Stewie2K player profile: The story of The Smoke Criminal

Stewie2K is a key player on the only North American team to win a Major title, and the only North American side to win a Grand Slam. Here is the full Stewie2K story, warts and all, from his humble beginnings on Splyce to his great triumphs on Cloud9 and Team Liquid, and everything else that fell by the wayside…

Who is Stewie2K? Player career, explained

Jake ‘Stewie2K’ Yip, born January 7, 1998, is one of the most accomplished Counter-Strike esports players in North America. With winnings totaling over one million dollars, holding a Major title and an Intel Grand Slam, he climbed to the highest of heights in the competitive game.

Having only started playing CS:GO in 2014, he found himself in the professional scene just a year after, and joined Cloud9 in a controversial move in January 2016, quickly proving everyone wrong with a hyper-aggressive and super-appealing playstyle that earned him the nickname of “The Smoke Criminal,” pushing through vision-obscuring smokes with impeccable timing to gain advantages and kills for himself and his team.

For most of his professional career, Stewie2K played as an entry fragger – a strong fit for his explosive way of play – and like so many successful pros, he also tried his hand at in-game leading later down the line, with very limited success.

Having faded from the scene in the latter part of 2022, Stewie2K made an impressive return in 2024, with a stand-in performance on G2 leading to a shock tournament win in IEM Dallas. With short stints on Legacy and Wildcard to follow, the next big chapter is still yet to be written in his storied Counter-Strike esports career.

2015: the rise of The Smoke Criminal

From a professional perspective, Stewie2K’s was a meteoric rise. His brother was a big 1.6 player but they were too competitive to play with each other for fun, and he immediately got super interested in the game, setting his sights on an esports career very early on, staying on the computer day and night and dropping everything in school to pursue his dream, causing a huge rift in his family, leaving home at the age of 17. After seangares took a step back from the active Cloud9 lineup, he himself recommended Stewie2K as his replacement.

Apart from super-short stints on teams like SapphireKelownaDotCom, ex-eLeavate, FolloweSports.com, and Splyce, Stewie2K was very much a rookie when he signed that contract with C9, immediately after his eighteenth birthday.

It is a truly fascinating time capsule to check out comments and reactions at the time of Stewie2K’s Cloud9 signing. Fans and fellow pros were skeptical, to say the least, and the announcement itself reflected the obvious concerns, with the following quotes from Jake and C9’s then-general manager, Tres “stunna” Sarantus, as shown on HLTV:

“I’d like to thank Cloud9 as an organization, and the team itself, for giving me this chance. Although the majority of the community may not approve of this decision, I fully intend to change their minds. This is a huge opportunity and I will do everything to reach my full potential and achieve the goals I’ve set for myself. The team believes in me and I am confident that playing alongside them will help propel me to new heights. I mean, after all, that is what team sports are all about.”

He more than repaid their faith. Here’s what it looked like for the GM on the inside at the time:

“In our search for a 5th we were able to test how we wanted to operate and see what different styles we were comfortable with. Filling the void left by Sean is not easily accomplished, especially when you consider what a major component he was within the team. We feel comfortable going forward with Stewie2k for a variety of reasons, namely his desire to prove himself as a top tier player.

We recognize his lack of experience, as does he. We will be investing all of our resources in ensuring he becomes the world-class player we see him to be. We are also currently working on securing the assistance of a coach who we feel best benefits our play style.”

For a trip down memory lane, here’s a screenshot of the comments section – if only to prove that much may have changed in the world in the intervening decade, but boy, oh boy, is the HLTV comment section exactly the same as it used to be:

Cloud9’s roster at the time was n0thing, shroud, Freakazoid, Skadoodle, and Stewie2K. Two of these players  - Skadoodle and Stewie – would stay on the roster all the way to the legendary Boston Major and the run that would change NA CS forever.

MLG Columbus wasn’t his time, though. Not yet. It was a slow start, but quick things were to follow.

Cloud9, Boston, and the making of Counter-Strike history

While esports history has codified Cloud9’s Boston run as an upset for the ages – and in many ways, it indeed was – it is easy to forget that the C9 squad was a reasonably strong contender around that period of time. Ranked fourth on the HLTV rankings heading into the Major, previous big events saw them occasionally challenge the titans of Fnatic and SK, with a runner-up finish at ESL One Cologne 2017, semifinals appearances at DreamHack Open Montreal and ESL One New York later in the same year, just to name a few. Admittedly, the last big event they played before the Major, the ECS Season 4 finals, ended with a somewhat disappointing fifth-place finish, but the team has clearly proved itself capable of making deep playoff runs.

Cloud9 would start quite strong at the Major itself, too, with a 3-0 score in the first Swiss stage coming courtesy of wins over Team Envy, Sprout, and Mousesports. It was more the calamity of the first stage of the Major that set the scene for what was to come. Losses to G2 and Space Soldiers pushed Stewie2K and co. straight into the elimination bracket, where they faced their nemeses in the form of Virtus.pro. But it was the twilight of that particular Polish lineup, and C9 finally broke the curse they held over North American opposition. With wins over Astralis and Vega Squadron, they would qualify for the playoffs by the skin of their teeth.

