Look Sports Media – BC.Game and Fnatic, two highly anticipated teams, experienced devastating exits from the IEM Rio 2026 Closed Qualifier, failing to live up to expectations and bowing out in joint last place.
The BC.Game roster, sporting the high-profile additions of Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev and Denis "electronic" Sharipov, showed little promise. Their journey began with a 2-0 defeat against Ursa, a relatively unknown squad ranked #185 in the VRS rankings. A subsequent match against Nemesis, a team formed from the previous GUN5 core (#53 VRS), proved equally challenging. Despite being considered favorites on paper, BC.Game struggled to find their footing. While they managed to secure a win on Nuke, their map pick, they faltered on Inferno and Ancient, ultimately losing the series 2-1. S1mple and electronic were the only players showing positive stats, while the rest of the team struggled.
Fnatic’s campaign was equally disappointing. They suffered an early loss to the Polish team KOLESIE, falling 13-9 on Ancient and enduring a humiliating 13-2 defeat on their own map pick, Mirage. In the lower bracket, they faced GenOne, a team featuring veteran French players like Nathan "NBK-" Schmitt and Kévin "misutaaa" Rabier. After losing the first map, they came back to win the second, before losing the third map. Ultimately, the international roster fell 16-14 to the majority-French team, highlighting the team’s internal issues. The departure of Benjamin "blameF" Bremer has left a void in the roster’s leadership, while the addition of Mykyta "jackasmo" Skyba in place of Cai "CYPHER" Watson has created an imbalance in roles. Jackasmo’s underwhelming performance against GenOne, with a 0.84 HLTV rating, further underscored the team’s struggles.
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These early exits raise serious questions about the future of both BC.Game and Fnatic. BC.Game’s current #28 ranking in HLTV’s live VRS simulation puts them at risk of missing out on major Tier 1 events. Fnatic, on the other hand, needs to find a way to address their internal issues and find a way to fill the void left by BlameF. The pressure is on for both organizations to make significant improvements if they hope to compete at the highest level of Counter-Strike.
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