SAW and Oscar “AZUWU” Bell have accepted an invite that was sent their way after the Turkish roster Eternal Fire pulled out of the event. This event marks AZUWU‘s second tier one LAN appearance, with his first being the inaugural ESL Pro League Season of 2025, Season 21, where they made 12-14th after coming first in stage one of the event.
During the first stage of EPL season 21, SAW demonstrated their impressive team play and tenacity. Each one of their three matches went all three maps, taking down strong teams like FURIA and Heroic. AZUWU‘s performance saw him post a 1.01 HLTV rating, with his best performance coming against the North American side of M80.
The NA roster with two German imports, also coached by British coach Rory “dephh” Jackson, was styled on by AZUWU, who dropped a 1.25 rating across the three maps of play. Inferno was particularly notable as the 16-round map saw AZUWUÂ have a 2.08 HLTV rating as SAW took the map 13-3.
AZUWU playing at ESL Pro League Season 21 – Copyright: Helena-Kristiansson, ESL FACEIT Group
SAW has been invited to IEM Melbourne via the global VRS rankings, however, they were not the first team to be extended an invite after Eternal Fire chose not to attend. According to VRS rules, teams must be invited in accordance with the most recent iteration of the VRS rankings, despite the fact that the rest of the invites will come from an iteration in February.
G2 expressed interest in attending and would have been given priority over SAW; however, they couldn’t obtain visas in time, with FURIA and Astralis continuing to decline based on their initial reasoning from February. This series of declined invites sees the invitation fall to the next in line: SAW.
No reason has been provided as to why Eternal Fire are not to be attending the Australian LAN event however, their schedule this year has been nothing short of chaotic. One of the best national rosters this year, Eternal Fire has competed at five tier-one LAN events in five separate countries, making playoffs for all five of them. If Eternal Fire had attended IEM Melbourne, they would have attended three events in April alone, each one on a different continent.
Oh mate, we’re gonna be living! 🤩 pic.twitter.com/PJEpeH4BUQ
— SAW (@sawggofficial) April 3, 2025
