“The road to qualifying for this Major was not something I had necessarily expected,” Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz tells me when reflecting on BIG’s journey this year. “Of course, it has always been a dream to play in Germany, in Cologne, at a Major. Being able to say now that we are going to play this Major in Cologne feels almost unreal.”
And unreal is not an understatement. BIG had been in the doldrums at the start of 2026, having missed both the Austin and Budapest Majors and fallen out of the bubble of receiving regular invites to tier-one events after a miserable string of results.
Plagued by roster changes, inconsistency, and repeated blows to their confidence, the team was in dire straits as the year reached its end.
“We are not satisfied with the results within the team,” tabseN had told HLTV at Birch Cup in November. “We all know that we can be better but the reality is we are not better, we are worse than we have been before.”
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tabseN: “It’s possible for anyone to be removed, including myself”
The tenured rifler, who recently eclipsed nine years with the organization, had made it his goal to revive German Counter-Strike — even to what many considered the detriment of his own career, having avoided offers from other top teams in the past.
“It has always been one of my biggest wishes to see German esports become as competitive as possible while proudly representing Germany on the international stage,” tabseN says. “That’s also why it’s been a bit disappointing for me to see how things have developed over the years.
“Especially this year, with more Tier 2 LAN tournaments finally coming up, other countries once again managed to create opportunities and successfully participate in those events, while Germany unfortunately kept falling behind.”
Such was BIG’s plight that even tabseN believed he could be on the chopping block from his home organization heading into the off-season. Hope in German CS was dwindling, already signaled by the team’s acquisition of Belarusian AWPing talent Gleb “gr1ks” Gazin, and they waded further into international waters as the calendar turned to a new year.
“We reached a point where the disbelief within the team became stronger than anything else,” tabseN says when reflecting on the uncertainty within the team at the end of 2025. “We were no longer the team we believed we could be at the beginning.
“For me personally, it became very important to focus on being able to perform and be rated as an individual player again. It’s probably not the easiest situation to handle, but with the rebuild and the vision for the future, it was ultimately up to the management to decide how they wanted to shape that vision.
“I was clearly getting exhausted with the overall situation, and I also suggested that BIG should consider the option of bringing in a dedicated IGL. Seeing blameF become part of those discussions honestly felt like a dream come true. Playing alongside an international star once again is something that truly excites me and fills me with joy.”
We reached a point where the disbelief within the team became stronger than anything else
Benjamin “blameF” Bremer was whisked away from fnatic, who themselves had endured a torrid year despite a miracle run to qualify for the Budapest Major, and took over captaincy duties after previously stepping down from the role while playing with Rodion “fEAR” Smyk.
It was, in some ways, a complete overhaul for BIG; a systemic change and departure from the German style of Counter-Strike, and the kind of leadership handover the team had been in search of ever since tabseN had given up the role earlier in the year.
“BIG said many things I liked,” blameF tells me when asked about what made the organization’s offer so enticing. “The first thing was that they described the character they believed they needed in order to get better results, and that description was very close to what I feel like I can contribute to a team with.
“After the initial talks, they said they really believed in me and my vision and wanted to give me a place where I could implement my vision of how to build a team that could compete at a higher level than what they were at. I wanted to make sure I could be in a team with clear roles and expectations for each player, a team that would operate within values and standards that would be set from day one, and a team that all went into a clear direction together as a team.
“All of these things BIG agreed with, and while I could focus a lot on these core elements I think a new team would benefit from working on, they handled the strategy of how we could be in the best possible scenario to climb the VRS rankings despite being in a ‘tough’ situation from a ranking perspective.”
That “tough situation” is what makes BIG’s qualification run to the Major unexpected, and gave tabseN the “unreal” feeling of earning a berth at his home Major. The addition of blameF and return of Josef “faveN” Baumann had resulted in the team tumbling down the VRS after their roster forked into two on the Global Rankings, leaving them with an effectively two-month-old core and a fall from 38th to 87th.
With no tier-one invites and a revamp of the team’s structure, BIG were looking long-term with the move. Thoughts of qualifying for Cologne were a pipedream, and the team knew the position it would be left in with the changes.
“It wasn’t something I was worried about,” blameF says. “I knew that climbing the first step together as a team wouldn’t require much effort on the server, but more effort in being on the same page outside the server, which was where most of my focus was early. I wanted to make sure that the first step of the team was that everybody understood that the criteria of success early on for us was more about coming together as a group with values we all bought into and practiced every day, rather than us trying to achieve short-term results on the server.
“We have had many many talks about what team we want to be and how we want to approach different situations, it’s something we work with almost daily and I think it has given us a good fundamental layer that we can always fall back on, especially in tough situations when results aren’t what we want them to be, so that we continue being a close group also in these situations.”
Even with eyes set firmly on the future, though, short-term results still followed. Back-to-back LAN victories at Roman Imperium Cup IV and United21 Esplay Challenge Season 1 helped BIG rocket up the rankings, thanks in part to the new core gaining a wealth of points from LAN match wins they didn’t have before, and the team found themselves sitting on the cusp of the top 30 just two months into the year.
