Brazilian esports organisation paiN Gaming has benched David ‘dav1deuS‘ Tapia and Franco ‘dgt‘ Garcia from its Counter-Strike 2 roster.
The transfer follows the organisation’s Stage 3 exit on the StarLadder Budapest Main 2025, failing to qualify for the playoffs consequently.
The South American facet scored a breakthrough top-four end on the BLAST.television Austin Main, laying the foundations for a robust second half of the 12 months. Nonetheless, regardless of its deep run, paiN Gaming struggled to copy the success in different Tier 1 tournaments.
Failure to qualify for the BLAST Open London playoffs, together with early exits from IEM Cologne 2025 and IEM Chengdu 2025, noticed the staff drop down the Valve Regional Standings (VRS). December’s standings noticed the staff drop to fifteenth within the international standings, having reached a peak of eleventh in February.
In the course of the second half of 2025, paiN Gaming scored a solitary semi-final look at BLAST Rivals Fall 2025, hoping a stable show would result in one other deep run on the Main.
Beginning the Main in Stage 3, the staff gained its opening contest towards 3DMAX, earlier than recording two defeats by the hands of G2 Esports and NAVI. A 2-0 loss to B8 in spherical 4 introduced an finish to paiN Gaming’s Main marketing campaign, scoring a 1-3 file and $20,000 (~£15,022) in prize cash.
What Subsequent For PaiN Gaming?
With two open locations on its beginning lineup, paiN Gaming seems to revamp its roster with a pair of recruits seeking to assist the staff attain the heights it achieved in Austin.
As soon as the Main is concluded, a number of groups are anticipated to make modifications earlier than consideration turns to the beginning of the 2026 season. The 2026 Tier 1 occasion calendar kicks off with BLAST Bounty Winter going down between January thirteenth to twenty eighth.
