Imperial Add Fer to Their CS:GO Roster

Fernando “fer” Alvarenga has joined the Brazilian Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team Imperial. He will step in for the team to replace Guilherme “piriaz1n” Barbosa.

Imperial Freshen Up Their Roster

Imperial have announced fer as the newest member of their CS:GO division on Thursday, April 29. The Brazilian CS:GO veteran has joined Imperial as a stand-in, to replace piriaz1n, who got benched on Monday.

A Twitter post from the Brazilian esports organization revealed that piriaz1n has been removed from the active lineup while Imperial investigate a potential VAC-banned account owned by the player. The investigation is still ongoing, with no further details bout it provided yet.

Fer will join Caio “zqk” Fonseca, Gustavo “SHOOWTiME” Gonçalves, Lincoln “fnx” Lau, and Cristopher “ckzao” Chalus to round up an all-Brazillian lineup.

Fer will travel to Mexico with his new squad, from where the team will compete in the upcoming tournaments. Their first joint venture is slated to begin next month when Imperial will attend cs_summit 8 closed qualifiers.

The Brazilian veteran will remain with the team at least through the upcoming IEM Summer, scheduled for June 3-13. Imperial qualified for the IEM with a near-flawless run through the DreamHack Open March 2021: South America in March.

CS:GO Legend Returns to Action After Seven Months

Fer is one of the most successful CS players in the history of the game. He began his esports career in June 2011 and slowly build up his reputation as a CS legend.

In the earlier days of his CS:GO career, fer played for PlayArt, Afterall Gaming, KaBuM! e-Sports and Keyd Stars before landing a spot at Lumosity Gaming in July 2015.

Despite his success in earlier days, it wasn’t until 2016 when fer’s career took off. He led Luminosity to the organization’s first Major title at MLG Major Championship: Columbus 2016.

In one of the most controversial roster moves in the history of CS:GO, fer and the remainder of Luminosity roster move to SK Gaming. There the Brazilians would win their second Major title at ESL One: Cologne 2016, only three months later.

Fer remained with SK Gaming for almost two years when the roster got signed by MiBR. After the initial success under a new banner, MiBR started to struggle and have since become nothing more than a shadow of their former selves.

That eventually led to the complete disbandment of MiBR roster in late 2020. Fer Epitácio “TACO” de Melo, Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo, and Ricardo “dead” Sinigaglia all got benched from the active lineup in September and eventually left the organization in pursuit of other opportunities.

That was also the last time fer was a part of a professional CS:GO team. Fer has since had a short stint as a stand-in for BOOM Esports, who he helped win the FiReLEAGUE 2020: Global Finals in December 2020.

By joining Imperial, fer would have reunited with zqkS, whom he played alongside in Keyd Stars and KaBuM in 2014-2015. Unfortunately, zqkS was unable to travel to Mexico, which leaves the team with only four members on the roster for the cs_summit 8 qualifiers.

Imperial Looking to Cause Some Damage at the IEM Summer

At the time of writing, the esports bookmakers have yet to start offering betting odds on the IEM Summer. Regardless, it’s easy to spot the favorites and the underdogs.

At the tournament, Imperial will join some of CS:GO heavyweights, including Astralis, Complexity Gaming, Fnatic, Evil Geniuses, Team Vitality, Ninjas in Pyjamas, as well as the emerging CIS squads in Gambit Esports, Team Spirit, and Virtus.pro.

As a world no.67 team, Imperial enter the tournament as the lowest-rated team in the field. That is not entirely shocking, seeing how there are three out of the top-five teams confirmed for IEM Summer with no team outside of Imperial ranked worse than no.22.

IEM Summer will mark Imperial’s only third appearance at an S-Tier event in the organization’s history. The only previous two being StarSeries & i-League CS:GO Season 8 and the World Electronic Sports Games 2018.

It will, however, mark fer’s 87th S-Tier Tournament of his career. Out of 86, fer has finished inside top-four in all but 44 and has won 10 of them.