A major Brazilian roster shuffle is beginning to take form.

FURIA became the latest to confirm upcoming changes with their announcement of André "drop" Abreu and Rafael "saffee" Costa's departure from the current lineup.

Their Brazilian counterparts in paiN and MIBR have also recently confirmed changes. 

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On paiN Gaming, Wesley "⁠hardzao⁠" Lopes follows Gabriel "⁠NEKIZ⁠" Schenato on the bench.

Rumors are still connecting Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo to FURIA, who will also now be on the look for a new rifler to replace André "drop" Abreu. Abreu and Costa are both rumored to join MIBR.

The three teams looks like this as the moment:

{cflag:BR} Raffael "saffee" Costa (benched)

{cflag:BR} Henrique "HEN1" Teles (benched)

{cflag:BR} Matheus "Tuurtle" Anhaia  (benched)

{cflag:BR} Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt

{cflag:BR} Felipe "⁠skullz⁠" Medeiros

{cflag:BR} Romeu "⁠zevy⁠" Rocco Brazil

{cflag:BR} Vinicios "⁠PKL⁠" Coelho (benched)

{cflag:BR} Gabriel "⁠NEKIZ⁠" Schenato (benched) 

{cflag:BR} Wesley "⁠hardzao⁠" Lopes (benched)

saffee

drop

FURIA

paiN

MIBR

FURIA and BIG faced each other in the second match of the day at ESL Pro League Group B. Here the two teams fought each other for a spot in the first playoff round of the tournament, while the loser would drop down to the Last Chance Stage tomorrow.

FURIA kicked the match off by winning Nuke. But BIG answered back with a superb map on Vertigo to steal the map pick back again.

Inferno was left as the decider, and while the first half was all even, it quickly turned sour for BIG on their T-side. Rafael 'saffee' Costa played outstandingly well to completely deny BIG in the second half. The FURIA AWPer went 17-3 during the 11 rounds in the second half. A masterful performance from the AWPer gave FURIA everything they needed to win comfortably 16-10.

BIG face Complexity tomorrow, and will have to win that match and later against the winner of Movistar Riders and SAW to qualify for the next stage.

FURIA – BIG 2-1 | ESL Pro League Season 17 Group B

MVP: {cflag:BR} Rafael 'saffee' Costa – 1.30 rating / 66-46 K-D / 79.0 ADR

We caught up with one of the heroes from FURIA after the spectacular win against NAVI at IEM Rio. Listen as Rafael "saffee" Costa tries to explain what is running through his head after the win.

FURIA will play Heroic later today. You can bet on the match via our bettingpartners down below.

Can FURIA continue their impressive run at IEM Rio and knock out s1mple and NAVI? That is the big question before tomorrow's last Quarter-Final. One thing is for certain, Rafael "saffee" Costa will have to deliver at his best against the best player in the world Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev when the two AWP'ers face each other on the server.

We spoke with Rafael "saffee" Costa, who also talked about his career so far.

The Americans RMR is done and the teams are set. Liquid, Evil Geniuses, 9z, 00NATION, FURIA, and Imperial are the teams who qualified for the Major in Rio. Liquid took the spit at the legends stage after taking down Evil Geniuses in the 2-0 in double OT games. FURIA AWPer saffee showed why he is one of the hottest players from the NA region, as he performed insane stats throughout the Americans RMR.

Check out which players are the best performers at the RMR Road to Rio.

