Aurora Gaming recruit xfl0ud to replace XANTARES for IEM Cologne

Aurora Gaming will attend Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2025 with Yasin “xfl0ud” Koç as a stand-in for Ismailcan “XANTARES” Dörtkardeş, who will miss the event due to family reasons.

It means the Turkish Counter-Strike pro reunites with the team (formerly Eternal Fire) for the first time since leaving in 2023.

Since then, xfl0ud has played for Sangal Esports and joined HEROIC at the start of the year, only to be benched in June amid a major roster overhaul.

While the 22-year-old has previous experience playing with Aurora Gaming’s core, XANTARES’ absence will be a significant blow for their chances of contesting the IEM Cologne trophy.

XANTARES has been the best-performing player on Aurora, averaging a 1.17 performance rating over the last three months.

He also posted the team’s highest rating (1.07) in Aurora’s short campaign at BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, which ended in Stage 3 elimination with losses against FURIA, G2 Esports, and MOUZ.

Even though XANTARES’ absence will be noticeable, xfl0ud should at least partially fill the massive gap.

He rejoins Aurora with a promising 1.18 average performance rating over the last three months, including a 1.10 rating in LAN events.

With teams expected to make more roster changes this month, IEM Cologne outright betting markets on the top Counter-Strike 2 betting sites should open closer to the tournament’s kickoff on July 23.

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Mark Prezelj

Esports Betting Analyst

Mark Prezelj is a Slovenian esports betting analyst with over 3,500 articles at EsportBet and the founder of Lines64.com — someone who has been reading odds longer than most readers have been watching esports.

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