Who exactly are Outsiders? A Look at CS:GO’s Latest Major Winner

There were a lot of surprises at the IEM Rio Major Grand Finals last weekend but it was a huge turn up that Outsiders took the final title. That doesn’t mean they don’t deserve it though, they came and took out the best CS:GO teams in the world including NaVi, FaZe Clan and more!

But who are the Outsiders? Those who haven’t really kept up with the pro scene might be feeling a little blindsided by a team they might not have heard of. It’s not that Outsiders are a brand new team but they have rebranded pretty recently.

Outsiders: A New Skin for Virtus.Pro

Chances are most CS:GO fans out there have heard of Russian org Virtus.pro. They’re a huge eastern EU org that take part in a number of games including Dota 2. In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the org decided to change their name to Outsiders. This was in order to ensure they have a neutral name going into this year’s esports tournaments and to distance themselves from Russia.

The announcement was made on March 4th via their official channels. This was only two days after tournament organizer ESL confirmed that Russian orgs with ties to the government would be indefinitely banned from playing in their events. As one of the largest esports organizers in the world, this surely came as a blow to several teams.

It’s probably worth noting as well that despite the name change, there were no changes to the player roster. That means that Qikert, Jame, FL1T, n0rb3r7 and Fame have been working together for a while alongside their coach. It might not have been the most successful season for them so far, but that has certainly changed!

IEM Rio: Taking out the Competition

After placing 13th - 16th at the last IEM Major in Cologne, Germany, the expectations weren’t especially high coming into Rio. It could also be said that Outsiders had a pretty hard road through the Major. After qualifying to Challengers, they worked their way through to Legends after 4 rounds. By the end of the stage, they were in 3rd place, which is certainly better than a poke in the eye!

The trend continued and they stormed through to 4th place in Legends only losing out to Heroic on Overpass. But Outsiders weren’t done yet! They worked their way right through Champions, taking out Fnatic and Heroic in the process. It was a bit of a revenge match in the Grand Finals, where they went on to beat out Heroic 2 - 0 on Mirage and Overpass.

What’s Next? BLAST Premier Worlds

Previously, the CS:GO pro scene was becoming a little unfortunately predictable. Hugh teams such as FaZe, NaVi and Vitality were seemingly placing very highly in every major tournament. However, their reign is seemingly over! Now that fans will be turning their attention to the BLAST Premier World Final taking place in December, it’ll be interesting to see how Outsiders hold their own going forwards.

Image source: Win.gg