Intel Extreme Masters Road to Rio 2022: European RMR B has a lot of not-so-famous teams. Alongside giants like Natus Vincere or Team Vitality, a stack of modest teams also participates in the tournament. And Monte is one of them. CS.MONEY Blog has dug up some info about the squad and concluded they definitely have potential. But can they execute it?
Not A Club
Let’s start with the main point: Monte is not an esports club. This team doesn’t have enough attributes to be labelled a top team: no luxurious headquarters, no academy rosters, no world-famous sponsors. But Monte still has one thing that makes them awesome: influential players. To answer your “what is team Monte” question, just look at the players on the squad.
Although, we must mention some important nuances before moving to personalities. Monte has an international line-up. Considering it was assembled this summer, entering the Intel Extreme Masters Road to Rio 2022: European RMR B is a decent achievement. They played together only for a couple of weeks, overcame the language barrier, and jumped into a coliseum of high-tier teams to reach a Major. Their story is worthy of a sports drama series. Especially given the fact that the average age of Monte’s players is 20 years old, and their experienced mentor is only 23.
Woro2k: (Not)Banned on FPL
Volodymyr “Woro2k” Veletnyuk launched his esports career only two years ago but has already managed to achieve success. Like many other pros, he started with FPL-C, where he even got banned for a supposed league-qualifying fixed match. However, he managed to prove his innocence and got into the league. Indeed, Woro2k received many offers from various teams. It’s not that easy to find a good AWPer, and it’s even better luck if he’s a free agent.
Moreover, s1mple added fuel to the fire of this young player’s career. When summing up 2020’s results, he called Volodymyr a potential star. By the way, Woro2k’s latest huge CS:GO media hype was also connected with s1mple. When the Kinguin Legends charity tournament ended, these two players got into a verbal fight, went too personal and launched an absolute scandal. However, all the drama quickly faded, and people might’ve already forgotten the quarrel.
After a year and a half of playing in Eastern European orgs, Woro2k decided to take another big step in his career. He joined MAD Lions at the beginning of 2021. With this team, Volodymyr grabbed bronze at DreamHack Open November 2021 and finished 3rd-4th at BLAST Premier: Fall Showdown 2021. Not bad at all! At the end of 2021, Woro2k left the club’s starting lineup and wasn’t showing any results until the end of 2022’s summer. At Monte, playing in the qualifying stage of the RMR tournament.
REDSTAR: Went Pro At 16 yo
Bulgaria occupies an interesting place on the esports’ world map. On the one hand, there are too few successful players from this country. The only severe success was CeRq’s semi-finals of StarLadder Berlin Major 2019. On the other hand, Windigo Gaming won World Electronic Sports Games 2018 in 2018.
Hristiyan “REDSTAR” Pironkov, Monte player, has a similar situation. His career began back in 2017 when he was 16 years old. In five years, he managed to win the REPUBLEAGUE Season 3 and Elisa Invitational Fall 2021 championships. Those are pretty neat results for a youngster, but not outstanding. At the same time, Hristiyan shows himself as a consistent and prolific AWPer for Monte: over the past three months, his HLTV rating is 1.09, with 54% headshots and a kill-to-death ratio of 1.13.
Joel: FPL Enjoyer
Sweden’s Joel “Joel” Holmlund started his career early. Even though today he is 18, Joel’s first esports appearance was as part of GoBananas in 2019. However, it is much more interesting to follow not his club career, but him as an individual. Precisely, this year’s FPL results.
In February 2022, Joel won FPL’s silver. In March, he made it gold. He continued shining in the league’s top ten from April to July. Exceptional stability and purposefulness for a low-tier player. People noticed him thanks to individual successes, and he got to Monte (The first part of the promo code: TTA). After joining the squad, he hasn’t stopped being a great player. Joel’s HLTV rating is 1.14, the joint-best result on the team: Holmlund shares first place with Fessor. So let’s turn our attention to him.
Fessor: Astralis Agent
Even now, years after the end of the Astralis era, the Danes still have a reputation for being very technical and disciplined players. No matter how emotional and aggressive they could be after matches when the CS:GO timer launches; they are biorobots aimed at winning. Can people expect the same dedication, passion and skill from the Astralis academy roster? Yep, 100%.
At least from Frederik “Fessor” Sørensen. This is the most productive player on the squad, and his rating is on par with Joel’s. Fessor shows himself well in clutches and is known for a decent Deagle HS aim. All in all, he’s a solid player. Solid enough to bring his academy team to bronze at the WePlay Academy League Season 3 and gold at the Gamebox Invitational 2022. Now, he’s blasting heads for Monte.
DemQQ: A 21 YO Legend
Sergey “DemQQ” Demchenko is the oldest player in the Monte squad. However, he is only a year or two older than the rest of the team to be called a veteran of CS:GO. Same stuff for his career length. It is worth paying attention to the player’s latest tournaments, or rather to one specific tournament.
DemQQ played at Kinguin Legends #1 for Team Edward, sequencing in silverware. This tournament was full of old-school esports athletes, and by that, we mean old players. And such an experience for DemQQ can hardly be overestimated. Even without any current significant performances at the top level, players like kennyS or olofmeister can make you suffer big. By the way, Woro2k also played in the same team with DemQQ there (Second part of the promo code: MKO).
Monte’s roster is coached by Aidyn “KrizzeN” Turlybekov, an ex-AVANGAR player and Intel Extreme Masters XIII Katowice Major 2019 participant. As a result, it’s a jumble of young players from different countries who decided to stick together and try to qualify for the Major. Regardless of their results, Monte is a great indicator of how talent and passion can be combined even among the younger generation to reach the stars. So getting to the RMR tournament is definitely a worthy result, and every victory in the competition makes this result even cooler.
And we’ve still got the cool GameChanger Hub going on, where you can get cool games and really flip the game for yourself! And even in this article, we’ve hidden the promo code for you (piece by piece). So reread it carefully if you didn’t find it!
