BESTIA  2 1  3DMAX b8  2 1  3DMAX FaZe  Today  BEE FaZe  Today  Drama PARIVISION  1 Day  Legacy MongolZ  1 Day  BC.Game

• Last chance saloon: After disaster at both BLAST Open Rotterdam and DraculaN, FaZe have one (very slim) shot at making it to the Major. They’ve dropped out of PGL Bucharest and will instead be competing at HLC Belgrade against the likes of BEE and Drama. The only question we have is who the f-ck are BEE and Drama?

• The end of the line: 3DMAX have no chances left, though. Their repeated failings at smaller LANs culminated in back-to-back losses to BESTIA and B8 at Parken Challenger Championship Season 3, ending their hopes of making the Major.

CCT Bucharest 2026

Illustration by Andy. Source: FaZe

After an insanely stacked Cluj-Napoca, PGL returns in Bucharest, featuring a team lineup that’s just a slight downgrade. Barely noticeable.

With IEM Rio kicking off only two days after Bucharest wraps up, many top teams opted for the South American trip instead. Still, it’s not going to be totally sleep-inducing, because any event with FaZe Clan usually guarantees some excit… oh.

After a disastrous DracuLAN S6, FaZe - despite being scheduled for Bucharest - have opted to attend HLC Belgrade PRO 2026 instead, treating it as their Hail Mary for the Major. Great film, by the way.

Looking at the teams that are showing up, PARIVISION, The MongolZ, FUT, and Astralis immediately stand out as the main contenders. These are the only squads inside HLTV’s top-13 to accept the invite, so it would be a genuine surprise to see the trophy go elsewhere. For the first three in particular, this should be relatively smooth sailing.

Behind them come the challengers: Legacy, B8, NRG, EYEBALLERS, BC.Game, and 3DMAX - all fighting for the remaining four Playoffs spots. We’re especially curious to see how BC.Game look after their break, and whether 3DMAX can mentally recover after missing the Major. For both, this event could either confirm the slump or mark the start of a turnaround.

Finally, the don’t-bother-unpacking-your-bags group. MIBR, FOKUS, Voca, Inner Circle, and Wildcard will be looking to steal a map or two and ruin someone else’s run - but realistically, their chances of making it out are slim.

Seriously, what the f-ck is a Voca?

Watch the pieces fall

Illustration by Andy.

We’re in the home stretch, folks. And it’s getting bloody.

Alliance, after quacke so wonderfully predicted in his Deep Dive, have surged up the rankings, with a strong final Major push now putting them in good standing to make the Major. However, with a loss to M80 at DraculaN, their fate is now “up to the gods”.

Just ahead of Alliance is BIG, who have pulled off an incredibly impressive season in their attempts to make it to their home Major. The signings of blameF and faveN were a bit of a gamble, but it’s looking like they’ve paid off, so fair play to them.

The French haven’t fared so well, though. 3DMAX have been up and down all year, with many of their downs coming at the smaller LANs. They recently attended the Parken Challenger Championship -which quacke is actually casting, so hop in their chat and abuse him - and ended their hopes of making the Major with successive defeats to BESTIA and B8.

We won’t pretend we’re not slightly happy about this.

As for the Czech fans, although SINNERS sit in a reasonably healthy position to make the Major, they now have an anxious wait until the 6th as their team’s fate is ultimately out of their hands. Not a fun place to be in.

Speaking of not-fun places and being in them, FaZe find themselves in a nightmare scenario. Their DraculaN gambit failed dramatically, and seemingly ended their Major hopes. It was then worked out that they had a slim chance by skipping PGL Bucharest and heading to HLC Belgrade, but even then, at 14%, the hopes are dire.

If we’re being real here, we hope they f-ck it up monumentally. FaZe have been terrible all year, and they don’t deserve to make the Major because of it. It’s just that simple. To be a tier one organisation, who, and perhaps even more importantly, were ranked seventh in the world at the start of the year and not make it? Well, that’s just abhorrent.

Across the pond (at least for us), Liquid also appear to be in dire straits. They caught a lot of heat for switching regions at the last minute by signing malbsMd, and it seems that the heat was too hot to handle as they’re currently 10th in the Americas ranking and therefore outside of Major invite range.

You get what you deserve, we suppose.

But look on the bright side, FaZe and Liquid, at least with this failure, you might finally realise your teams and rubbish and move on from them. Swings and roundabouts.

Revealing the team to take down Vitality

Illustration by Fuffy, Source: PGL

Producer Charlie has finally revealed himself and dropped a bombshell on Jack and Sam: the team to take down Vitality. It’s certainly a team, and certainly a team with firepower, but is it good enough to usurp the kings?

• ESL shouldn’t do eight-team playoffs?

• Vitality should sign Aleksib?

• PARIVISION need to make a change?

Headline

Source: BLAST / Stephanie Lindgren

We sat down with Falcons’ Baby GOAT to discuss his love of “magical” cats, the deadliest animal he could take in a fight, and why he would trust huNter- to save the world.

When did you first start playing Counter-Strike?
I started playing Counter-Strike when I was very, very, small. I was five years old. I started playing 1.6.

Since then, what would you say your favourite moment from your career has been?
Favourite moment? I think my favourite moment was when I joined my first organization. I had a lot of emotions when I joined Natus Vincere and, since then, since that academy, I started playing more and more.

Speaking of that academy, how was it being one of the first talents to come out of an academy with NAVI Junior?
I don't know. I didn't really think about it. I think just understood that this is not going to be an easy road. You have to grind more and more, sacrifice more time. So, my impression was you just need to grind more.

What's the deadliest animal you think you could beat in a fight?
The deadliest animal?

Tough question, I know.
Bear? A bear.

If you could tag anyone in from your team to help you fight this bear, who would it be?
NiKo.

If you weren't a Counter-Strike Pro, what job would you imagine yourself doing?
I think I would be a translator. I started learning English in school. I was going to extra lessons outside of the school just to learn. I wanted to be a translator, or actually, when I wasn't in school, I also wanted to become a doctor, you know, because my whole family are doctors.

Any any more languages besides English that you would want to translate?
No, I think I would maybe learn Chinese, but it's very hard, so I don't even want to spend time on this. It's just a waste of time

Do you have any pre-game rituals? Any superstitions? Something like that.
No, I don't have any. My team, I think they all have them. Like, if you sit in the shuttle one day, then different the second day, you change, you're going to lose. My team thinks like this. I don't think like this, I don’t have any game rituals. Just trying to focus on the game.

What's the weirdest pre-game ritual that one of your teammates has?
They don’t have any… thank God.

How much is a can of monster?
Like $2?

Pretty close. It's $3, actually. Have you got a favourite song to deathmatch to?
I don't have favourite songs. I listen to everything. I'm a music lover, so I just listen to whatever I can. Like, for example, western rap, I like Juice WRLD, I like Linkin Park as well. Also I forgot, 30 seconds to Mars. The last music I listened to, it was the heel I think. Then it was “this is war” or something like this.

From any team that you've ever been on, if you had to pick one player to win a clutch to save the world, who would you pick?
I would pick huNter-. I think he's very experienced in clutches. I remember back then, you know, we played in G2 together with him on the team, and we would always clutch some good round. He would clutch also some insane round as well for us. So I would say huNter-.

If you were stranded on a desert island with one of your current teammates, who would you pick?
NiKo. He's just way too experienced. If you needed to survive on some island or anything, you would pick NiKo just because he would go hunt, or he would cook food for you. He would just chill.

He would do all the tasks for you.
I will just go. I will just sleep and chill. He will do it all.

If you could own a house located on any Counter-Strike map. Which map would you choose?
House on any map? I think I would say Inferno or Overpass. I would maybe go for Inferno. It’s an Italian map. It's good. Good weather, good wine as well. Also. there is a lot of space for the house as well.

It's a good choice. I would say just dodge banana because of all the nades. Would you say you're a cat person or a dog person?
I think both. Can I say both? I mean, I have a cat. I really like cats. I think cats are magical you know, I believe in this. Also, I had a dog only once. It was a very long time ago. I had a husky but he passed away. So, yeah, I like both cats and dogs.

