The “smoke criminal” is reportedly coming back to both Counter-Strike and Brazil again—if their trial goes well.
According to Dust2 Brazil, Major winner and former North American CS:GO star Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip is eyeing a return to competitive action and will reportedly trial for Brazilian team Legacy. Legacy just missed out on advancing past the Opening Stage of the PGL Copenhagen Major, losing 2-0 to The MongolZ in the fifth round.
But rather than team up (and reunite) with another Major winner in Marcelo “coldzera” David, Stewie2K will be trialing for coldzera’s spot. The Brazilian legend with two Major titles to his name, once considered the best player in the world in 2016 and 2017, parted ways mutually with Legacy following their Copenhagen exit.
Stewie has spent a long time away from routine Counter-Strike competition. After a three-year campaign with Team Liquid from the start of 2019 through 2021, which peaked early during the unstoppable Liquid summer of 2019, Stewie joined Evil Geniuses at the start of 2022. That EG roster struggled heavily, though, with Stewie and the team performing well below expectations, eventually resulting in him stepping away from CS just months later as a whole to focus on streaming.
During this time away from CS, Stewie shifted his attention to mostly VALORANT, and even spent time competing in pro VALORANT offseason events and open qualifiers. Stewie came very close to qualifying for the official tier-two VALORANT league known as NA Challengers in 2023 alongside other former NA CS players brax and Wardell.
This past December, though, Stewie made his CS2 debut during the ESL Challenger League, joining popular NA team Mythic and competing in five matches. If Stewie does end up competing with Legacy, it won’t be his first time on a Brazilian roster; the former NA star famously left Cloud9 after the 2018 Boston Major to link up with the legendary SK Gaming roster before the group rebranded to MIBR.
