The Wax Wings of kNg
The story of Vito "kNg" Giuseppe is one that will be retold through memes for years to come. The player who would go on to become the legend we know today didn't come from nowhere — the scene in Brazil, while unknown to many casual fans, slowly developed to become what it is today. kNg's start in Global Offensive began in a team called PlayArt, with many names we all know.
In April of 2013, the lineup of Lincoln "fnx" Lau, Bruno "bit" Lima, Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo, Fernando "fer" Alvarenga, and kNg was formed. They played several domestic online cups together, falling short to teams featuring Lucas "steel" Lopes, Wilton "zews" Prado, and Raphael "cogu" Camargo in the process.
In 2014, kNg and fnx's team (also featuring Lucas "LUCAS1" Teles) would fall short in the Brazilian qualifier for the MLG Aspen Invitational, losing to FalleN's KaBuM.TD. That team would go on to place top eight at two Majors and put Brazil on the map. kNg's next foray into the upper echelons of Brazil came when he joined g3nerationX in August of 2015.
Featuring names such as bit, Lucas "destiny" Bullo, Renato "nak" Nakano, Rafael "pava" Pavanelli, and João "felps" Vasconcellos, this team won many cups in Brazil, and eventually the team moved on to join Keyd Stars. This squad — which would become the core of what is now Luminosity — continued to do well domestically, but the core of the roster left for America and WinOut.net in May of 2016 while kNg and Jean-Michel "mch" D'Oliveira returned to g3nerationX and remained in Brazil.
Under g3nerationX once again, kNg found himself alongside mch, Caike "caike" Costa, pava, and Lucas "steel" Lopes attending the ESEA MDL Season 22 Global Challenge. Here they only managed to take a single map, albeit against the eventual winners of the event Mortal Kombat. After removing pava and adding bit, this team then attended the WESG 2016 Americas Regional Finals where they exited in the group stage due to an odd tie breaker with the Chileans from Force Of Nature.
steel then left to join Immortals in November, and after picking up Denner "KHTEX" Barchfield, g3nerationX attended and won WCA America Finals. The team still attended the WCA Global Finals despite leaving the org in December, and fell in the group stage to TyLoo and VG.CyberZen. At this point the team split, with kNg, mch, and caike joining up with nak to play in Europe under Orbit.
Shortly after, the Orbit organization merged with Red Reserve, and kNg competed in Europe under them until May. During this time, kNg put up huge numbers with the AWP online and garnered attention from many fans and experts, even despite a poor performance at Copenhagen Games. In May of 2017, the team disbanded, with all the players except for nak returning to Brazil.
Around this time Immortals had just removed fnx from their lineup due to internal problems, and were looking to add a fifth. According to reports by HLTV.org and Jarek "DeKay" Lewis, Immortals intended to sign João "horvy" Horvath, but (ironically, as it would turn out) due to visa issues signed kNg instead. Many people were skeptical of this move as kNg hadn't shown much other than in online play, and the team already had a primary AWPer in Henrique "HEN1" Teles.
Their debut tournament was the ESL Pro League Season 5 Finals, where despite beating G2 and Cloud9 the team could not advance past the group stage. They next attended the Americas Minor for PGL Krakow, where they placed second to Cloud9 and secured a spot at the PGL Krakow Main Qualifier. They followed up their Minor run by attending DreamHack Summer, where they made the playoffs taking down their big brothers in SK, but fell to Fnatic in the semifinals. From here Immortals would go on to break their curse of failure at the Major Qualifiers, taking down Dignitas, GODSENT (in an enormous comeback from 12-3 and then 14-9), and HellRaisers to qualify for their first Major.
Something clicked inside of kNg as he went on to put up superb numbers during the group stage of the PGL Krakow Major. Taking down Vega Squadron, Natus Vincere, and FlipSid3, Ricardo "boltz" Prass and steel made their return to the Major playoffs, while HEN1, Lucas "LUCAS1" Teles, and kNg were successful in their first Major appearance.
Due to the way the Swiss group played out, Immortals got matched against BIG in their quarterfinal match. BIG had gone 3-0 in the group stage by playing only Inferno, but beating some of the best teams. After a close back and forth match, Immortals came out on top, and advanced to face Virtus.pro. The Polish legends were already in a very weak state, and had exited in the group stage of ESL One Cologne and StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 3 earlier in the year. The Teles twins gave Virtus.pro a battering, and Immortals found themselves in the grand final.