YOU CAN WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

🤓 For the nerds

• We really love Elmpauddy here at TLDR, and he’s back with another banger about why NAVI should have been the team to take down Vitality in Rotterdam.

• If you didn’t think HLTV rating, round swing, duel swing, or the swingset in your local beer garden was enough, then FACEIT are introducing FACEIT Rating, a fantastic way to blame your teammates.

🪦 Back from the abyss

• We were all sad when Inferno lost its iconic graveyard and could no longer bait our teammates there, but these lads have brought it back in a very inventive way.

• Old classics are also making their return, you can now get your hands on Assault in CS2. Unlike the UK, we love a golden oldie.

🤡 April Fool’s

• If this happened to us, we would genuinely sh-t ourselves.

• Spirit have finally replaced hally. Okay, not really, but this post got us excited.

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, AN1MO and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Crash_ copy edited.

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BESTIA  2 1  3DMAX b8  2 1  3DMAX FaZe  Today  BEE FaZe  Today  Drama PARIVISION  1 Day  Legacy MongolZ  1 Day  BC.Game

• Last chance saloon: After disaster at both BLAST Open Rotterdam and DraculaN, FaZe have one (very slim) shot at making it to the Major. They’ve dropped out of PGL Bucharest and will instead be competing at HLC Belgrade against the likes of BEE and Drama. The only question we have is who the f-ck are BEE and Drama?

• The end of the line: 3DMAX have no chances left, though. Their repeated failings at smaller LANs culminated in back-to-back losses to BESTIA and B8 at Parken Challenger Championship Season 3, ending their hopes of making the Major.

CCT Bucharest 2026

Illustration by Andy. Source: FaZe

After an insanely stacked Cluj-Napoca, PGL returns in Bucharest, featuring a team lineup that’s just a slight downgrade. Barely noticeable.

With IEM Rio kicking off only two days after Bucharest wraps up, many top teams opted for the South American trip instead. Still, it’s not going to be totally sleep-inducing, because any event with FaZe Clan usually guarantees some excit… oh.

After a disastrous DracuLAN S6, FaZe - despite being scheduled for Bucharest - have opted to attend HLC Belgrade PRO 2026 instead, treating it as their Hail Mary for the Major. Great film, by the way.

Looking at the teams that are showing up, PARIVISION, The MongolZ, FUT, and Astralis immediately stand out as the main contenders. These are the only squads inside HLTV’s top-13 to accept the invite, so it would be a genuine surprise to see the trophy go elsewhere. For the first three in particular, this should be relatively smooth sailing.

Behind them come the challengers: Legacy, B8, NRG, EYEBALLERS, BC.Game, and 3DMAX - all fighting for the remaining four Playoffs spots. We’re especially curious to see how BC.Game look after their break, and whether 3DMAX can mentally recover after missing the Major. For both, this event could either confirm the slump or mark the start of a turnaround.

Finally, the don’t-bother-unpacking-your-bags group. MIBR, FOKUS, Voca, Inner Circle, and Wildcard will be looking to steal a map or two and ruin someone else’s run - but realistically, their chances of making it out are slim.

Seriously, what the f-ck is a Voca?

Watch the pieces fall

Illustration by Andy.

We’re in the home stretch, folks. And it’s getting bloody.

Alliance, after quacke so wonderfully predicted in his Deep Dive, have surged up the rankings, with a strong final Major push now putting them in good standing to make the Major. However, with a loss to M80 at DraculaN, their fate is now “up to the gods”.

Just ahead of Alliance is BIG, who have pulled off an incredibly impressive season in their attempts to make it to their home Major. The signings of blameF and faveN were a bit of a gamble, but it’s looking like they’ve paid off, so fair play to them.

The French haven’t fared so well, though. 3DMAX have been up and down all year, with many of their downs coming at the smaller LANs. They recently attended the Parken Challenger Championship -which quacke is actually casting, so hop in their chat and abuse him - and ended their hopes of making the Major with successive defeats to BESTIA and B8.

We won’t pretend we’re not slightly happy about this.

As for the Czech fans, although SINNERS sit in a reasonably healthy position to make the Major, they now have an anxious wait until the 6th as their team’s fate is ultimately out of their hands. Not a fun place to be in.

Speaking of not-fun places and being in them, FaZe find themselves in a nightmare scenario. Their DraculaN gambit failed dramatically, and seemingly ended their Major hopes. It was then worked out that they had a slim chance by skipping PGL Bucharest and heading to HLC Belgrade, but even then, at 14%, the hopes are dire.

If we’re being real here, we hope they f-ck it up monumentally. FaZe have been terrible all year, and they don’t deserve to make the Major because of it. It’s just that simple. To be a tier one organisation, who, and perhaps even more importantly, were ranked seventh in the world at the start of the year and not make it? Well, that’s just abhorrent.

Across the pond (at least for us), Liquid also appear to be in dire straits. They caught a lot of heat for switching regions at the last minute by signing malbsMd, and it seems that the heat was too hot to handle as they’re currently 10th in the Americas ranking and therefore outside of Major invite range.

You get what you deserve, we suppose.

But look on the bright side, FaZe and Liquid, at least with this failure, you might finally realise your teams and rubbish and move on from them. Swings and roundabouts.

Revealing the team to take down Vitality

Illustration by Fuffy, Source: PGL

Producer Charlie has finally revealed himself and dropped a bombshell on Jack and Sam: the team to take down Vitality. It’s certainly a team, and certainly a team with firepower, but is it good enough to usurp the kings?

• ESL shouldn’t do eight-team playoffs?

• Vitality should sign Aleksib?

• PARIVISION need to make a change?

Headline

Source: BLAST / Stephanie Lindgren

We sat down with Falcons’ Baby GOAT to discuss his love of “magical” cats, the deadliest animal he could take in a fight, and why he would trust huNter- to save the world.

When did you first start playing Counter-Strike?
I started playing Counter-Strike when I was very, very, small. I was five years old. I started playing 1.6.

Since then, what would you say your favourite moment from your career has been?
Favourite moment? I think my favourite moment was when I joined my first organization. I had a lot of emotions when I joined Natus Vincere and, since then, since that academy, I started playing more and more.

Speaking of that academy, how was it being one of the first talents to come out of an academy with NAVI Junior?
I don't know. I didn't really think about it. I think just understood that this is not going to be an easy road. You have to grind more and more, sacrifice more time. So, my impression was you just need to grind more.

What's the deadliest animal you think you could beat in a fight?
The deadliest animal?

Tough question, I know.
Bear? A bear.

If you could tag anyone in from your team to help you fight this bear, who would it be?
NiKo.

If you weren't a Counter-Strike Pro, what job would you imagine yourself doing?
I think I would be a translator. I started learning English in school. I was going to extra lessons outside of the school just to learn. I wanted to be a translator, or actually, when I wasn't in school, I also wanted to become a doctor, you know, because my whole family are doctors.

Any any more languages besides English that you would want to translate?
No, I think I would maybe learn Chinese, but it's very hard, so I don't even want to spend time on this. It's just a waste of time

Do you have any pre-game rituals? Any superstitions? Something like that.
No, I don't have any. My team, I think they all have them. Like, if you sit in the shuttle one day, then different the second day, you change, you're going to lose. My team thinks like this. I don't think like this, I don’t have any game rituals. Just trying to focus on the game.

What's the weirdest pre-game ritual that one of your teammates has?
They don’t have any… thank God.

How much is a can of monster?
Like $2?

Pretty close. It's $3, actually. Have you got a favourite song to deathmatch to?
I don't have favourite songs. I listen to everything. I'm a music lover, so I just listen to whatever I can. Like, for example, western rap, I like Juice WRLD, I like Linkin Park as well. Also I forgot, 30 seconds to Mars. The last music I listened to, it was the heel I think. Then it was “this is war” or something like this.

