Persistence can often be a malady and when misguided, it can incur a cost. That is the impression people had of the individuals of Eternal Fire, who were hell-bent on proving their worth in a Turkish core after years of stumbling. But yesterday, they came closer than ever to realizing their dream, knocking down some of the best teams in the world before falling short at the final hurdle, losing to Team Spirit in the BLAST Bounty Season 1 final.
It may not seem like much at first glance, but taking down the fourth, third, and second-best teams just to get to that final stage was the result of years of commitment, failure, embarrassment, and yes, brainless persistence. Their growth has been metaphorical, like a wisteria vine. Dormant in its early years, with a fragile stem and yellow leaves but below the surface, it’s developing strength, growing its roots. And then, when the time is right, it blooms.
If you’ve missed out on this inspiring story of how Eternal Fire has bloomed in the recent months after a period of unavailing effort, I’m here to take you down memory lane to revisit the time when few individuals left their burgeoning careers and joined hands with nothing but a dream to take their nation to the top of the world of Counter-Strike.
How the Dream Sparked
The dream was born in August 2021, when XANTARES stepped down from BIG and joined the woxic-led, player-founded organization Eternal Fire. It was proclaimed as the Turkish super team, the roster included more homegrown talent, including imorr, Calyx, and Jordanian ISSAA, who was ready to go so far as to learn Turkish.
While the idea seemed sound, it didn’t quite take off. Just two months later, ISSAA left after conceding defeat on adapting to Turkish, making the way for xfloud.
Despite the early hype, the team couldn’t even come close to meeting expectations. The pandemic meant no LAN events, which only fueled the fire of frustration as Eternal Fire began a relentless cycle of changing players one every couple of months. But the root of their problems ran deeper, a crippling lack of talent in the country. For a long while, they found themselves recycling the same players, while dabbling with a handful of academy stand-ins.
Roster Changes and a Lack of Direction
From January to March, the roster went through multiple small stints, with Calyx and xfloud rotating in and out, while mini and academy players like colorz and duggy took a shot. It was clear that the endless roster shuffling didn’t seem to fix the issues at hand. The shift in leadership roles didn’t help either. At the start of the roster, XANTARES was the in-game leader, followed by woxic.
Then came MAJ3R, who was brought back from VALORANT especially to fill the IGL role, and paz replaced Calyx. Despite leading Eternal Fire to their highest-ever rank of 18th, MAJ3R was surprisingly benched in October, and xfloud was called up once again and the IGL duties now shifted to imorr.
Not even a month had passed by when woxic benched himself, expressing a desire to continue his career in an international team. “Since we decided to give water to this project, we could not manage to create a structure. Due to being unstructured we have faced many problems inside of the team, which causes us to have more problems, and we could not manage to solve them properly, so we decided to continue with updating our roster”, woxic told HLTV.
The rollercoaster ride wasn’t over yet. MAJ3R, who had seemingly said his goodbyes to the game, made his return while paz was once again sidelined, and Calyx rejoined the fold. If you lost track of all the changes, you’re not alone, it took me multiple takes just to make sure everything was in order. To make things clear, the roster entering 2023 consisted of XANTARES, imorr, Calyx, MAJ3R, and xfloud.
But of course, even this wasn’t the end of the road. Three months later, in April, xfloud was replaced by Wicadia, an academy player, and in May, woxic returned while imorr was benched. The constant roster shuffling had left the team unsettled, and despite the changes, they could only manage a meager 17th-20th finish at ESL Pro League Season 17.
The Dawn of Success
The second half of 2023 marked the first signs of true growth for Eternal Fire. The team had finally setlled with the lineup of woxic, XANTARES, Calyx, MAJ3R, and Wicadia. At ESL Pro League Season 18, they showed their teeth, knocking out the likes of 9INE, Astralis, Cloud9, and Liquid, before ultimately falling short to NAVI in the quarter-finals. At the forefront of this resurgence was XANTARES, who had been undeterred by the team’s struggles and remained consistent throughout the lows.
In 2024, Eternal Fire built on that momentum. After a respectable 9th-12th finish at IEM Katowice, they made a deep run at the PGL Copenhagen Major 2024. There, they stunned Vitality in a Bo1, wiped FaZe 13-1, and took down Virtus.Pro before, once again, falling to NAVI in the quarter-finals, who would go on to win the Major. While their last place elimination at EPL 19 at the hands of SAW didn’t bode well for their comeback story, they made up for it with a second place finish at EPL 20, even if NAVI once again emerged as a thorn in their side.
Fluke run or First harvest?
Come 2025 and Eternal Fire switched out Calyx to sign jottAAA who once represented Eternal Fire’s academy. We all witnessed how hit the ground running with him during BLAST Bounty Season 1. While the success of Eternal Fire would largely be attributed to XANTARES’ godlike performance and Wicadia standing right next to him, jottAAA also had his moments.
Though his final numbers didn’t set the world on fire, his high floor could be exactly what Eternal Fire needs. The season has only just begun, and with so many opportunities waiting in the wings, it will be worth watching how far Eternal Fire can elevate the Turkish flag that is already soaring at its peak.