Top 5 Leaderboards | IEM Road to Rio 2022 Americas RMR

1.      {cflag:BR} saffee (FURIA) | 1.48

2.      {cflag:US} EliGE (Liquid) | 1.29

3.      {cflag:BR} arT (FURIA) | 1.26

5.      {cflag:BR} yuurih (FURIA) | 1.21

1.      {cflag:BR} saffee (FURIA) | 93.7

2.      {cflag:US} EliGE (Liquid) | 90.9

3.      {cflag:BR} JOTA (MIBR) | 87.1

4.      {cflag:US} jeorgesnorts (Nouns) | 86.9

5.      {cflag:US} autimatic (Evil Geniuses) | 84.4

1.      {cflag:BR} saffee (FURIA) | 1.45

2.      {cflag:US} EliGE (Liquid) | 1.38

3.      {cflag:BR} arT (FURIA) | 1.36

4.      {cflag:LV} YEKINDAR (Spirit) | 1.33

5.      {cflag:US} jeorgesnorts (FaZe) | 1.32

1.      {cflag:BR} saffee (FURIA) | 1.44

2.      {cflag:BR} arT (FURIA) | 1.41

3.      {cflag:BR} kNgV- (O PLANO) | 1.31

4.      {cflag:BR} drop (FURIA) | 1.27

5.      {cflag:US} oSee (Liquid) | 1.27

1.      {cflag:BR} iDk (TeamOne) | 1.82

2.      {cflag:BR} drop (FURIA) | 1.77

3.      {cflag:PE} Pacman (Infinity) | 1.74

5.      {cflag:US} automatic (Evil Geniuses) | 1.72

With the introduction of ESL Impact Season 1, a new light was put on the female CS:GO players at the start of 2022. After the completion of Season 1, the best female teams were invited to Valencia to compete at the ESL Impact Valencia tournament with $100.000 in the prize pool. The tournament was held concurrent with the ESL Challenger Valencia, where Movistar Riders ended up winning on home turf in front of Outsiders.

With the TV coverage of the female tournament, we also got the chance of getting to know the different female players a lot better. The best team in the world at the moment, Nigma Galaxy won the tournament and the $50.000 that followed in first prize.

We asked Scope.gg to analyze the tournaments in order to compare different statistics from the two events. Here are some of the most interesting numbers.

We also asked Niels Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen to review some of the demos from ESL Impact Valencia, where the Danish pro has analyzed some of the best female players. Watch the video below.

fame

Ann4

Nigma Galaxy

FURIA pretty comfortably secured their survival at IEM Cologne after a 2-0 victory against Outsiders. Rafael 'saffee' Costa felt confident after playing against a team that stylistically is the complete opposite of them.

We know that against those teams we need to be more and more aggressive and just take them out of their comfort zone

FURIA has been going through a bit of a rough period lately. The last victory the Brazilians had was also against the Outsiders back at Roobet Cup.

We're just trying to get back on pace, trying to figure things out. Of course, we're not going to figure everything out because Cologne is now

Watch the full interview with 'saffee' below.

The third and fourth games of the day at IEM Dallas would see one team secure a playoff spot, while one team would be eliminated. The fight for the playoff spot stood between FURIA and Cloud9, while MOUZ and Vitality had to do their best to stay alive in this competition.

The action kicked off on Cloud9's pick of Vertigo, but it was the FURIA squad that got the best start. The trio of "arT", "saffee", and "yuurih", working around A and Middle secured a 7-1 lead. "nafany" and co. luckily managed to end the half better than they started, but the Brazilians still held a comfortable five-round lead at halftime.

The Russian squad started the second half much better even after losing the pistol round, but individually just did not seem as strong as the Brazilians who were able to rather comfortably steal away C9's map pick.

FURIA still looked like the best team as they landed on their own pick of Mirage. Even though the momentum went back and forth a couple of times, there were very few times where it actually felt like Cloud9 had the chance of taking it. With a three round winstreak to close the map FURIA secured the series at 2-0 and with it a spot in the playoffs.

16-9 (Vertigo) | {cflag:BR} saffee - 1.51 Rating / 27-14 K-D / 91.9 ADR

16-13 (Mirage) | {cflag:BR} yuurih - 1.38 Rating / 27-20 K-D / 96.0 ADR

MVP: {cflag:BR} Yuri "yuurih" Santos - 1.42 Rating / 48-34 K-D / 96.5 ADR

, the elimination Bo3 started with an extremely close half on MOUZ's choice of Inferno. It was back and forth through all fifteen rounds, but MOUZ ended out on top at 8-7 despite a great effort from "ZywOo".

MOUZ extended their lead by three after the break, but an eight-round streak devastatingly gave Vitality map point. "dexter" and co. were almost able to make the comeback happen, but due to a massive bank account for the French/Danish mix, they were up against rifles every single round, and Vitality just barely ran away with the victory.