From any team that you've ever been on, if you had to pick one player to win a clutch to save the world, who would you pick?
I would pick huNter-. I think he's very experienced in clutches. I remember back then, you know, we played in G2 together with him on the team, and we would always clutch some good round. He would clutch also some insane round as well for us. So I would say huNter-.

If you were stranded on a desert island with one of your current teammates, who would you pick?
NiKo. He's just way too experienced. If you needed to survive on some island or anything, you would pick NiKo just because he would go hunt, or he would cook food for you. He would just chill.

He would do all the tasks for you.
I will just go. I will just sleep and chill. He will do it all.

If you could own a house located on any Counter-Strike map. Which map would you choose?
House on any map? I think I would say Inferno or Overpass. I would maybe go for Inferno. It’s an Italian map. It's good. Good weather, good wine as well. Also. there is a lot of space for the house as well.

It's a good choice. I would say just dodge banana because of all the nades. Would you say you're a cat person or a dog person?
I think both. Can I say both? I mean, I have a cat. I really like cats. I think cats are magical you know, I believe in this. Also, I had a dog only once. It was a very long time ago. I had a husky but he passed away. So, yeah, I like both cats and dogs.

YOU CAN WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

🤓 For the nerds

• We really love Elmpauddy here at TLDR, and he’s back with another banger about why NAVI should have been the team to take down Vitality in Rotterdam.

• If you didn’t think HLTV rating, round swing, duel swing, or the swingset in your local beer garden was enough, then FACEIT are introducing FACEIT Rating, a fantastic way to blame your teammates.

🪦 Back from the abyss

• We were all sad when Inferno lost its iconic graveyard and could no longer bait our teammates there, but these lads have brought it back in a very inventive way.

• Old classics are also making their return, you can now get your hands on Assault in CS2. Unlike the UK, we love a golden oldie.

🤡 April Fool’s

• If this happened to us, we would genuinely sh-t ourselves.

• Spirit have finally replaced hally. Okay, not really, but this post got us excited.

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, AN1MO and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Crash_ copy edited.

How did you like this edition?
Help us improve by clicking a smiley below.

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FaZe  1 2  Aurora PARI...  2 1  NIP Spirit  2 0  Liquid MOUZ  0 2  MongolZ Falcons  Today  NAVI Aurora  Today  FURIA

• malbs can’t catch a break: Out of the frying pan, into the depths of hell. Poor malbs might never smile again.

• The battle for second-ish place: NAVI have proven their worth as a contender to be Vitality’s footrest, and a win against Falcons (albeit only 80% of them) might cement their spot in the top five going forward.

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💆 Share your deepest thoughts here (1.5 min to complete)

Think before you shoot

Illustration by Fuffy

For once when making a major patch to CS2, Valve have decided to listen to the fans.

The fans of a different game.

The gist of last night’s flabbergasting update is that Valve have rectified the biggest gripe players from other tactical shooters have when playing Counter-Strike. Ammunition management is now not just a measure of how many times you’ve clicked your mouse, but how many times you’ve reloaded.

That’s because the remaining bullets in each magazine you discard now don’t magically teleport back into your reserve, but are also discarded. In practice, this means every time you reload your AK-47, it won’t matter if you’ve fired all your bullets or just a single one - you still lose 30 shots.

Some think this is the first step in a radical realism shift for Counter-Strike. I mean, what’s next?

Buying ammunition like in 1.6? Dropping magazines to your teammates? Having to do regular gun maintenance or your gun will jam in overtime?

We doubt any of this is the case, as it’s quite obvious what this update is meant to address. By limiting the number of times you can reload in a round, it also limits how many times you can aimlessly shoot in a round.

Rejoice - Valve found a fix to the incessant smoke spamming!

At least, that’s what we think about it. How it will work for the pros in practice, we’ll have to see soon, as most of the ongoing Counter-Strike tournaments are, of course, staying on the old patch.

In any case, our tip for all you smoke sprayers out there, remember this old carpenter’s proverb:

Measure twice, cut once.

Rising from the ashes

Illustration by Andy. Source: ESL

So, FaZe have made a change.

F-cking finally. We’re so glad brok… wait, what? They sacked the coach?

After a disastrous start to the year - with just 3 wins in 13 matches - FaZe have decided they’ve had enough with NEO.

One thing is clear: FaZe were - and, honestly, still are - in desperate need of changes. This roster clearly isn’t working, and making the Grand Final of the Budapest Major was the worst thing that could’ve happened to them.

But will this move actually fix anything? Probably not.

The problems seem to run much deeper than the coach. It’s always hard to judge coaching work from the outside, but according to karrigan, the team is “looking at somebody who maybe has more experience, can be more structured and harder”.

That’s easier said than done. Experienced coaches don’t exactly grow on trees, and convincing someone to walk into the current dumpster fire that is FaZe Clan won’t be easy. Still, this is FaZe we’re talking about - one of the biggest brands in Counter-Strike. The chance to turn this roster around might just be too tempting to pass up.

One name already floating around is ash, and honestly, we like it. He’s done a fantastic job with GamerLegion over the past few years and deserves a shot at a team with bigger ambitions. Let’s just say he’s not exactly hiding it either.

Just please, for the love of everything holy, don’t give him broky and jcobbb to work with.

Overtime on Inferno: debate edition

Illustration by Fuffy, Source: Team Spirit

If you were donk, why on Earth would you still be at Team Spirit? That’s the question we’re asking, and answering, amidst the chaos.

• We actually try to solve the FaZe problem for once

• #hallyOUT

• Who lost in the malbsMd/NertZ swap (and why it’s malbsMd)

KRIMZ, the immortal

Illustration by Andy. Source: Lazer Cats

fnatic signed Maden just three months ago to replace blameF because they needed a sacrificial entry fragger guy - supposedly - which didn’t really work.

To their credit, they’re sticking to their guns with the signing of Br4tkO, who profiles similarly as a super-aggro first or second man in, rather than just going and getting another star, but according to harumi (yes, we know), KRIMZ is going to be the star player?

He reckons that KRIMZ was going to be cut and another Ukrainian brought in to anchor, but now KRIMZ is a star player and Br4tkO, presumably, is going to be an anchor? It’s all a bit mad, and suggests either fnatic or harumi haven’t a clue what’s going on, and it could genuinely be either.

We don’t appreciate him suggesting 31 is too old, by the way.

Of MOUZ and MongolZ

Illustration by Fuffy, Source: PGL

If MOUZ aren’t even winning every game in the group stages at a studio event, what’s even the point any more?

They got tonked on map two by The MongolZ, who, admittedly, looked exceptionally good on the day. Techno4k was in a MOOD, dancing around Inferno, looking like he had God mode on.

Maybe they’re in their FaZe era now and they’ve all of a sudden become rubbish in group stages and clutch in playoffs. Maybe they think that there’s a causation there, rather than a correlation.

Whatever happened, it doesn’t look good for MOUZ. This used to be their bread and butter.

Speaking of FaZe, they, remarkably, weren’t completely horrendous. jcobbb was absolutely frying for a few maps, Twistzz achieved nirvana on the third (albeit at the expense of everyone else) and even karriga-

Okay, he was still terrible. But he tried really, really hard.

None of it mattered, of course, as they did eventually fall in three to Aurora, but for a whole series, we genuinely believed that all five FaZe players were professional Counter-Strike players again.

If the bar were any lower, it’d be buried deeper than chrisJ’s career.

NIP similarly continue to underwhelm. Poor xKacpersky dropped a highlight reel-filling 31 kills in regulation on Ancient and still lost. In regulation. What else can he even do?

They lost 2-1 to PARIVISION, as they withered in the sixth half of the series - though losing a long game to a Jame team is par for the course for pretty much everyone. xKacpersky went 5-16 on the final map, but to be completely honest, we’d probably give up as well.

There were so many comedic rounds in this game. Just basic stuff going wrong. NIP lost a 2v5 because they left one guy on his own on A (Mirage), he got killed, and PARIVISION won on time after killing only one other player.

Awful.

