Esports World Cup 2024 MENA Closed Qualifier

ISSAA set to play first Big Event since 2019 as JiJieHao qualify for Esports World Cup

19-4-2024 22:15

The Jordanian rifler last played at a Big Event for HellRaisers in 2019.

ISSAA will play against the best teams once again

JiJieHao have emerged victorious from the Esports World Cup Middle East and North Africa (MENA) closed qualifier, beating Onyx Ravens 2-0 in the grand final (16-14 Anubis, 13-7 Ancient) to join the likes of Spirit, FaZe, Natus Vincere and G2 on the team list for the Saudi Arabian event.

The Chinese organization utilized Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye and Love "⁠phzy⁠" Smidebrant as stand-ins for the qualifier, with the latter taking over AWPing duties after Aleksei "⁠El1an⁠" Gusev departed the team in March and the former stepping in for Vadim "⁠DavCost⁠" Vasilyev.

El1an open to EU and CIS offers after Asia sojourn

The result means that Issa "⁠ISSAA⁠" Murad, who returned to Counter-Strike in November after a period in VALORANT, has earned himself a return to a Big Event for the first time since 2019 when he played for HellRaisers at ESL Pro League Season 9. The Jordanian rifler tried to qualify for PGL Major Copenhagen with the Chinese organization, but the team couldn't make it past TYLOO and Grayhound in the Asia RMR.

Kjaerbye recently appeared on stage at the Major to play in the showmatch, but hadn't tallied an official under an organization since a four-month stint with Endpoint in 2022. The former Astralis rifler's last Big Event was ESL Pro League Season 16 during that stint, and he too has earned himself a return to the world stage, although it is unclear whether he or phzy will also play for JiJieHao at the event.

When contacted by HLTV, phzy stated that he and Kjaerbye were just standing in for the qualifier, but said it was still a possibility that they travel with the team with "nothing decided" yet.

The team, bootcamping out of a facility in Dubai, beat VC in their opening match of the qualifier, but were cast down to the lower bracket following an 0-2 loss to Onyx Ravens. A repeat 2-0 victory over Paul "⁠day0s⁠" Niel's side set JiJieHao up for a rematch against Onyx Ravens in the grand final, and this time, it was ISSAA and company who tallied a win in two maps.

They were made to battle for it as Onyx Ravens entered the server in strong form, going up 8-4 on the T side of Anubis and quickly moving up to map point in the second half, 12-5. That lead ended up squandered, however, as JiJieHao won seven rounds straight to force overtime and remained ahead in the extra set of rounds, closing out their pick, 16-14.

Onyx Ravens had yet another strong first half on Ancient, establishing a 5-1 lead despite losing the pistol round. JiJieHao pulled off a handful of retakes at the end of the half to recover to a 5-7 deficit, but then took complete control once the sides swapped with ISSAA and phzy powering another seven-round streak to claim victory.

Esports World Cup 2024 MENA Closed QualifierBest of 3

Onyx Ravens

Matchpage

19th April 2024

JiJieHao

Anubis

Ancient

Onyx Ravens	K - D	Swing	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Osama '0SAMAS' Orabi 0SAMAS	47 - 34	+4.44%	86.5	78.0%	1.29
Zeyad '0scar' Alrummani 0scar	42 - 30	-2.66%	79.6	74.0%	1.22
Yosef 'Ttyke' Abdullah Ttyke	34 - 44	-1.66%	77.2	64.0%	0.93
Saad 'PokemoN' Ahmad PokemoN	19 - 40	-2.30%	57.3	52.0%	0.64
Ahmed 'Ejram' Hayder Ejram	16 - 44	-4.89%	61.2	60.0%	0.58

JiJieHao	K - D	Swing	ADR	KAST	Rating2.0
Love 'phzy' Smidebrant phzy	44 - 29	+3.75%	84.7	84.0%	1.44
Issa 'ISSAA' Murad ISSAA	44 - 33	+4.25%	96.7	80.0%	1.38
Markus 'Kjaerbye' Kjærbye Kjaerbye	34 - 27	+0.33%	75.0	80.0%	1.15
Davy 'ViTaL' Boulos ViTaL	33 - 33	+0.14%	75.0	74.0%	1.08
Hussein 'm1N1' Hijazi m1N1	33 - 36	-1.60%	77.2	72.0%	1.05

Four more spots at EWC 2024 are left to be decided, with two going to the winners of the Americas qualifiers on Friday and the remaining pair going to the winners of the Oceania and Europe qualifiers on Saturday.

The team list for the event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia is now:

NA Qualifier

EU Qualifier

SA Qualifier

OCE Qualifier

He is back

2024-04-19 22:16

1 reply

Lets go ISSA 120 ping goat after donk

2024-04-20 15:07

lol he’s back

Metiz go sign phzy

2024-04-19 22:17

fr he was putting up massive numbers while on RA. the amount of times he had 1.2+ rating even while losing 0-2 was really funny

2024-04-19 22:30

Damn did he not play any big events with OG

7 replies

it was all online

2024-04-19 22:19

4 replies

well as long as the big teams attend it's a big event for me

2024-04-19 22:20

3 replies

mb he actually did play lans but you cant consider them high tier

2024-04-19 22:21

2 replies

fair enough Ig being online disqualified everything

2024-04-19 22:23

Didn’t help that Issa is completely braindead as a rifler lol

2024-04-20 02:05

Pretty sure he played a lan, the one when navi wins it, cant seem to remember the event name

2024-04-20 03:21

I would say Katowice 2021 was a big event, even tho it was online.