The second map of Mirage was nowhere near as close as Inferno. With contributions from every player on the team and a standout performance from "Magisk", Vitality pretty easily secured their map pick and sent MOUZ packing.

14-16 (Inferno) | {cflag:FR} ZywOo - 1.50 Rating / 26-14 K-D / 91.9 ADR

7-16 (Mirage) | {cflag:DK} Magisk - 1.92 Rating / 26-13 K-D / 125.7 ADR

MVP: {cflag:DK} Emil "Magisk" Reif - 1.51 Rating / 45-28 K-D / 105.4 ADR

Magisk

ZywOo

yuurih

Cloud9

MOUZ

Team Vitality

Another game of the 1-1 teams was on the cards when BIG and FURIA took to the server. With only one map to be played the teams chose to take the fight to Vertigo.

"saffee" and "yuurih" were red hot as soon as the whistle blew and contributed heavily throughout the entire first half, which led to a dominating 12-3 T-side for the Brazilians.

BIG came alive after arriving on the T side, and led by the newest addition "Krimbo", the Germans dominatingly went on a 7-1 run. Despite the Germans keeping the game alive for longer than expected, the Brazilians' extreme ramp aggression yielded them three rounds towards the end which saw them close out the map.

With the win, FURIA are now 2-1 and primed for the playoffs, while BIG will have to do it the hard way

BIG - FURIA 0-0 | PGL Major Antwerp Challengers Stage

10-16 (Vertigo) | {cflag:BR} saffee - 1.55 Rating / 25-11 K-D / 84.4 ADR

It is tough times for fans of North American Counter-Strike. The only remaining hope at PGL Antwerp Major is in dire straits after two losses on Day 1 of the Legends Stage.

Against FURIA it was an uphill battle from the get-go. Behind 9-2 in the first half, it did not look like a competitive match for Team Liquid, who had issues dealing with saffee and yuurih, who dominated the NA team.

Ancient is CT-sided though, and in the second half, Team Liquid started to find kills and rounds. But in the end it was too little too late for EliGE and company, who now stares into elimination after two straight losses on Day 1. 

FURIA still has a long way to go, but will continue the fight for the Champions Stage in the 1-1 bracket tomorrow.

FURIA – Team Liquid 1-0 | PGL Major Antwerp Legends Stage

16-9 (Ancient) | {cflag:BR} Yuri 'yuurih' Santos - 1.51 Rating / 25-16 K-D / 104.1 ADR

Team Liquid

The 27-year-old Brazilian joined FURIA this January in the hope of bringing back the Black Panthers to the top of CS:GO. saffee hasn't lit up the server yet, however, yesterday against Complexity, he came very close. 

Watch the FURIA in today's Pley of the Day!

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compLexity Gaming

The 27-year-old Rafael “saffee” Costa has had an up and down tournament at ESL Pro League Season 15. The Brazilian AWP'er ended the group phase with two stellar maps against FaZe to help secure his team a direct spot in the Quarter-Finals at the event.

But earlier in the tournament, saffee found himself at the bottom of the scoreboard including a 5-25 K-D map against ENCE. 

- He is still struggling to be more comfortable. The way he plays makes it hard to set in and play at the best you can, FURIA's in-game leader Andrei "arT" Piovezan explained at a press conference. 

Rafael “saffee” Costa has only been on the team for three months, but there is much more to come from the former paiN sniper, according to arT.

- With time he is going to be more comfortable and have more confidence, so he is going to be a beast soon.

In the FURIA press conference, you can also hear Yuri "yuurih" Boian speak about how tough it was for the Brazilian roster to get used to communicating in English while Paytyn "junior" Johnson was on the team.

FURIA and saffee will play their next match at ESL Pro League later today when they face Astralis.

On Nuke it was ENCE’s in-game leader, Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer who stole the show. The Dane completely shut down saffee, drop, and KSCERATO going 22-4 against the three Brazilians in duels. The rest of the ENCE roster followed through and locked in the first map comfortably. Snappi ended the map with an impressive scoreline of 31-13 in K-D!