Vitality obviously cleanly beat 9z, Spirit put Liquid away because donk got 55 kills in two maps (no overtimes), pretty standard stuff.

FURIA needed an eco round win with a bit of a dodgy boost just to not lose on Overpass to TYLOO, but at least they won, and Falcons without kyousuke beat NRG despite a ridiculous performance from Sonic.

At some point, NAVI and B8 played a marathon game with NAVI winning, but it was a very forgettable game. We cannot remember anything that happened from that game, and it happened two days ago.

Today has two less interesting games in the morning (NRG vs B8 is an insomnia cure, FaZe vs TYLOO will likely be poor quality) and two bangers (Falcons vs NAVI is always good, Aurora are playing decently while FURIA are in a weird spot) in the evening.

We’ll be watching every minute, obviously.

🐲 Bad spirits for donk

• Turns out even donk is actually human and feels the effects of bad team decisions. Thank god, we thought he was actually invincible.

• There’s a difference between being loyal to your current team and being open to an International move in the future, but donk doesn’t get that yet we think.

👴 Not all geriatric IGLs are the same

• We think we’ve nailed why FaZe are doing so bad, karrigan seems to be cucking his teammates by withholding fistbumps. That must be it.

• On the flipside, apEX seems to be doing just fine, with him renegotiating his contract with Vita to stay there even longer. Age is just a number?

👶 Ad so bad it made me not want to buy a condom (not like we need them)

• We usually stay pretty calm when writing these but excuse us what in the flying tabernacle is this ad from Vitality?!

• mezii seems to echo our feelings on the ad as well, which is good. At least someone in that team knows it’s bad.

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, quacke and napz.
Crash_ coded the email.

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MOUZ  1 2  FUT Astralis  2 0  Spirit NAVI  2 1  FUT Aurora  2 1  Astralis FUT  1 2  Astralis NAVI  3 1  Aurora

• phzy is the AWPer that sh1ro wishes he was.

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The least-favourite favourites

Illustration by Andy. Source: StarLadder

MOUZ… Spirit… what the f-ck are you both playing at?

In the last edition, we said that, without a doubt, it would be one of you two taking home the trophy - so how did you both fail to even make it out of the quarter-finals?

And, more importantly, how do you both continue with these teams after this disappointment?

We’re not even sure which one had the easiest go of it, so we’ll just start with MOUZ.

At one point in time, MOUZ were the kings of the inexperienced gimmick. We were told to just wait, that they were almost there, and that soon they would be winning trophies. Well, at this point, we’re sick of waiting.

MOUZ played FUT, an actually inexperienced team. The result? A close victory for FUT where they, the aforementioned inexperienced team, managed to be the team to hold its composure and claim the victory.

Spirit also had a vast experience gap in their game, coming up against an Astralis team that was putting both phzy and ryu into positions they’d never been in before. Of course, that meant phzy wiped the floor with them.

13-6. 13-7. Spirit didn’t even win a map. phzy got 41 kills. donk got 21.

This was it. This was the event to win. No Vitality, no Falcons, a weakened FURIA, a PARIVISION that bottled it in Stage 1. And still, neither team could do it.

Truly unforgivable.

In the remaining quarter-finals, NAVI overcame The MongolZ in a relatively comfortable 2-0, thanks to makazze’s 1.87 domination, while Aurora got the better of Legacy in a frankly strange game that saw Aurora win 19 rounds in a row, followed by Legacy winning 12 in a row, and culminating in Aurora coasting on Inferno.

Weird.

Those two teams then also managed to beat down their semi-final opponents, with NAVI (fortunately for them) staying ahead of their former academy team, FUT, and Aurora - mostly thanks to Wicadia - actually not bottling it for once.

Also, weird.

All of that to set up a grand final clash that we would never have predicted, but are honestly quite excited for.

It feels like it’s makazze’s time to ascend.

Win-win situation

Illustration by Andy. Sources: StarLadder (NertZ, malbsMd)

Hey, at least Liquid and G2 won something this week.

A little over two months into the 2026 spring season, Liquid and G2 have made a historic swap. And we think this might, at least on paper, be a winning situation for both.

malbsMd has been struggling to fill NiKo’s shoes since the Bosnian superstar left for the greener (as in dollar dollar bills) pastures in Falcons. A 1.02 rating across 2026, somehow putting him behind SunPayus, has had people screaming for his removal all year.

G2 have listened, and the replacement is Liquid’s underwhelming star signing of 2025, NertZ. Granted, his 2026 started slightly better individually - improving from a 1.05 to a 1.09 thus far in 2026 - but the team has been absolutely in the dumps since the season started.

What’s interesting is that malbsMd is moving the other way into siuhy and flashie’s open arms, looking to ruin his career by joining Liquid. The true destiny for all North American players.

On paper, we’re not huge fans of this move for Liquid considering the Guatemalan’s consistent performances - that is, pretty sh-t ones - in the past few months with G2. That being said, we also remember the last time he played on a North American team, and good golly, miss Molly, that was glorious.

Because yes, as of this transfer, Liquid are once again a North American team. That’s not just appeasing the fans - some of them anyway - but also has some pretty wide-reaching consequences in the scene.

Speaking of…

The latest VRS exploit

Illustration by Fuffy

How did no one foresee this?

Like, we get it, there’s only a select number of teams that could change their region on a dime, but how was there not something in place to prevent this from happening?

Oh yeah, it’s the VRS system we’re dealing with. Of course there wasn’t.

Thanks to the above swap deal, Liquid now hold an Americas slot for the IEM Cologne Major. That means, although they previously looked like they had no shot of making it with NertZ, it would be virtually impossible to miss it with malbsMd.

At least according to Mischief, and he’s rarely wrong.

Now, that’s great for Liquid, but is it really fair?

Liquid, who have been terrible all year, now get a Stage 2 invite in the Americas, despite not even being strong enough to make Stage 1 in Europe, purely on the basis of legacy invites and the Americas being a weaker region?

And what about the team that misses out because of this regional swap?

Honestly, it doesn’t seem particularly fair to us, but that doesn’t mean we’re sure on the fix either.

Should you take a VRS hit, or perhaps even a complete reset, for changing regions? Should there be a regional lock prior to the roster lock? We’re not sure, but if VRS history has taught us anything, it’s this:

Another team won’t get the chance to do what Liquid has just done.

With the Liquid and G2 swap deal completed, we have one simple question for you:

Welcome to the big boy table

Illustration by Fuffy, Source: ESL

Nostalgia for the recent few years seems to be in style recently, but we weren’t expecting to see callbacks to 2024 of all years.

But here we are - jL is playing well, and NAVI have faced Aurora in an EPL grand final.

It’s a strange grand final, especially considering Spirit and MOUZ were playing in this playoff bracket, and even stranger considering neither NAVI nor Aurora faced either of them.

Yet here we were, starting the BO5 with a Mirage opener. We had some question marks around NAVI’s form on their map pick, but w0nderful quickly answered those questions with a 1.95 rating in a 13-7 victory.

With it being NAVI’s weakest map, Aurora winning their usual map pick of Anubis was a foregone conclusion. Despite this, NAVI almost took it over the line, at one point holding the lead with 11-10 before losing in regulation.

This strong fightback set the tone for the upcoming Nuke map, with w0nderful once again living up to his name. This gave NAVI the chance to close out the game in fairy tale fashion - with all the star players holding hands, skipping across the line with near-identical statlines.

How cute.

It’s a first big event trophy since 2024 for NAVI, and a nice breath of fresh air after struggling to make it out of group stages in 2026 so far. For makazze it’s a first tier one trophy, and his excellent performances across the event also net him a career-first MVP - the first player from Kosovo to get one.

For Aurora it’s a silver medal and a first big event grand final appearance since winning PGL Masters Bucharest last year. There are worrying signs, though, as XANTARES’ 0.76 rating is another weak playoff showing this year, perhaps whispering of the end of the star rifler’s prime form.

