Former G2 Esports stand-in Jake "Stewie2k" Yip stated that upon returning to CS2, he didn't immediately understand why fans were discussing Daniil "donk" Kryshkovets and Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov. In an interview with Alex "Mauisnake" Ellenburg, he noted that he realised the popularity of these young esports players after watching their performances in major tournaments.
"As I said, I didn't know much about m0NESY. Of course, I had heard of him, but... Take donk, for example. When I returned to CS2, everyone started talking about him—even before IEM Katowice 2024—and people were asking about him in my stream chat. I had just come back to the game and had no idea who donk was. I thought he was some new popular streamer. Everyone was talking about him, asking when I would play with him, and so on. So, I thought he was a content creator. Then I saw him at IEM Katowice 2024 and realised, 'Oh, that's who donk is.' And all I knew about m0NESY was that he played in NAVI's academy team and that he was a sniper and very good, but I didn't think people were discussing him for no reason. So, yeah, before joining the team, I knew there was a good sniper, m0NESY, but I was much more interested in the opportunity to play with NiKo."
Stewie2k played alongside m0NESY at IEM Dallas 2024, joining G2 Esports as a stand-in. The team won the tournament, defeating Team Vitality 2-1 in the final. After the competition, Yip announced that he would share a portion of the prize money with the club's management.