#VAMOSSK

In our previous article we examined the upcoming ELEAGUE Major Boston 2018 , which is scheduled to run from 12th to 28th this month with the "New Challengers" and "New Legends" stages to be held in Atlanta, GA, and the final "The New Champions" round inside the Agganis Arena in Boston, MA.In this article we will review Joao 'felps' Vasconcellos ' experience under the banner of SK Gaming, his upcoming appearance at the Boston Major, and more.Joao is no stranger to the international Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene. The talented Brazilian player is only 21 years old and during his career he represented some of the most notable brands in Brazil such as ProGaming.TD, Dexterity Team, Keyd Stars and g3x.He is known for his aggressive playstyle and was the star player of the former Immortals squad. Joao will temporary reunite with SK Gaming and act as a stand-in for our CS:GO division at the upcoming Boston Major.Joao joined SK Gaming in early February 2017, to take the spot of Lincoln 'fnx' Lau after his departure in late 2016, and during his time representing us helped our Brazilian CS:GO division win the following five championship titles:Our debut with Joao was DreamHack Las Vegas 2017, where the Brazilians finished 2nd to the Polish team Virtus.pro. A neat start!Despite our excellent performance in Las Vegas in February, our division failed to reach the playoffs of both Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2017 and StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 3.After few weeks of intensive training after the Ukrainian event, Joao's integration to the team advanced as we managed to win both cs_summit 2017 over Danylo 'Zeus' Teslenko 's Gambit Gaming, and IEM Sydney 2017.Our squad's next offline tournament was the finals of the 5th season of ESL Pro League held in the memorable for Counter-Strike city of Dallas. SK Gaming finished 3rd-4th after losing the semi-finals to Kenny 'kennyS' Schrub 's G2 Esports, who later defeated the Danish team North to win the event.In June, Gabriel 'FalleN' Toledo and the crew traveled to Sweden for DreamHack Summer 2017, where they prevailed over Fnatic, who at that time still had Olof 'olofmeister' Kajbjer and Dennis 'dennis' Edman in the lineup, in the grand final to win another championship title.The Brazilians continued to dominate the scene with two more triumphs in the summer of 2017. The team managed to win the 3rd season of ECS in London over FaZe Clan and furthermore defend their title at ESL One Cologne 2017 in the beginning of July over Jordan 'n0thing' Gilbert 's Cloud 9.Following next for our Brazilian division was the 11th official championship powered by Valve Corporation: PGL Major Krakow 2017. Unfortunately, despite going into the Major with confidence after the recent victories, we failed to take down the Danish powerhouse Astralis in the first round of the playoffs.The Major was likely the first warning sign for our team's internal struggle. The team's playstyle had to shift to a more aggressive and individualistic approach in order to fit in Joao's skills, which had multiple flaws compared to our previous original structured and slow-paced style of play.Furthermore Joao's individual performance began to drop down intensively at the time of the Major and continued to do so until his departure from SK Gaming by the end of October.After finishing 5th-8th at the DreamHack Masters Malmo 2017 challenge, we had two more top 3 finishes with Joao in the active roster, at ESG Tour Mykonos 2017 and ESL One New York 2017, respectively.Joao's last tournament with SK Gaming was ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2017, where the Brazilians dropped out from the group stage to Andreas 'MODDII' Fridh 's Heroic.Unfortunately, Joao couldn't fit in our team's style of play during his time with us. His aggressive style was not what our division was lacking of after the departure of Lincoln. Gabriel and the squad are known for their structured slow-paced playstyle and here is where Ricardo 'boltz' Prass comes in handy.However, Joao is an excellent player and his role in SK Gaming was limited in order to free space for our stars Marcelo 'coldzera' David and Fernando 'fer' Alvarenga , which negatively affected his performance alongside with possibly existing pressure and/or lack of motivation.He is a more skilled player than the Portuguese veteran Ricardo 'fox' Pacheco , who we used as a stand-in at the Atlanta Major a year ago and narrowly lost in the semi-finals, and is familiar with Gabriel and company's tactical approach and general style of play.Furthermore his upcoming event with SK Gaming will be a different experience for all involved. All he has to do is to fulfill his role as a temporary replacement which comes with no pressure and expectations.How far do you think our Brazilian division will progress at the Major? How well do you think Joao will perform reunited with the squad?Do not hesitate to share your thoughts with us via the social networks usingor in the comment section down below.Stay tuned to SK Gaming for our last part of the "Examining the ELEAGUE Major" series, which is scheduled to be released tomorrow evening.