Third place deciders are usually wholly uninteresting to us, but this one at least had some action. Astralis got the better of FUT in overtime after just barely coming back from 9-12 on the third map of Overpass to secure a third place finish.

Despite the loss, it’s clear to us this FUT team are the future, only further proven by their former teammate making history for his country in the grand final.

Will we see NAVI or Aurora play another grand final this year? Unlikely, if you ask us.

But sometimes you need a little sweet treat to break up the monotony of the everyday.

📝 Put me through to the complaints department please

• For most of us this video is a great deep dive into the different lurkers in pro CS. For some of you - not pointing any fingers - it is a tutorial on how to stop baiting us every f-cking round.

• blameF didn’t seem to happy about bevve’s refusal to be the early bird.

🏃‍♀️ Escape from reality

• List of things NEO’s escaping: the Matrix, and FaZe. The latter might not be as voluntary as the former.

• Cache is never escaping Valve’s slimy little hands, is it? They’re just teasing us with it now.

😓 No regrets?

• b1t be careful… Don’t poke the bear, before you know it apEX’ made it his personal task to ruin every event you go to. Ask MOUZ.

• Krabeni’s probably regretting that quickswitch right about now, and HooXi’s happy his heart’s still beating.

This TL;DR was written by quacke, AN1MO and napz.
Welshy coded the email.

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MongolZ  Today  NAVI Legacy  Today  Aurora MOUZ  Today  FUT Astralis  Today  Spirit

• Did everyone forget playoffs will be played in an arena? Or do they still think MOUZ are the favourites anyway?

• If so, what did everyone take to think that?

Crowning the prince of darkness

Caption

After what seems like endless rounds of online CS, ESL Pro League Season 23 is down to just eight teams.

Eight teams, all who will be looking to crown themselves as the best team to exist within the shadow of Vitality.

MOUZ (apparently) are the favourites to do so, although they do have a harder route to the final than their closest competitor, Spirit. They’ll first have to get past FUT, who are an unknown quantity on stage, and that’s a game that figures like dziugss, dem0n, and lauNX could all very quickly turn on its head.

Should MOUZ win that game, they’ll then face off against the winner of The MongolZ vs NAVI.

Now that The MongolZ have had some time with cobrazera they’ve proven they can still be dangerous, and they’ll be keen to go out on a high before their coach, maaRaa, takes a little break. As for NAVI, yes they suck sometimes, but they’re unpredictable, and when they - and in particular, makazze - are on, The MongolZ won’t stand a chance in stopping them.

Honestly, we don’t have a clue which way it will go, but we know that both teams have more than enough ability to end MOUZ’ tournament with another top four placing.

On the Spirit side of things, their quarter-final sees them face off against Astralis, who, let’s be honest, should be getting their sh-t pushed in.

And listen, that’s not because we don’t like this Astralis, or because we think they’re bad, we just don’t think they’re equipped to deal with donk.

It’s not just that, either - just look at their recent matches. Yes, they may have smacked some teams, but they also frequently get smacked. If donk is firing from round one, it won’t be a long contest.

Facing Spirit in the following round will be either Legacy or Aurora. It’s another hard game to call considering how much better Legacy have looked with arT, but on the basis that a big part of their run has been thanks to overperformances from n1ssim and saadzin, we’ll say regression to the mean gives this one to Aurora.

So that gives us Spirit versus Aurora. We think we all know how that one goes.

As for the final? Well, Spirit versus MOUZ in an arena? We know how that one goes, too.

So, congratulations, Spirit. You’re now the biggest team in Vitality’s shadow.

The crown prince of darkness, but good luck finding the light.

Back to the sauna

Caption

Remember when ENCE were one of the best teams in the world? We do, we loved them.\

Still, their team fell apart, and the years since haven’t exactly been kind to the Finnish org. There were some positive signs when the Polish/gla1ve mix began their time together with a playoff run at IEM Katowice 2024, but that very quickly petered out, and the international teams since haven’t got anywhere close.

With ENCE now not even inside the top 50 of VRS, they’ve decided to bench their entire roster, saying that the current “eco-system has made it increasingly difficult for organisations like ours to reach the highest level.”

Except that’s not really true, is it?

The reality is more that their team just wasn’t very good, and they weren’t attending enough of the smaller LANs to see themselves grow as other teams have. As Janko pointed out on Twitter, this decision, in an era where it has arguably never been easier for tier two teams, is almost certainly based in economic reasons.

Don’t worry, though, ENCE fans. The organisation isn’t going anywhere; they’ll be looking to come back soon with a brand new all-Finnish lineup.

Which, to be fair, they won’t go anywhere with either.

The ranting podcast

PGL are back in Sam and Jack’s sights, mostly because they’re concerned the TO might be creating a partner system. They aren’t the only people to fall victim to our hosts’ ranting, though; the EPL casters also have the hosts’ aim turned on them and their terrible poop jokes.

• Would anyone even want to join Liquid or FaZe?

• Why are people calling MOUZ the favourites for EPL?

• Do HEROIC even need a new AWPer?

You’re not MOUZ, bro

Caption

We know you’ve been waiting with bated breath, so we won’t beat around the bush. Virtus.pro have confirmed their full lineup after a complete rebuild - b1st and tO0rO return to the starting lineup, alongside academy players AquaRS and F0R3VER.

We don’t know much about these players, but all four were part of the same VP.Prodigy roster that handed it to Liquid in a BLAST-qualifier last year, which is at least something. That being said, pretty much anyone can do that these days.

Yeah, we’re not particularly excited. Add that the academy team was led by AquaRS, who now will hand over captaincy to mir - for whatever reason - and we don’t see why this lineup would become very good.

Not that it matters, for now. The academy team had a VRS-rank - probably part of why they decided to go this route - sitting pretty as the 78th best team in the world. Quite far from tier one events, to say the least.

Defenders of this move might point to MOUZ and NAVI’s previous academy teams, that have become tier one competitors after being promoted or sold on, but for VP that’s a line of reasoning we can eliminate entirely. Most of you may not even have noticed, but VP have been running their academy team for six years at this point, and have thus far produced no player better than r3salt. That is to say, nobody who stacks up to FUT or xertioN and co.

We might be wrong, but for now it’s sayonara to the polar bears in any notable tier of Counter-Strike. See you in LanDaLan!

Tier two Counter-Strike is back

Caption

I have missed tier two Counter-Strike.

That phrase might mean different things to a lot of people, so I will clarify what it means to me.

I often reminisce about the lower-tier landscape of 2018 and 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic. Smaller LAN-cups breaking up the monotonous online competition. Events where the big dogs get shown up, future Major champions get their first feeling of losing on LAN, and small, local teams get a shot at the big leagues thanks to the simple fact they live nearby.

For a long time, I thought it would never return. Today, I am very grateful I was wrong.

I got the chance to join the second edition of the Parken Challenger Championship as one of the casters on the main broadcast.

100 Thieves more or less needed to go through as undefeated champions, as any match loss would tank their VRS to a significant degree. Lo and behold, after dominating the group stage, they get shown up. By Johnny Speeds and AM Gaming.

There’s something truly, truly special about hearing coach friberg shout at the Major champions until they shiver, watching forgotten players like Sapec and HEAP out-aim some of the hottest prospects in the world, and seeing Lekr0, in 2026, completely outplay a gla1ve-led team.

All this action culminated in Betclic Apogee taking a first LAN title, sending them into multiple larger LAN tournaments later in the year. Drinking beers and playing foosball with the largest and loudest man in Copenhagen that Tuesday evening is an experience I will never forget.

Really, there are many people and experiences from these three days I will never forget, because to me, events like these are what Counter-Strike is all about. Events where you will watch the matches together with the managers of the teams in the server. Events where those who are truly passionate will fall in love with teams most people don’t even know exist. Where you can accidentally find out which players don’t wash their hands after using the urinal.

Most of all, events where everyone is welcome.

Weekends like these are those that make me forever thankful this game exists and allows me to do what I do, and if you ever get the chance to visit an event at this level, you should not hesitate to make the trip.

Tier two Counter-Strike is truly back.

