IEM Rio Major profile: Grayhound

The ANZ region is still reeling from the online era and down from two teams to one at the Majors since PGL Stockholm. A no-expectations Grayhound will fight to make the region proud.

Grayhound is the sole Oceanian team heading into the IEM Rio Major, as was the case at the PGL Stockholm and PGL Antwerp Majors, when they played under the Renegades banner. Two teams represented the region before the coronavirus pandemic and the previous Renegades roster achieved the best Major finish for a team from the region at StarLadder Berlin, reaching the semi-finals. The Australia-New Zealand scene was at a high point.

The only other player from the region who will compete in Brazil is Christopher "⁠dexter⁠" Nong, who played with Grayhound in their 2019 Major runs. Other than MOUZ's in-game leader, the hopes of a whole scene rest on the shoulders of the five Australians (including David "⁠Kingfisher⁠" Kingsford) and one New Zealander, but it will take a miracle for the Grayhound team that qualified for the Major as the second seed in the Asian RMR behind IHC and landed last in our power ranking to play beyond expectations.

Australia and New Zealand's torchbearers

Oceania has had Major representation dating all the way back to EMS One Katowice 2014, when Aaron "⁠AZR⁠" Ward and Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill’s Vox Eminor were invited to the tournament. They reappeared at ESL One Cologne in 2014 after winning the Oceania qualifier and then made it to the two 2015 ESL Majors. First in Katowice, after winning the LAN qualifier, then in Cologne under Renegades and alongside another Australian team from the Asian qualifier: Immunity.

Australian teams then missed the Majors altogether all the way to ELEAGUE Boston, when the tournament’s main qualifier was rebranded to Challengers Stage and the Major expanded from 16 to 24 teams. From there on Aussies and Kiwis have played every single Major to date, although they were unable to pass the Challengers Stage until 2019, when the Renegades side featuring AZR, Justin "⁠jks⁠" Savage, Jay "⁠Liazz⁠" Tregillgas, Sean "⁠Gratisfaction⁠" Kaiwai and honorary Australian Joakim "⁠jkaem⁠" Myrbostad reached the playoffs twice, making the quarter-finals at IEM Katowice and the semis at StarLadder Berlin.

"I would say that 2019 was definitely the strongest year for Australian Counter-Strike — we had two internationally competitive lineups," INS told HLTV ahead of the IEM Rio Major. "Renegades having that amazing run at the Berlin Major wasn't a fluke, they really were strong and we haven't got back to that level yet as a region. The Covid era is behind us, but I think we're still dealing with the consequences of being isolated as a region and losing some of our most experienced players and leaders."

Grayhound, who played with dexter, Ollie "⁠DickStacy⁠" Tierney, Liam "⁠malta⁠" Schembri, Erdenetsogt "⁠erkaSt⁠" Gantulga, Euan "⁠sterling⁠" Moore and later on Simon "⁠Sico⁠" Williams, also reached the two Majors, but failed to pass the Challengers Stage at either one. The sweet moment came to an end when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Travel restrictions kept players from leaving their home countries or returning to them, and a schism was created as top tournaments took place online in Europe.

AZR and company, then in 100 Thieves, were dropped in part because of the pandemic and a weakened North American scene and jks moved to Complexity while the rest of the team core floundered in EXTREMUM until it dissolved in late 2021. The best Australian-New Zealander core no longer in action meant that the position of the flag-bearing team for the region was up for grabs, and the new Renegades that had been dominating every event on home soil during the pandemic took the baton.

Keeping the legacy alive

Renegades was composed of Sico, malta, Jordan "⁠Hatz⁠" Bajic, INS and dexter, some of the best players from the region outside of the old guard, when they started to win everything there was to win at home during the pandemic. Eventually, dexter was scooped up by MOUZ after they lost Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen to FaZe and Alistair "⁠aliStair⁠" Johnston was enlisted as the new fifth.

Local superiority didn’t translate to the international scene, however, as the Renegades went to Germany and Sweden to play IEM Cologne 2021 and PGL Stockholm when the world started to open back up, but the results were far from the dominating display against local competition. The Australian squad went out in 13-16th place at IEM Cologne and 12-14 at the PGL Stockholm Major.

A change was made at the end of 2021 and malta, who had by then been plying his trade in the organization for two years after the team was acquired from Grayhound, was let go in favor of Liazz. The new Renegades failed to make a mark at the IEM Katowice 2022 Play-In, getting knocked out in 13-16th place, before falling to IHC in the PGL Antwerp Asia RMR qualifier to scrape through with the second seed. Three straight losses in Belgium, including a two-map defeat to their Mongolian nemeses in the 0-2 pool, marked the end of an era as the team began a new journey under the ORDER banner.

The sojourn didn’t last long, one 9-12th place at EPL Conference Season 16 and a failed bid at IEM Cologne, before ORDER entered administration and the roster thenmoved to its current home during the off-season.

Not quite there yet

The all-important ESL Challenger Melbourne then came around to kick off the second half of the year, a chance for Grayhound to show off on home soil, but the hometown heroes did not deliver and only beat VERTEX in the group stage while losing to paiN and Imperial. Hatz, who had already been substituted by 18-year-old up-and-comer Declan "⁠Vexite⁠" Portelli, played his last event with the team due to a roster lock.

Grayhound followed up ESL Challenger with the four-team Asia RMR and once again came in second at the Major qualifying event, as they had done at the previous one. They defeated Rare Atom and JiJieHao International, but once again it was IHC who got the best of the Australians and snatched up the top Asian seed at IEM Rio.

Grayhound haven't hit the key to compete with the best teams in the world yet

Vexite, the big post-summer change, has so far had a mixed bag of results in the personal statistics department. The youngster has continued to dominate in his native scene, averaging a 1.14 rating since joining Grayhound, but that average drops to 1.01 when only taking LANs into account, which so far have been Fortress OCE Masters Fall 2022 Finals (where Grayhound missed out on a spot at BLAST Showdown by losing to VERTEX) and the Minor.

Grayhound have most recently traveled to Europe to try and shape up as much as possible before the big event. "We've had a good eight-day bootcamp in Poland in preparation for the Major," INS said. "We've been scrimming non-stop against top 20 teams, getting punished for a lot of our mistakes, and we feel like we've been learning and discussing tons in a short amount of time."

No expectations, no pressure

Grayhound are on shaky ground, going into the Major as the second-lowest ranked team in the tournament and last in the HLTV power ranking, but INS is hoping that a short bootcamp and a lack of expectations will help the team be both prepared and playing with nothing to lose. "Well, in terms of recent international results, yeah, that ranking is hard to argue with," the 24-year-old told HLTV. "That said, this lineup feels like the strongest it's been for a long time. We are motivated, we are constantly improving in practice, and we're coming in with nothing to lose."

The Australian team's strategy will be to not go into the Major with anything to prove other than to show they can compete against the best teams in the world and fight to better their two Challengers Stage showings in Stockholm and Antwerp. "We just want to show what we're capable of against strong European teams," INS said. "There are no expectations on the team, we're just going to play and show what we can do."

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