Eternal Fire Spoils Team Falcons Superteam Debut

At the end of 2024 and the start of 2025, during what the Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) esports community like to call "rostermania," Team Falcons' superteam with legendary rifler Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač, the HEROIC core, and four-time Major Championship winner Emil "Magisk" Reif was truly the center of attention. 

In the first big test (BLAST Bounty 2025 Season 1 Stage 1), however, Team Falcons fell short of expectations. While everything seemed to go well enough (but not great) as they beat ENCE 2-0 with both maps being quite close, Team Falcons then went up against 

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For those who didn't watch the match, Eternal Fire's map pick went very well. The opening map, Inferno, saw the Turkish side pull ahead early on for an 8-4 lead in the first half and closed it out 13-6 quite convincingly. 

Team Falcons' map pick of Nuke was a close one, with Team Falcons 7-5 ahead in the first half. Eternal Fire, however, pulled back on the T side to even the map out 12-12 and forced overtime. After two rounds of overtime, Eternal Fire emerged victorious with a 19-17 map win, thereby winning the series 2-0 and knocking Team Falcons out of BLAST Bounty 2025 Season 1 before the LAN finals.

It was Ismailcan "XANTARES" Dörtkardeş and Ali "Wicadia" Haydar Yalçın leading the scoreboard for Eternal Fire, while René "TeSeS" Madsen was top on the Team Falcons side. Unfortunately for NiKo fans, the star rifler definitely had an off time, with a low 29 kills compared to 42 deaths...ouch!

Team Falcons won't be at the BLAST Bounty 2025 Season 1 Finals. However, their next S-Tier challenge is the iconic IEM Katowice, which begins on 1 February 2025. They are a direct-invite team, which means they skip the Play-In and start in the top 16. Can Team Falcons quickly bounce back? We can't wait to find out!

You can rewatch the entire final day of matches in the video below.

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