In the latest edition, we asked you: What should we do with FaZe’s roster?

Here’s what you had to say:

👹 Throw them into the depths of Tartarus 🟩 🟪🟪🟪🟪🟪 (12.5%)
😂 Nothing, it’s too entertaining to watch them fail 🟩🟩🟩🟪🟪🟪 (31.3%)
☢️ Have you heard of Hiroshima? 🟩🟩🟪🟪🟪🟪 (18.8%)
⚔️ Five-man Hunger Games🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟪 (37.5%)

🌬️ So much sucking it’s like a vacuum

• Here at tl;dr we like to keep things short, so we’ll definitely still tell you to watch the entire video, but basically: Falcons suck. Objectively.

• Something else that sucks (aside from your mother)? BLAST Rivals Fort Worth, according to MOUZ, Parivision, Aurora, Spirit, Falcons, and The MongolZ.

🚪 The Doors (but not the band)

• You know what they say - wherever a door closes, another one opens. We have no idea what that means for this Doormania Inferno map ESL made, but it sounds right.

• Speaking of doors, poii was kicking at the one leading to the record for most regulation kills, dropping 37 against FaZe during EPL. device probably stole an eco kill somewhere, that bitch.

😅 The wrong kind of rivalry

• Aleksib’s got the Finnish tax bear chasing after him, and just like most Finnish things - they don’t joke around.

• When it takes you five years to beat your nemesis, you know there’s something wrong.

This TL;DR was written by quacke, AN1MO and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Crash_ copy edited.

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Ursa  2 0  BC.Game BC.Game  1 2  Nemesis Liquid  0 2  Falcons HEROIC  1 2  FURIA GamerL.  Today  Vitality PARIVISION  Today  Spirit

• Liquid, lads, we try to put a joke here, but ultimate’s gameplay is enough.

• Actually, we’re not even going to link to it. No one needs to see it.

A-new-bis

Illustration by Fuffy

The Season 4 update has finally landed, and with it comes a refreshed Anubis. Well, not that refreshed.

Among the usual list of additional tweaks and adjustments, there’s one change we genuinely believe is the biggest since the release of CS2 itself - yet it somehow flew mostly under the radar.

With this update, Valve has finally solved the biggest problem plaguing our beloved game: cheating. That’s right. In a shocking move, Valve has decided to VAC ban absolutely everyone who so much as touches the game.

Hats off, honestly. Instead of putting in the effort to develop a proper anti-cheat, Valve just nuked the entire player base. You can’t cheat if you can’t even play the game, right? Bloody genius.

Now, onto what actually matters.

Anubis received several changes, the most significant on Mid, where the bridge drop has been moved closer to Doors, with the doors themselves having their orientation reversed. Alongside this, a series of smaller tweaks introduced a new opening between E-box and the back of B, moved the A site crates up the steps, and added scaffolding to the A pillar.

These adjustments will impact how CTs contest Mid and Water, likely giving them a slight edge when fighting for control. With more angles to worry about, Ts will also find it harder to gain and maintain control of the area.

On the gameplay side, the update brought minor buffs to the MP7 and the MP5-SD, with slightly increased damage, reduced damage fall-off, and a $100 price cut. The reduction in damage fall-off is particularly significant, but whether it’s enough to bring these weapons back to the meta - or even justify sacrificing utility - remains to be seen.

Movement was also tweaked, as jumping and landing no longer affect stamina.

Alongside various bug fixes, Valve reduced audio output latency and added new knife sounds - which, in our humble opinion, sound like sh-t. Ever heard of ‘if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it’, Gaben?

Lastly, we got the usual skins and community content, with the highlight being the addition of the AK-47 | Aphrodite as the new limited-edition item.

Oh, and the devs confirmed that Cache is in the oven. Just don’t burn it, please.

s1mply terrible

Illustration by Andy. Source: BLAST

Now, we all knew BC.Game would be a disaster, but that debut? That debut was f-cking terrible.

Playing in the IEM Rio qualifier, s1mple and the boys from Iberia were first matched against Ursa, a Russian team that no one in the world has ever heard of. It should have been a walk in the park, really, but the scale of the calamity that is about to be endured soon became evident on Dust2.

To put it plainly, BC.Game were awful on their CT side. A late rally might make it look like they were competitive, but a better team than Ursa would’ve been at least 10-2 up at the half. BCG did then - somehow - claw it back to OT, but fell after the extra rounds all the same.

Then, on Anuibis, despite putting up a solid five rounds on their CT side, BCG lost again. And they didn’t even make it to OT that time. MUTiRiS and electroNic (who looked terrible on Dust, btw) topfragged for them, but that mattered for little as the other two Portuguese players on the team stunk up the gaff.

Thrown into the losers’ bracket, they would then go on to play Nemesis, and this is where there’s also a caveat to this story. The second game of their day started at 2am. Which we would say is unacceptable, but Nemesis were in the same boat, and we don’t see them complaining.

It’s still pretty poor scheduling, though.

s1mple fried on map one, Nuke, with the event being more important for the team's longevity, as really only krazy bothered to connect to the server, and a 29-kill Ancient game wasn’t enough to see BCG continue in the qualifier.

They now head into IEM Krakow with the event being more important for the longevity of the team, as their VRS ranking took a pretty big hit from the two huge upset defeats they suffered.

And we thought playing with CacaNito was rock bottom.

The peaked-in-high-school show

Illustration by Fuffy, Source: StarLadder

Spirit have played now, and that means that Sam has a bone to pick. chopper’s gone and they’re still the same, so hally, you better cover your ears, mate.

• Should Majors ONLY be in Europe?

• PARISIVION, NIP, and FUT will ALL be top ten teams?

• Stewie, tarik, and kjaerbye are all FAILED wonderkids?

Maybe you shouldn’t tweet that

You guys remember FiReSPORTS? That TO that have been given a 2027 Major? Well, you won’t believe what their CEO has tweeted.

Seriously, we’ve been staring at it all day, and we still can’t believe it.

The now-deleted tweet in question - which is still really hard to figure out the actual context for - sees the CEO, a Mr. Rodrigo Figueroa Reyes, mention a greeting from Elon Musk, and a previously unseen video of Messi circulating as a result.

What was that previously unseen video you ask? Images of Messi as Adolf Hitler.

No, really. Loads of them. It was thirty seconds long.

It has been deleted now, and whether it was originally posted because the CEO is actually a national socialist (hmm), or because it was a throwaway joke just doesn’t really matter. The main thing is that a CEO of a TO hosting a CS Major posted a tweet where the thumbnail was a swastika.

Maybe, just maybe, a TO of any company shouldn’t be doing that. And maybe, just maybe, Valve should probably actually do some background research on tier three TOs (who have never hosted a tier one event ever) before reaching out to them to offer them a Major.

Oh, and Mr. Reyes, just because you deleted it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And now it’s immortalised in this here newsletter. We also have a screenshot of it, too, so you better hope your Major is a good one.

The worst ultimate since Reyna

Illustration by Fuffy, Source: ESL

So, we ask knowing the only possible answer, why exactly did Team Liquid decide to stick with this roster?

Falcons rocked up to Bounty without kyousuke and still had their pants down, with ultimate getting an absolute schooling from m0NESY, begging the question as to why he’s still there.

Yes, plenty of very good players have been mogged by m0NESY, but ultimate picked up just over half of his kills and was quite clearly way out of his depth, just as he has been every time he’s played against a top eight team. He’s just not ever going to make it, sadly.

It’s not just his fault - Liquid are a trainwreck, and maybe in another team he might not be quite so useless - but in this game he was exposed pretty heavily.

Falcons won in OT on map one but were largely unchallenged in map two, racking up a comfortable 2-0 without kyousuke playing, which is a terrifying indictment of Liquid’s hopes this season.

In the second semi-final, HEROIC smacked FURIA on map one (molodoy, bizarrely, went 13-8 in a 13-3 loss), got smacked back even harder (2-13) on map two, then nearly pulled off a crazy comeback on Nuke.