FURIA picked Vertigo as the second map. Here the Brazilians found a much better rhythm which saw them take the lead at the break. And despite a good start on their T-side, ENCE never managed to catch up on Rafael 'saffee' Costa and FURIA who became the only second team in the tournament to win a map from ENCE.

Mirage was picked as the decider map. Here it was ENCE in the driver’s seat. 12-5 up it looked like a clean third map win for the roster, but then FURIA started to heat up. One round took the other and suddenly the Brazilians were 15-12 up! An astonishing turnaround, that saw FURIA come out on top after a last-second defuse in the end. FURIA is now ready for the Quarter-Finals at ESL Pro League after a superb run in the group stage.

ENCE is also ready for the playoffs despite today’s loss.

ENCE – FURIA 1-2 | ESL Pro League Season 15 (Group B)

16-11 (Nuke) | {cflag:DK} Snappi – 1.86 Rating / 31-13 K-D / 108.8 ADR

11-16 (Vertigo) | {cflag:BR} saffee – 1.69 Rating / 28-14 K-D / 113.9 ADR

13-16 (Mirage) | {cflag:PL} dycha – 1.40 Rating / 28-17 K-D / 86.0 ADR

MVP: {cflag:PL} Paweł 'dycha' Dycha - 1.16 Rating / 59-46 K-D / 71.7 ADR

Snappi

dycha

ENCE

In the very first round of play in yesterday's ESL Pro League Season 15 matchup between FURIA and Sprout, Rafael "saffee" Costa turned the entire server into a "saffee show" through this splendid pistol round ace. The five USP headshots by the 27-year-old Brazilian helped FURIA build up momentum in the important series, which ended up in the favour of FURIA. 

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Sprout

The Brazilians of FURIA are known for their aggressive, creative, and very skillful playing style. As an opponent to FURIA, you are never quite sure as to when you are being pushed, flanked, or put in a stalemate. The unique playing style of FURIA is sure to strike fear in the hearts of their opponents and in addition to that also create some fantastic highlights for our viewing pleasure. 

Once again FURIA, and more specifically "saffee", delivered. When facing Sprout in the ESL Pro League Season 15 event, the Brazilian sniper started the Bo3-series in the best possible manner. Remaining cool, calm, and collected, he punished every single Sprout player rushing the B-bombsite. Hitting nothing but headshots it was "saffee" to singlehandedly win the first pistol-round of the Bo3-series for his team. 

Take a look at the clinical and clean USP ACE from the Brazilian sniper "saffee" in the clip posted down below: 

[twitchClip:RespectfulStylishRhinocerosDuDudu-fmypscCYaC4lJIhj]

The Bo3-series between FURIA and Sprout is currently LIVE - you can watch the rest of the game right here down below: 

At the age of 27, Rafael “saffee” Costa made his dream move when he joined the Brazilian heavy hitters from FURIA earlier this year. A transfer that marked the arrival to top-tier Counter-Strike for the former paiN profile, after having been away from the competitive scene for over eight years.

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In the modern-day of CS:GO, it’s quite unusual to see a player break through to the top of the game at such a high age. At the newly-concluded IEM Katowice, we got the opportunity to speak with saffee to hear about his rather uncommon CS:GO journey.

- I started out playing 1.6 for like two years, but then I stopped for eight years to focus on my studies and things like that. Since I came back to the Counter-Strike scene, I just started to play and improve myself as fast as possible by watching demos and playing FPL.

- I’ve worked really hard to be here – yeah that’s it.

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saffee and FURIA have played two tournaments so far in 2022, reaching the Grand Final at ESL Challenger February. 

- I’m pretty confident (that he can improve and elevate FURIA). Of course, there will be some time to adapt to the way these guys play, because FURIA’s way is kind of different to what I experienced in paiN. You need to be quicker with your reactions in the rounds.

You can watch the entire interview, where captain Andrei "arT" Piovezan also joined in talking about FURIA's expectations for 2022, down below.

paiN will once again field a full roster as they reveal Gabriel “nython” Lino as their new AWPer. The experienced sniper joins the Brazilian team from Isurus, where he has been playing since October 2021.

