kauez confirms paiN benching: "I was in an endless loop of self-blame"

The Brazilian says position changes without sufficient time to learn new spots contributed to his loss of form.

Kaue "⁠kauez⁠" Kaschuk has confirmed his benching from paiN in a lengthy post on X.

He is expected to be replaced by academy player Iago "⁠deemO⁠" Henrique on trial according to Dust2.com.br.

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Media: paiN set to remove kauez, trial deemO

The Brazilian points to a lack of practice in new roles amid "championships one after the other" as the main reason for his drop in form.

He had a 1.14 rating in Shanghai across the RMR and all stages of the Major, ending the year in good form but that disappeared in 2025 as David "⁠dav1deuS⁠" Tapia Maldonado replaced Lucas "⁠lux⁠" Meneghini.

After five LANs, he sits on a 0.88 rating this term — form bad enough to get him the boot.

"I think it was a good decision for both sides," he wrote. "For me, because I believe I was in an endless loop of self-blame and had no escape, and for the kids, precisely because they knew the potential I had and I wasn't being able to use it, and I believe that was very much lacking for the team as a whole."

Captain Rodrigo "⁠biguzera⁠" Bittencourt has frequently spoken about paiN's decision to have fluid CT roles, without specialist anchors or rotators to make sure everyone has comfortable maps and halves.

But as the dav1deuS lineup evolved, it was kauez that ended up with nearly all anchor positions: B on Mirage, B on Train, Ramp on Nuke, and Long on Dust2 as examples. He was also full-time lurking on T, what he called the "wing player" on both sides.

These are roles kauez says he made clear that he "could do" but there was little time to get to grips with the new positions — shown most in a stunning (and successful) mid-map exchange on Mirage during IEM Katowice against Virtus.pro where all four riflers swapped CT roles.

kauez also swapped from Pit to A Rotation on Inferno, a better spot in theory but one that required training time kauez says he did not have.

"I was always trying to find some reason why I was playing badly," he wrote, continuining: "I think the main reason for everything was the championships one after the other, us traveling all the time and barely having time to practice the maps with the new position changes.

"I'm not going to blame my poor performance on the change of roles, because I've always been very calm about it, but I think the timing wasn't right."

"I feel a bit relieved about going to the bench," kauez admits as he closed his statement with a look to the future and eyes on a return to a bolder "cachorro" playstyle.

"Everyone who knows me knows that I've always been a very active player with a lot of freedom on the server, I've always liked that, but I've also always valued doing the best for the team and here at paiN it was a bit of that."

paiN will debut without kauez at PGL Bucharest at the start of April.