paiN signs saffee

31-year-old Brazilian esports athlete Rafael "saffee" Costa has taken over as the new AWPer of paiN's Counter-Strike 2 roster. The organization announced this on X.

Costa replaced Lucas "nqz" Soares, who announced a pause in his professional CS2 career in early April due to personal reasons. saffee will represent paiN at IEM Atlanta 2026 and CS Asia Championships 2026; he has also been registered as the team's substitute for IEM Cologne Major 2026.

Rafael's previous team was MIBR – he represented the squad from June 2023 to August 2025, after which the organization moved him to the bench, where he remained until today. Notably, saffee had previously played for paiN from 2020 to 2022.

paiN currently sits 15th in Valve's official ranking of the world's strongest Counter-Strike 2 teams. The roster will compete in the second stage of IEM Cologne Major 2026. Recently, Guilherme "piriajr" Barbosa signed a full contract with the club.

 paiN are now:

 Rodrigo "biguzera" Bittencourt
 João "⁠snow⁠" Vinicius
 Guilherme "piriajr" Barbosa
 Vinicius "vsm" Moreira
Rafael "saffee" Costa

 Henrique "rikz" Wakku (coach)

Origin: x.com