Mirage, map one, was yuurih’s worst map ever, and KSCERATO looked all at sea at times too. His failure to check top mid allowing xfl0ud a free triple was so unlike him that it was starting to concern us.

Fortunately, he was back to being KSCERATO in the next two, though it was molodoy who stole the show, again. Turns out his HLTV placing was wrong after all - he should have been higher. He bossed HEROIC around and saved FURIA’s bacon on Nuke, after a stellar performance in the 13-2 win.

The kid’s incredible, and a testament to what can be done when you prioritise the AWP while everyone else moves away from it.

HEROIC should be proud that they pushed FURIA here, and can take plenty into the new season especially when they get Alkaren back.

Quite telling that HEROIC with a stand-in looked 50x more promising than Liquid with their full roster, really.

In the latest edition, we asked you: Where would you like to see a Major held?

Here’s what you said:

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤪 Inside DaZeD’s mind (29%)
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇨🇳 Tiananmen Square (18%)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👶 Epstein Island (6%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🇦🇺 Australia (objectively the worst option here, sry) (47%)


And yes, you have really disappointed us. Shame on you.

🤨 Senses playing tricks on us

• Some of y’all need to stop gaslighting yourselves into thinking something happens. Nothing ever happens, get used to it.

• Did he just… Did he just propose to suck his toes?

👀 CS seen differently

• YEKINDAR is the problem: shots 1-5 clearly missed, shots 6- you get the gist.

• Look, this is all we want at tournaments during tech pauses: some DJ turning the arena into a rave.

📊🟧 FACEIT stats

• Either there’s a lot of fakeflaggers pretending to be Kosovar, or FACEIT is just really really popular there.

• Meanwhile Russia is churning out Level 10s faster than you can say “cyka blyat”.

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, AN1MO and napz.
Welshy coded the email.

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Falcons  1 2  V.Pro Heroic  0 2  E. Fire Spirit  2 0  FURIA MOUZ  2 0  E. Fire E. Fire  Today  FURIA MOUZ  Today  Spirit

• Shellacking: Both FURIA and Eternal Fire got soundly beaten in their games, but the Spirit v FURIA one was particularly bad. FURIA got five rounds total, and donk outfragged FalleN, KSCERATO and yuurih combined. Get donk’d.

Exceptionally Sloppy and Inept Commission

Illustration by AndyJ

And just when you thought the PARIVISION mess couldn’t get any crazier, ESIC decided to drop a minor and totally insignificant piece of information.

If you have no clue what we’re talking about, here’s a quick overview to get you up to speed.

PARIVISION qualified for the EU RMR, but their victory was short-lived. The team got disqualified after posting a video that showed coach F_1N in the room with the team – a no-no in online qualifiers according to Valve’s rulebook.

To make matters worse, F_1N was one of the 37 individuals banned from Valve events for exploiting the coach bug years ago. Naturally, at the time, ESIC (Esports Integrity Commission) followed suit, also banning coach F_1N from their member events.

But here’s the twist: ESIC recently dropped the news that F_1N’s ban was lifted after a “special evaluation” of an appeal submitted four years after the original ruling. They also mentioned that Perfect World wasn’t even aware of this change.

However, according to HLTV’s sources, the decision to overturn the ban was made months ago. ESIC just didn’t inform Valve or Perfect World about the change until after PARIVISION’s disqualification.

TL;DR: ESIC reviewed a four-year-old appeal, decided to unban the coach, and somehow did not notify Valve or Perfect World about the decision.

‘Hey man, we unbanned you but forgot to tell everyone, hehe’.

This back-and-forth is a nightmare for KOI, Monte, and BLEED, who had their hopes lifted only to see them crushed once more. If you happen to cross paths with kassad, it's probably best to steer clear - just to be safe.

In the end, we’re right back where we started. But at least we’ve got this absolute banger of a tweet to show for it. Shakespeare would be jealous.

Funny things are happening

Europe wasn’t the only place for RMR qualifier-based drama, let’s draw your attention to the Americas RMR for a moment:

First, we’ve got a pro tip for snav: don’t publically go after the admin who replayed the round if you haven’t read the rules that tell you he’s right to do so. Especially if you won the replayed round anyway, and still lost the game.

He’s fortunate we have a policy of not directly insulting players. Most of the time.

Instead, his team Elevate will be missing out on the Americas RMR, as will, equally hilariously, NRG.

All that money and you don’t even qualify for the RMR? You have autimatic, a Major winner, nitr0, a Grand Slam winner, and Brehze, who played well against Astralis when the Krieg was OP.

Surely you could figure something out? A team with stanislaw and Sonic qualified. BOSS have a player called Fruitcupx, and they qualified…

By the way, of the 16 teams, only four of them are NA-dominant. Wildcard and Liquid have a few NA players, but not enough to be an NA team. Just in case you were keeping tabs.

Over in the Asia-Pacific RMR, also quite hilariously, Rare Atom beat out TYLOO for a spot. Remember that TYLOO signed the old Rare Atom team by paying them more money, and then signed two players from Lynn Vision to finish the team.

TALON took the Australian spot, with a team that includes AZR of Renegades fame, and mhL, of once-thought-to-be-quite-good fame.

The other qualifiers in Asia-Pacific are still occuring - IHC are out in the East Asia one, but nobody there is particularly massive, and ohnePixel’s team is somehow still in this? What?

See you Monday, with an overview of it all!

It’s just like Indiana Jones…

Illustration by Fuffy, Sources: PGL, HEROIC

It’s been a quiet week, but not too quiet. Our mics are still hot and ready - no, not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter.

• The Falcons care home

• Are HEROIC just rubbish now?

• The Indiana Jones RMR

Falcons suck, Heroic sucks harder

BBD. Bell Biv DeVoe? No, BetBoom Dacha - but it’s still our Poison.

Season 2 saw us jump straight into action with no groups and playoffs but just straight-up bracket-only action. Simple to understand, simple to write about.

In the upper bracket of the tournament, it’s been 2-0’s all around. MOUZ dismissed Eternal Fire pretty quickly and FURIA and Spirit sent VP and Falcons to the lower bracket in a similar fashion.

The only team to put up a real fight was paiN, who managed to take Heroic down in three maps only to then lose to the reigning champions - MOUZ - in again three maps.

The other “upper bracket semi-final” (does the word semi-final even carry any meaning in that case?) saw donk doing what donk does best: donking his way to a 1.99 rating in only 31 rounds. If donk’s doing that, can you really blame FURIA?

Heroic continued their post-break run of uninspiring form by biffing their second chance in the lower bracket against Eternal Fire. XANTARES showed us donk may be good, but he’s also still relevant with a 1.34 rating. That’s just okay compared to 1.99.

Things went a bit better for Virtus.pro and Falcons, who delivered a full Bo3 with SunPayus absolutely fighting to make Falcons relevant – to no avail.

To sum up:

• This sets up FURIA vs. Eternal Fire and paiN vs Virtus.pro in the lower bracket, now fighting for survival.

• In the upper bracket, MOUZ and Spirit butt heads in the final-that-isn’t-really-the-real-final-yet for a spot in the actual final and a second chance in the lower bracket’s consolidation final.

Did you catch all of that?

🤑 PGW

• PGL has officially acquired Esportal’s assets, which doesn’t initially sound like an insane move…

• … But do the napkin math and you’ll see that they now represent just under 1M$ more in prize pool money compared to ESL - even with the latter’s biggest events included.

🗞️ Good news everyone

• ESL has joined Valve’s bandwagon and banned the use of anything even closely related to Snap Tap for Pro League Season 20.

• No worries guys, Jame saving behaviour isn’t in danger - according to n0rb3r7 electroNic is not VP’s new IGL.

🍇 Yeah I ‘member

• Crazy to think that the first CS Major is older than most up-and-coming CS2 players these days. Gaming’s going places kids.

• 11 years of retirement, and yet ceh9’s ninja skills have never been sharper.

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, Horizzon and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Crash_ copy edited.