In the arena, they were surrounded by loving local fans, and the home advantage played a key part in Cloud9’s road to glory. A 16-8 16-7 win over G2 – an impressive revenge – set the stage for what was to come, but it was their triumph over FalleN’s imperious SK Gaming side that truly made the mark, with a 16-3 domination on Mirage setting the stage, and an 8-16 loss on Cobblestone being little more than a blip en route to the grand final, thanks to a 16-9 win on Inferno.

FaZe Clan came into the grand final as very heavy favorites, being the superteam of their time, but in a grand final for the ages, Cloud9 overturned a map deficit arfter a 16-14 loss on Mirage, winning 16-10 on Overpass before one of the most incredible Inferno games of CS:GO history, where FaZe went 13-8 to 14-9 to 15-11 to secure four championship points, failing to convert any of them, with C9 ultimately winning in the second overtime to secure North America’s first and only Major title in home soil, in front of an adoring and supportive crowd.

Truth be told, while Stewie2K had some incredible highlight moments, his performance in the playoffs of the Major wasn’t all that spectacular, hovering in the middle of his team on the stats page. It was the tarik and Skadoodle lifegaming show that lifted C9 to glory, but Stewie2K’s contributions were duly noted by bigwigs in the scene, serving him the next great opportunity even after this Cloud9 side would fall apart in short order.

The MIBR era and the team that never was

Ultimately, the Cloud9 team that shocked the world by winning the Boston Major never could live up to the grand accomplishment of that unforgettable night – and the cracks immediately began to show. Skadoodle benched himself just two months after their title win (he would move into a streamer role in the summer, then had a short stint on VALORANT with swag and AZK), removing a key piece of the puzzle.

The Cloud9 core that won the Major would never even come close to winning a top-tier event again, and when the reformed MIBR org came knocking after SK Gaming’s implosion, with FalleN forming a new project with his previous core and bringing in some international firepower to freshen up the blood. He, fer, and coldzera stayed together for the adventure – with boltz benched shortly after the project’s inception – and they swooped in for Stewie2K and tarik after their failure to sign s1mple and flamie to form an intriguing new partnership.

To make a long story short, the team never really got off the ground. Their only tournament win came early on against tier-2 squads at an event called ZOTAC Cup Masters – if you never heard of it, you wouldn’t be the only one – with failure after failure following them throughout the second half of 2018.

In December, Stewie2K made his way over to Team Liquid, while tarik departed to NRG just a few weeks later, in January 2019. Their paths greatly diverged from this point onwards – while his former teammate had some tantalizingly close brushes with repeated greatness and eventually transitioned to VALORANT, becoming a huge streaming influence in the ecosystem, Stewie2K still had some Counter-Strike history to write.

Returning to greatness: Stewie2K’s Grand Slam run with Team Liquid

In the end, Stewie2K spent exactly one year on Team Liquid’s active roster – and what a year it turned out to be.

After a string of successive failures with MIBR, FalleN opted to return to an all-Brazilian lineup and Portuguese comms. This led to a trade between Liquid and MIBR, which saw Stewie2K go one way and TACO going the other direction.

Stewie brought instant impact to Liquid as they won the very first event of 2019, winning iBUYPOWER Masters – not a bad way to kick off a stint, especially with a win over Astralis, the dominant team at the time. The Smoke Criminal quickly emerged as a secondary caller alongside nitr0 in a team that was extremely flexible in roles and execution, and with the legendary Danes suffering from burnout and conflicts with their own organization, the top spot was there for the taking – and take it they did, in imperious fashion, too, romping to one of the most impressive spells of excellence, a bright but quickly burning light in the world of professional CS.

Six consecutive wins at elite-level events saw them claim the Intel Grand Slam in just 63 days, rattling off wins at IEM Sydney, DreamHack Masters Dallas, the Pro League Season 9 finals, and ESL One Cologne 2019. Stewie climbing atop the desk mid-series, screaming in ecstasy at Vitality as they passed the final hurdle, is one of the enduring images of the CS:GO era of esports.

The only thing that could stop the team was, ultimately, the passage of time. After the summer player break, Liquid were never quite the same, and a resurgent Astralis put a stop to their Major campaign in Berlin with one of the most spectacular veto curveballs of all time. Their streak of 26 series wins and a flawless record on Vertigo both came to an end at that event, and the roster never lifted another title together.

With COVID disrupting everything in the world, and professional CS moving over to an online environment, some players lost form and never recovered. Stewie2K’s individual performances have also suffered around this time, but the conflicts in the team were an even bigger issue. With nitr0 moving away from CS in favor of VALORANT and EliGE taking over leadership duties, the number and severity of clashes intensified – especially over the presence and performances of Grim, Liquid’s replacement player.

