Eternal Fire Withdraws From IEM Melbourne, SAW Takes Their Place

Following Eternal Fire's withdrawal from the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Melbourne 2025, ESL, the organizers of the Counter-Strike tournament, announced that SAW will compete in their place. 

While Eternal Fire isn't on hiatus, they're the latest team to drop out of a competition following Macko Esports announcing a hiatus from League of Legends competitions. 

ESL Announcement 

ESL took to X to make the announcement: 

“#IEM Melbourne 2025 Teams Update @eternalfiregg has withdrawn from the event. In accordance with the latest global ranking we approached the next eligible teams. @sawggofficial has accepted the invite and will join us down under!”

In the attached blog post, ESL mentioned that G2, Furia, and Astralis were also asked, but declined, citing these reasons: 

• "G2 - interested but unable to obtain visas in timeframe"
• "Furia and Astralis - continued to decline based on their initial response"

IEM Melbourne runs from April 21 to 27. The event features a group stage (best-of-three double-elimination and single-elimination playoffs) and a best-of-five grand final. 

The prize pool is a total of $300,000. 

SAW Releases Statment 

With those teams declining, SAW was the next eligible team. The Portuguese esports organization published a blog post about their acceptance. 

“Given Eternal Fire's withdrawal and our position in VRS, we were invited to fill the vacancy.

Therefore, between the 21st and 27th of April, we will join some of the 16 best teams in the world to compete for a prize pool of 1,000,000 dollars,” SAW wrote in their blog post. 

So far this year, SAW has lost to FaZe Clan in PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025. FaZe Clan will be at IEM Melbourne.

Eternal Fire’s Withdrawal

Details regarding Eternal Fire's withdrawal are sparse at the moment, but based on their recent appearances, it could be for something as simple as a break.

Eternal Fire has played at numerous events recently, including the Blast Bounty Spring close qualifiers, IEM Katowice 2025, PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025,  ESL Pro League Season 21 (stages one and two), and BLAST Open Spring 2025.