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A 23-year-old from Chile just put South American Counter-Strike back on the map. Matías “HUASOPEEK” Ibañez Hernandez led 9z to a 5th-8th place finish at the IEM Cologne Major 2026, posting an individual rating of 1.04 across the tournament and collecting $45,000 in prize money for his squad.
The road through Cologne
9z’s path through the Major was anything but a cakewalk. The team navigated Stage 3 with a pair of hard-fought 2-1 victories over Vitality and PARIVISION. The run ended on June 18, 2026, when FURIA dispatched 9z with a 2-1 scoreline in the quarterfinals.
HUASOPEEK’s 1.04 rating might not look flashy on paper. But maintaining a rating above 1.00 at a Major, where every opponent is operating at peak performance, signals that a player is consistently winning more duels than they’re losing. For an entry fragger, the role most likely to die first in any given round, that number carries extra weight.
Who is HUASOPEEK?
Born April 29, 2003, HUASOPEEK joined 9z in October 2023 as a rifler and entry fragger. That means his primary job is to be the first player through the door on executes, trading his life for information and, ideally, an opening kill.
What this means for the South American CS2 scene
The $45,000 prize for a 5th-8th finish also provides meaningful financial runway for an organization operating outside the deep-pocketed European and North American ecosystems. Prize money at this level helps cover bootcamp costs, travel logistics, and the general overhead of keeping a roster together.
No cryptocurrency tokens or blockchain protocols are associated with either HUASOPEEK or 9z’s tournament run. For investors watching the intersection of gaming and crypto, the gap between competitive esports achievement and tokenized ecosystems remains wide.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.
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