“He’s like any type of up-and-coming player, I’ve talked about it on stream before where all of these up-and-coming players, all they have is really aim, and initially when Mike was put into our roster and we needed to use him, I was not okay with it because I did not want to waste my time hoping that this player can pick it up fast, learn, and become this experienced player that we really need,” he said in an interview with HLTV. Soon after, he would depart Team Liquid in favor of another North American org: Evil Geniuses.

It was a disastrous decision.

Evil Geniuses, controversies, and Stewie2K’s fall from the limelight

There is no escaping the fact that Stewie2K’s time on Evil Geniuses coincided with a change in ownership and management, which led to a horrific downturn in the org’s prestige and results across essentially all the games they have chosen to compete in. Much virtual ink was spilled over discussing the disastrous tenure of Nicole LaPointe Jameson in the CEO role.

Ironically, Stewie2K joined EG just after they released tarik, denying fans a great reunion that made nostalgic sense but would not have been warranted on paper based on his ex-C9 teammate’s performances. Departing from Liquid was always going to be a risky proposition, and it quickly became clear that this EG side has neither the firepower nor the wherewithal needed to compete at the highest of levels. Brehze and CeRq could never rediscover their old levels, and having automatic and RUSH as backup left a lot to be desired in the firepower department.

Tensions quickly rose between coach maLeK and Stewie2K, who took the reins as an in-game leader but never showed signs of tactical and leadership acumen that would have made it worth it to focus on IGLing rather than purely fragging – an error many talented riflers make in their professional Counter-Strike career. They won five out of 22 offline maps played in six months of competition.

EG continuously bombed out of events at the earliest opportunities over the course of 2022, bailed out only by their partnered designation in the big tournament organizers’ league. The team never made any impact on the servers on merit, and Stewie2K eventually stepped back from the roster and moved into a streaming role, away from the active lineup, which, at the time, seemed like the whimper rather than the bang one would have hoped to conclude the North American great’s career. Streaming, and later, weak attempts at VALORANT stuff followed, and it seemed like the end of the road for a while.

Then came IEM Dallas 2024.

Stewie2k’s IEM Dallas win: a great stand-in story

Fast-forward to 2024, and the embers of a great story begin to burn. Stewie2K’s sudden return to the highest levels of professional play came as a complete surprise to fans and observers alike, and the circumstances didn’t suggest that anything great was to come of it. Heading into the 2024 edition of IEM Dallas, G2 – whose roster read huNter-, NiKo, m0NESY, nexa, HooXi at the time – had to find a temporary replacement for their in-game leader, who couldn’t attend the event because of his sister’s wedding.

With G2 already on the verge of implosion at the time, and having to dropship in a player to make up for the absence of their chief strategist, the burden was already really rather high – and the surprise call-up of Stewie2K, who hasn’t played any notable competitive games in the CS2 era (and had such an embarrassing flameout on Evil Geniuses), no one expected much of G2 at the competition.

And then they went and won the whole damn thing.

It all began with a close-fought win over Team Falcons on Anubis, then a straightforward 0-2 loss to Team Vitality, the team they would face again in the final. With narrow 2-1 wins over MOUZ and Team Liquid, G2 secured their spot in the playoffs – where they would score an impressive win over FaZe to progress to the semifinals, facing up against the tournament’s surprise package in the form of 9z, who they comfortably dispatched with a 2-0 score.

But no matter how much credence you give to the suggestion that G2 had a fairly easy run in the playoffs, a repeat matchup against Vitality in the grand final was always going to be a gargantuan task, especially so with a stand-in. But a combination of great chemistry and a monster carry performance by m0NESY – who went +33 in the series compared to ZywOo’s +7 on the other side – saw G2 race to victory in a 2-1 affair, squeaking past the finish line on their own map pick of Inferno after multiple overtimes to win 19-16, then almost closing out the series in two in a 16-13 overtime loss on Anubis, with an impressive 13-8 Nuke showing to cap off one of the most impressive tournament runs in recent memory.

While Stewie2K was clearly far from his sterling best individually – finishing the event with a 0.85 rating per HLTV and a -83 K/D, he has done exactly what you would want to see from a stand-in: help with team chemistry, play selflessly to support the more established players on the squad, and fill the gaps left behind by the permanent member of the team. After the sour taste left by his stint on G2, it was a tantalizing glimpse of what redemption could look like in the CS2 era for The Smoke Criminal.

But that, of course, was more than a year ago now.

What is next for Stewie2k in Counter-Strike esports?

It is difficult to tell whether Stewie2K can make a significant enough comeback in the CS2 esports scene. Many of the players who made great strides in the Global Offensive era fell by the wayside, and there are a multitude of factors to this: CS2’s marginal differences to GO are magnified on the elite level of play, and as age catches up with veterans and they have to go up against players who grew up with the new game, it can be difficult to adapt.

North America is also struggling as a region as a whole when it comes to Counter-Strike esports. But that magical stand-in performance on G2 showed that Stewie2K still has something to offer, that is for sure – whether he will find the team and players to make the most of it in the modern competitive scene remains to be seen.

If you enjoyed this CS2 esports career overview on Stewie2K, be sure to check out the Bitsler blog for more, including our articles on donk and s1mple!