWPers like m0NESY.
On the other hand, saffee, his replacement, has not played an official match of CS2 since August 2025. That month, he was replaced by Russian prospect kl1m on MIBR, becoming an international team.
paiN was an international South American squad, but went back to being fully Brazilian in 2026. However, they did not reach the same heights as in 2025, where they peaked by reaching the semi-final of the BLAST Austin Major.
This time, paiN will presumably be without their star AWPer for the upcoming IEM Cologne Major in two months time.