Nython is set to replace the powerful Rafael “saffee” Costa, who recently was signed by the South American heavy-hitters from FURIA. saffee averaged a stellar 1.27 Rating throughout the entire last, which makes it some big shoes to fill for nython.

paiN’s first test with the new roster will be against Bad News Bears at ESL Challenger League Season 40 North America this Tuesday night (CET).

{cflag:BR} Gabriel "⁠NEKIZ⁠" Schenato

nython

Looking at the world ranking through the last couple of years in CS:GO, you've always could find FURIA at the top –  and at their best also within Top 3. However, here in 2022, the Brazilian panthers initiate the season on a #27 spot.

Going into this year, FURIA has brought in the 27-year-old AWPer Rafael “saffee” Costa from paiN to fight their way back to the very top of the game. A signing, the captain and in-game leader, Andrei ”arT” Piovezan touched on in an interview with us.

- saffee is definitely a more experienced and very skilled AWPer, which is what we have been looking for since HEN1 left the team two years ago. saffee is very cool and always chilling. He’s also a person who wants to learn and listen so he definitely a nice teammate to have, arT said about his new teammate and continued:

- The way FURIA play, makes it harder for a new AWPer when he joins the team. He needs to adapt to the playstyle and the pace of the game.

In the latter stages of 2020, FURIA, led by the always aggressive arT and the powerful AWPer of HEN1, managed to climb all the way up to a #3 place on the world ranking after winning DreamHack Open Summer, ESL Pro League Season 12 and IEM New York.

However, arT still believes they are better suited now. 

- We are way stronger with this lineup than we were ever before (…) Here in the first two months, we just need 2-3 tournaments to put the pieces together. When you get the ball rolling you need to start winning tournaments to get your confidence up – that momentum is what keeps a good team at the top.

You can watch the full interview featuring arT in the video below. In the interview, the 25-year-old IGL also touches on his personal level and why his rating has dropped significantly over the years – but also who he thinks has the best opportunity to dethrone NAVI this year.

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HEN1

It was a regular bloodbath yesterday at Pinnacle Winter Series, where Heroic, Fnatic, and FURIA all got eliminated. The three teams had all been invited to step into the tournament at the quarter-final stage, where they faced three of the qualifiers from the group play.

Heroic lost 2-1 to K23 after narrowly losing out 16-14 on the decider map. It was also a close affair in the match between Fnatic and Apeks. The Norwegian Organization managed to edge out Fnatic winning  16-13 on both maps to seal the deal.

FURIA got destroyed by the Polish team Wisla Krakow, with the Brazilians only winning 14 rounds in total. A disappointing debut for the new AWP'er Rafael 'saffee' Costa, who ended the match with a 0.64 HLTV score and 19-37 in K-D!

The only invited team to make it through to today's semi-finals was Copenhagen Flames, who won 2-1 against the Turkish superteam, Eternal Fire.

Today's schedule at Pinnacle Series Winter (CET):

Copenhagen Flames

Apeks

Wisła Kraków

Rafael "saffee" Costa has been confirmed as a new signing at FURIA, the Brazilian organization announced this Thursday night. The 27-year-old AWPer will fill the void after the discarded Vinicius "⁠VINI⁠" Figueiredo, who were told that he wasn’t a part of FURIA’s plan going into the 2022 season.

- What a night, tomorrow I'll talk more calmly but for now I'm going to enjoy this moment... You asked for it and now FURIA-saffee is reality, saffee wrote on [link:{"url":"https://twitter.com/saffeecsgo/status/1479269285566586884","isNewTab":true,"text":"Twitter"}] following the transfer.

The powerful sniper has a big task in front of him, as he will try to fill out the shoes of the profiled Henrique “HEN1” Teles, who showed impressive levels with FURIA from his tenure between 2019-2021. Something, saffee’s predecessor, Paytyn “Junior” Johnson never managed to replicate.

Despite being 27-year-old, saffee is a quite new figure on the top of competitive Counter-Strike, where the majority of the community first got eyes on him last year due to a phenomenal showing at paiN Gaming. 

The late bloomer led the Brazilian team to notable victories like DreamHack Open January 2021 NA, and were also a big part of their qualification to the PGL Stockholm Major at the end of the year.

	30 days	90 days
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saffee

Player stats

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