BIG soon entered Major invite range after winning NODWIN Clutch Series 5, and a runner-up finish at BC Game Masters Championship had them knocking on the door of the Major before a title-winning run in HLC Belgrade PRO sealed their berth.
But focus within has remained on long-term progress and an overhaul of the structure. blameF has steadily worked to ingrain the fundamentals that the team sorely lacked in labored years gone by, adding both a wealth of firepower — which tabseN praised — while instituting discipline across the board.
“If I see behavioral patterns on or off the server that don’t harmonize with our values or standards in the team, I will instantly make it a priority in the team to resolve these issues,” blameF says. “I think in the past, when I wasn’t the leader of the team, I might have sometimes ‘ignored’ things because usually these things require uncomfortable conversations, but not in this team.
“Also, it’s natural for players to forget a lot of stuff because they aren’t thinking about these things 24/7, as you are when you are the leader of the team, so I also do my best to hold every player accountable, which can be a mentally draining job, but I truly believe it’s the best way to build a team that will perform long term. People need constant reminders of what and how we do things, and I am spending a good amount of time on this.”
Coming in as an outsider and revolutionizing the system always comes with concerns, but blameF heaped praise upon tabseN for making the transition seamless.
In the past, when I wasn’t the leader of the team, I might have sometimes ‘ignored’ things because usually these things require uncomfortable conversations, but not in this team
The German rifler has been the Dane’s right-hand man throughout the process, helping hold people accountable for the values set out, willingly taking over every leftover position to let the rest of the team shine, and helping with small calls and reminders to the other players during rounds.
“Of course, when I joined, it was a small concern from me that maybe he would want things done a specific way because he is used to being IGL in the past, but I haven’t had a single moment where I felt Johannes [tabseN] ever had any of these desires to stir the team in a specific direction,” blameF says.
“I actually feel quite the opposite. Johannes is always the first guy in the team to help me get everybody to go in the direction I need, he tells people how hard it can be when you’re an IGL and four different people want four different things, and you have to make a tough call in the moment.
“I realise I could probably mention 200 more things that Johannes does that contribute to our team, but I will just say that he is the complete blueprint of the perfect teammate anyone could ever wish for in their team. His consistency in all these areas is absolutely elite, and I could not have wished for any better teammate than him.”
tabseN sent praise the other way, calling his new teammate an inspiration for the way he carries himself on and off the server. But for blameF, credit for his evolution as a captain also goes to his former fnatic in-game leader fEAR, who showed the Dane that structured calling isn’t everything.
“I think my calling was too ‘pretty’ sometimes back when I used to IGL,” blameF says. “It was hard for me to adapt back then because it was just the way that felt natural to me, but after working with fEAR, who I respect a lot as a caller and leader, I can see many things from his perspective.
“I think I have a way easier time now calling stuff that might not make sense on paper or not be in our startbook. Calls don’t have to be pretty all the time: if there is something in the moment I feel like could work now, I will just call it. Often this requires a lot of trust from the players to execute ideas that are new or unknown for them at the moment, which is something we are working on and hopefully will be very comfortable with in the future.”
It would be remiss not to mention gr1ks’s progress, a player who has been a consistent presence on our Prospects list ever since its creation. The 20-year-old sniper, who tabseN calls “a very hard worker” and one who “pays great attention to detail,” has embedded himself within blameF’s system. He has averaged a 1.14 rating in 2026, and despite some trouble adapting, has held his own — although admittedly, not against the best competition.
That will soon change as BIG now prepare to attend their home Major in Cologne, Germany, its biggest challenge yet after grinding tier-two LANs for months. Yet even with the opportunity ahead, the team isn’t changing its outlook.
“Personally, I just want to show the CS we’ve been playing over the last couple of months,” tabseN says. “We’ve grinded so many games and tournaments that it feels like we’ve been preparing for this exact moment. Being in Stage 1 means there is still a lot of work ahead, and moving forward will require even more grinding. Our goal in Cologne is to stay true to ourselves and to the team. Stage 3 is what I’m aiming for, and I truly believe we have it in us.”
blameF strayed away from setting any expectations of where BIG will finish, but echoed similar sentiments to tabseN regarding what he hopes his team will show.
I hate excuses and we will have none if we don’t play well in this event
“It’s a big step for us as a team to be part of a Major so early together, but most important is that we use this experience to learn from,” the Dane says. We have been navigating tier-two/three tournaments the whole year, and this will be the first time actually playing something significant. It’s very important that we, as a team, use this event to grow together.
“It’s a boring answer, but it’s the truth. I will be extremely disappointed if we come in sloppy to this event as we have worked the whole year towards a chance like this, and I will be very proud if we can show each other in the team that we are ready to take the next step in our journey together.
“I feel like we are as prepared as we can be. I hate excuses and we will have none if we don’t play well in this event. If we don’t perform this event, it will be because we as a team didn’t do well enough, and that’s it.”