Their opponents were to be Gambit, the Kazakh team which had taken down one of the favorites Astralis, in the semifinals. The series went to three maps, with Gambit finally coming out on top, thanks in part to some miraculous plays by Abay "Hobbit" Khasenov. Despite losing the final, making top two in a Major was a significant achievement, and put Immortals on the radar as a potential top team.
On the way home from their next event DreamHack Masters Malmö, kNg was denied entry to the United States. DreamHack Montreal was approaching very quickly and kNg was prevented from leaving the US for two days. He then had to fly all the way back to Brazil before immediately getting on another flight to Canada. This very stressful situation likely played into what would unfold the next few days.
Regardless, steel and company then found themselves in Montreal, Canada for DreamHack Montreal, where alongside North they were one of the favorites to win. After taking down Luminosity, Cloud9, and CLG with ease, they were to face the Danes in the grand final. The organizers announced later in the day that due to some players of Immortals arriving late to the venue, North were awarded a forfeit win for the first map. This led to the grand final consisting of a single map and Immortals placing second.
It later came out via Steve "Ryu" Rattacasa on Twitter that not only were some Immortals players late to the grand final, but that they were also late to their semifinal against CLG earlier in the day. Ryu also explained and stressed that steel and boltz, both former members of Luminosity, were on time for both matches that day.
In light of the forfeited map, CLG player Pujan "FNS" Mehta joked on Twitter that it was sad he had lost to players who were hungover. This remark did not sit well with the accused Immortals players, in particular kNg, who replied to FNS with the now infamous "Prove it or I'll kill you" line. kNg also threw another slew of tweets at FNS after deletion of the previous one about how FNS was lying about his team and that he would not apologize for his actions.
A few hours later in the day, DeKay claimed on Twitter that kNg had gone to the player hotel in search of FNS and that Immortals coach Rafael "zakk" Fernandes had to convince kNg to stop. As a result of these actions, kNg was put on suspension until the Immortals organization had a chance to talk with him and discuss further action.
Due to the suspension, along with continuing visa issues, kNg did not play at the ELEAGUE Premier, where 1.6 legend cogu stood in. Despite exiting in the group stage against North and Fnatic, cogu and Immortals gave a good showing considering their circumstances. With the EPICENTER qualifiers coming up, kNg expressed distress with being unable to help his team, and was antsy to play again.
Reportedly, when kNg asked to play despite being in Brazil, he was told that he wasn't allowed to. However, after the first map of Immortals' game against Liquid had finished, HEN1 and LUCAS1 told kNg that their manager had given him permission to play. He then proceeded to play, and expectedly performed pretty poorly. This action broke his suspension, and the next day it was announced that he was cut from the team entirely.
It was then reported that HEN1 and LUCAS1 wished to leave the team to play with kNg, and Immortals in response benched the two players but did not release them from their contracts. With 3/5 of the core members of the team that had placed 2nd at the PGL Krakow Major having stepped down, much speculation occurred around what would happen to their Major spot. There were also many rumors about which organization would both buy the twins from Immortals and sign kNg despite the baggage attached.
bit came out on Twitter and confirmed that the roster for their new team was to be the core of kNg, HEN1, and LUCAS1, along with himself and fnx. On December 12th, Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag's organization 100 Thieves announced their entrance into CS:GO by signing kNg and friends. However, on the first day of the Major Qualifier, 100 Thieves announced that they were pulling out of the event due to visa issues with their players.
This time a joke made by Duncan "Thorin" Shields on Twitter, in response to complaints by FalleN regarding SK's hotel, prompted a response from kNg. In a heated exchange, kNg made comments about Thorin’s sexual orientation, among other things. This led to kNg once again being removed from his organization.
The squad then pulled out from both the StarSeries i-League Season 4 and IEM Katowice Qualifiers, and just six days after the removal of kNg, 100 Thieves announced that they were dropping the whole team with immediate effect. Despite all five players being in the same boat, bit confirmed that the team wasn't looking to play with kNg anymore, and that they were looking to play in the United States.
kNg has since joined Virtue Gaming, and has built a roster in the hopes of competing at the top in Brazil for the time being. Picking up former Tempo Storm players Lucas "destiny" Bullo and Ricardo "s1" Shinji puts a lot of up and coming skill into the lineup. Along with Denner "KHTEX" Barchfield and Willian "LuL4" Elias, the team also has a wealth of experience in competing.
So far with this roster, Virtue have played in two of the ESL Brasil Premier League Season 5 Open Qualifiers, losing to YeaH! in the first and taking down Circa and W7M to advance from the second. It is unlikely that this venture will be the last the top scene sees of kNg, but for now it seems this chapter of the kNg saga has finished.
