After being sent to the lower bracket, Team Liquid were eventually eliminated by Fnatic to finish fourth overall at the first international LAN. Despite losing to North American team Version1 on the opening day of Masters Reykjavík, ScreaM had a 1.29 K/D (kills/deaths) with over 60 kills in his first series. At the time, ScreaM was playing a mixture of Phoenix and Sage, which was meta during the event. ScreaM was a force to be reckoned with on Team Liquid at Masters Reykjavík, but those talents were challenged by North America. I didn’t expect VALORANT to take over CS in my heart.” “I miss the game as well because it has been there my whole life.
“I miss the CS community,” ScreaM said on an episode of Showstopper. Team Liquid saw varied success in Europe, but beating Fnatic during VALORANT Champions Tour 2021: EMEA Stage 2 Challengers Finals showed that Liquid could be contenders on a world stage. Just four months after making the switch from Counter-Strike to VALORANT, ScreaM joined Team Liquid alongside his teammates from fish123. But, when they came in second to G2 Esports at the WePlay! Invitational, that all changed. Fish123 were seen as an underdog team in the minor league tournaments they competed in. It wasn’t until he joined fish123 that his talents were brought to the forefront of VALORANT esports. ScreaM bounced between several teams in the early days of VALORANT esports by competing in European tournaments. In 2020, Riot Games’ hit FPS title VALORANT was released, and with it came the launch of small online tournaments. He saw varied success in smaller tournaments but wouldn’t compete in another premier event for the remainder of his career in Counter-Strike.
When ScreaM eventually left Envy in 2018, he was thrown into the Tier 2 level of professional Counter-Strike. The team placed top-five at ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier at the end of 2017, but that was the highest prize pool that ScreaM took home on Team Envy. Despite coming off a successful 2016 with G2 Esports, ScreaM’s time with Envy was much less notable than when he was with G2 Esports.
It was on that team that he saw glimpses of greatness including their victory at the Esports Championship Series Season 1 in 2016, their runner-up finishes at ESL Pro League Season 3 and StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 2, and, finally, their top 16 finish at ESL One: Cologne 2016.Īfter leaving G2 Esports in 2017, ScreaM started the next chapter in his career by playing with Team Envy. When ScreaM joined G2 Esports in early 2016, his legacy began to solidify. VeryGames also won the fall edition of that event, and ScreaM seemed ready for the next step of his career.Īfter that early success, though, ScreaM struggled to find a permanent home. His first big hit in CS:GO came with VeryGames at the ESL Major Series One Summer, where he and his squad took down Virtus.pro in the final. At just 18 years old, ScreaM climbed his way through different open qualifiers and landed spots on several teams to find success. We were roughly the same age, and he was a guy that you would look up to and try to imitate some of the stuff that he was doing.”Īt the end of 2012, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive was announced, giving ScreaM another opportunity to showcase his skills. He has actually been on my radar for quite some time. He had this clean, clinical aim that we know ScreaM for today. “He had this unique style, always head-shotting people, always trying to one-tap people. “I learned about ScreaM when I started out playing Counter-Strike myself in Counter-Strike: Source,” Counter-Strike analyst and former professional player Jacob “Pimp” Winneche said. His team, redLine, placed second overall at the event and, later that year, ScreaM would place second again during EPS France Season IX under LORD. ScreaM started his professional career during Counter-Strike: Source, with his first LAN at EPS France VIII in 2010. It was the first marquee moment of a career that has now turned to VALORANT, Riot Games’ first-person tactical shooter, and Champions, the first world championship for the esport. After just 27 rounds of Counter-Strike and 19 kills from ScreaM, Team Kinguin were crowned the champions. Rather, it was the perfect moment to showcase what they were truly capable of, as they took down powerhouse teams in the upper bracket like Natus Vincere and Titan Esports to make it to the grand final. Gaming Paradise, Counter-Strike’s famous tournament failure of 2015, was anything but a loss for a young Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom and a hot Team Kinguin.