2024-04-20 06:22

Lol Kjaerby is back as well?

good for phzy NIP shoulda never dropped him; when he stood in for the main roster he was playing good and smart cs

and a farlig-ish rating as well.

kjaerbye is back lmao

Sad that this statement can even be made. Dude was on top of the world when he was under 20 years old. Idk, times are a changing I guess.

2024-04-20 00:22

big event?

12 replies

6/6 teams from top6

2024-04-19 22:25

there'll be 8 top10 teams if EF or C9 qualify

Why is there never an intelligence comment coming from you Seriously. annoying brat

2024-04-19 22:26

8 replies

gj making a fool out of yourself

2024-04-19 22:31

u gotta tell it to urself mate, bait was shit

2024-04-19 22:33

6 replies

hltv.org/forums/threads/2890497/issa-fan.. doesn't get more embarassing than this also stop using alts it's not allowed

2024-04-19 22:35

5 replies

bro got so mad he INSTANTLY went to my profile seems like im gonna be in ur head for a day or two, my biggest fan<3

2024-04-19 22:36

Saw that threat earlier and almost logged off instantly

2024-04-19 22:37

u're always welcomed in my profile, my dear fan<3

2024-04-19 22:39

Kids these days

2024-04-19 22:42

+1 bro, stalking profiles every time they got rekt jeez...

2024-04-19 22:43

Yes, top 1-6 team will play

2024-04-19 22:27

JiJi are so back baby

2024-04-19 22:24

WELCOME BACK ISSA <3

Phzy and kjaerbye more relevant than rmr abuser bot ISSAA.

Did he get a new brain or is he still as braindead as in OG times?

2024-04-19 22:28

gl bro i remember him doing good with woxic in hr

2024-04-19 22:29

Let's gooo Issa and kjaerbye!!

Kjaerbye too!!! Lfg

2024-04-19 22:34

these region abusers..

Bro is here for diversity

2024-04-20 05:03

The fuck is this lineup

2024-04-19 22:41

ok? a ful article for a issa comeback seems weird

wtf is this roster

Very happy for my man! That's a decent line-up and we all missed ISSAA!!!!!

uiae

2024-04-19 22:45

>The Chinese organization utilized Markus "⁠Kjaerbye⁠" Kjærbye and Love "⁠phzy⁠" Smidebrant as stand-ins for the qualifier, with the latter taking over AWPing duties after Aleksei "⁠El1an⁠" Gusev departed the team in March and the former stepping in for Vadim "⁠DavCost⁠" Vasilyev. you could either call me stupid (I allow, mods pls don't ban) or support me that this sentence is badly written

2024-04-19 22:47

okay I did get this after revisting the article in 10 minutes. But... "former" still looks extremely wierd to me in a compound sentence mentioning 2+ players.

2024-04-19 23:02

UTILIZED KJAERBYE AND PHZY THE LATTER STOOD IN FOR ELIAN THE FORMER STOOD IN FOR DAVCOST MAKES SENSE

2024-04-20 02:17

former noun [ U ] US former noun [U] (FIRST) the first of two people, things, or groups previously mentioned

2024-04-20 04:41

Construction of: noun + noun, “latter” noun + “former” noun looks ugly af

2024-04-20 04:43

NOT THE CLEANEST SENTENCE BUT IT 100% MAKES SENSE HE IS JUST TALKING ABOUT PHZY BEFORE HE TALKS ABOTU KJAERBYE COULDVE BEEN ANY WAY AROUND

2024-04-20 04:48

why would youi make an article about a nonamer like ISSA that has barely any worthy achievements and not talk about Kjarb who has won a Major and was literally the MPV?

2024-04-19 22:48

Even though I like ISSA I must agree with you there

2024-04-19 23:12

Reverse Danish bias

2024-04-20 00:12

Well kjaerbye did attended big event recently with endpoint Also now as I think about his career path es3tag received more chances in various rosters for that train map online than kjaer for his major MVP lol

2024-04-20 00:54

Because it is unclear whether he or phzy will continue to play for JiJieHao. They helped them to qualify, but what's next is unknown.

2024-04-21 01:44

Happy to see ISSAA back!

RIP no PokemoN

2024-04-19 23:04

yeah man ;(

2024-04-20 10:36

nt osama

2024-04-19 23:05

Pokemans

2024-04-19 23:07

Issa, did you pick cache?

2024-04-19 23:09

kjaerbye And issaa back … we gonna party like it’s 2017

2024-04-19 23:11

ISSAA why you pick cache

2024-04-19 23:13

He want to win man

2024-04-19 23:35

why call this a world cup when essentially all these teams are mixed countries…

2024-04-19 23:36

kjaerbye > issaa

2024-04-20 00:53

Phzy and Kjaerbye taking easy Chinese finance? With this lineup they could genuinely qualify through the Asia RMR next time around.

2024-04-20 01:23

Big event?

2024-04-20 02:12

phzy carries. Let's see how far this team can go.

2024-04-20 02:16

wtf? davcost is STILL playing

2024-04-20 02:29

no davcost, no jijiehao

2024-04-20 06:49

phzy's stock going up, could do well in HEROIC after the shuffle. Weird journeyman career route at such a young age. Nice to see ISSAA and Kjaerbye back too. GL JiJieHao!

2024-04-20 02:36