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Falcons  1 2  V.Pro Heroic  0 2  E. Fire Spirit  2 0  FURIA MOUZ  2 0  E. Fire E. Fire  Today  FURIA MOUZ  Today  Spirit

• Shellacking: Both FURIA and Eternal Fire got soundly beaten in their games, but the Spirit v FURIA one was particularly bad. FURIA got five rounds total, and donk outfragged FalleN, KSCERATO and yuurih combined. Get donk’d.

Exceptionally Sloppy and Inept Commission

Illustration by AndyJ

And just when you thought the PARIVISION mess couldn’t get any crazier, ESIC decided to drop a minor and totally insignificant piece of information.

If you have no clue what we’re talking about, here’s a quick overview to get you up to speed.

PARIVISION qualified for the EU RMR, but their victory was short-lived. The team got disqualified after posting a video that showed coach F_1N in the room with the team – a no-no in online qualifiers according to Valve’s rulebook.

To make matters worse, F_1N was one of the 37 individuals banned from Valve events for exploiting the coach bug years ago. Naturally, at the time, ESIC (Esports Integrity Commission) followed suit, also banning coach F_1N from their member events.

But here’s the twist: ESIC recently dropped the news that F_1N’s ban was lifted after a “special evaluation” of an appeal submitted four years after the original ruling. They also mentioned that Perfect World wasn’t even aware of this change.

However, according to HLTV’s sources, the decision to overturn the ban was made months ago. ESIC just didn’t inform Valve or Perfect World about the change until after PARIVISION’s disqualification.

TL;DR: ESIC reviewed a four-year-old appeal, decided to unban the coach, and somehow did not notify Valve or Perfect World about the decision.

‘Hey man, we unbanned you but forgot to tell everyone, hehe’.

This back-and-forth is a nightmare for KOI, Monte, and BLEED, who had their hopes lifted only to see them crushed once more. If you happen to cross paths with kassad, it's probably best to steer clear - just to be safe.

In the end, we’re right back where we started. But at least we’ve got this absolute banger of a tweet to show for it. Shakespeare would be jealous.

Funny things are happening

Europe wasn’t the only place for RMR qualifier-based drama, let’s draw your attention to the Americas RMR for a moment:

First, we’ve got a pro tip for snav: don’t publically go after the admin who replayed the round if you haven’t read the rules that tell you he’s right to do so. Especially if you won the replayed round anyway, and still lost the game.

He’s fortunate we have a policy of not directly insulting players. Most of the time.

Instead, his team Elevate will be missing out on the Americas RMR, as will, equally hilariously, NRG.

All that money and you don’t even qualify for the RMR? You have autimatic, a Major winner, nitr0, a Grand Slam winner, and Brehze, who played well against Astralis when the Krieg was OP.

Surely you could figure something out? A team with stanislaw and Sonic qualified. BOSS have a player called Fruitcupx, and they qualified…

By the way, of the 16 teams, only four of them are NA-dominant. Wildcard and Liquid have a few NA players, but not enough to be an NA team. Just in case you were keeping tabs.

Over in the Asia-Pacific RMR, also quite hilariously, Rare Atom beat out TYLOO for a spot. Remember that TYLOO signed the old Rare Atom team by paying them more money, and then signed two players from Lynn Vision to finish the team.

TALON took the Australian spot, with a team that includes AZR of Renegades fame, and mhL, of once-thought-to-be-quite-good fame.

The other qualifiers in Asia-Pacific are still occuring - IHC are out in the East Asia one, but nobody there is particularly massive, and ohnePixel’s team is somehow still in this? What?

See you Monday, with an overview of it all!

It’s just like Indiana Jones…

Illustration by Fuffy, Sources: PGL, HEROIC

It’s been a quiet week, but not too quiet. Our mics are still hot and ready - no, not like that. Get your mind out of the gutter.

• The Falcons care home

• Are HEROIC just rubbish now?

• The Indiana Jones RMR

Falcons suck, Heroic sucks harder

BBD. Bell Biv DeVoe? No, BetBoom Dacha - but it’s still our Poison.

Season 2 saw us jump straight into action with no groups and playoffs but just straight-up bracket-only action. Simple to understand, simple to write about.

In the upper bracket of the tournament, it’s been 2-0’s all around. MOUZ dismissed Eternal Fire pretty quickly and FURIA and Spirit sent VP and Falcons to the lower bracket in a similar fashion.

The only team to put up a real fight was paiN, who managed to take Heroic down in three maps only to then lose to the reigning champions - MOUZ - in again three maps.

The other “upper bracket semi-final” (does the word semi-final even carry any meaning in that case?) saw donk doing what donk does best: donking his way to a 1.99 rating in only 31 rounds. If donk’s doing that, can you really blame FURIA?

Heroic continued their post-break run of uninspiring form by biffing their second chance in the lower bracket against Eternal Fire. XANTARES showed us donk may be good, but he’s also still relevant with a 1.34 rating. That’s just okay compared to 1.99.

Things went a bit better for Virtus.pro and Falcons, who delivered a full Bo3 with SunPayus absolutely fighting to make Falcons relevant – to no avail.

To sum up:

• This sets up FURIA vs. Eternal Fire and paiN vs Virtus.pro in the lower bracket, now fighting for survival.

• In the upper bracket, MOUZ and Spirit butt heads in the final-that-isn’t-really-the-real-final-yet for a spot in the actual final and a second chance in the lower bracket’s consolidation final.

Did you catch all of that?

🤑 PGW

• PGL has officially acquired Esportal’s assets, which doesn’t initially sound like an insane move…

• … But do the napkin math and you’ll see that they now represent just under 1M$ more in prize pool money compared to ESL - even with the latter’s biggest events included.

🗞️ Good news everyone

• ESL has joined Valve’s bandwagon and banned the use of anything even closely related to Snap Tap for Pro League Season 20.

• No worries guys, Jame saving behaviour isn’t in danger - according to n0rb3r7 electroNic is not VP’s new IGL.

🍇 Yeah I ‘member

• Crazy to think that the first CS Major is older than most up-and-coming CS2 players these days. Gaming’s going places kids.

• 11 years of retirement, and yet ceh9’s ninja skills have never been sharper.

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, Horizzon and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Crash_ copy edited.

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MongolZ  13 9  Heroic fnatic  13 3  CoL E. Fire  11 13  BetBoom NIP  13 10  Heroic CoL  9 13  FURIA

• Complexity continue to crumble: Complexity were a very good team at one point, but man, they’ve gone downhill. They’re almost definitely making changes, in fairness, but their performance in Abu Dhabi left a lot to be desired.

The compass points north for FURIA

We have absolutely no idea what’s going on in YaLLa Compass 2024.

Not just because you’re not allowed to clip anything, for some reason. Not just because it’s coming to the end of the season and we assumed an event like this would be filled with teams we’ve never heard of - but because it’s mental.

FURIA are actually winning games, for a start.

It’s been a while since we saw a good face of FURIA, and when they lost their first game we were all expecting more of the same old rubbish they’d been delivering, but they fired back to win all four other BO1s to top their group - with BetBoom in second place, by the way.

fnatic stole the third spot, which means that Complexity, BIG and Eternal Fire all miss out in Group B. Eternal Fire’s only win came over BIG, and BIG’s only win was FURIA’s only loss.

What on Earth is going on?

In the A group, things made a little more sense. A little bit, anyway. Sashi beat Astralis, but lost every other game, while ENCE similarly stumbled to a ignominious end, going out 1-4.

HEROIC’s patchy form continued, but Astralis snuck in in 3rd, leaving TheMongolz and Ninjas in Pyjamas at the top with four wins apiece.

Yes, that NIP. Honestly, we’re sort of glad to see them looking like a real team again. It’s no fun punching down that much - and if we’ve learnt anything about them, it’s that pride always comes before a fall.

TheMongolz’ only loss came to Astralis to close out the group, and they seem to be in fine form. Perhaps their time has come - or perhaps they too are just looking good against new teams in a smaller tournament.

Time will tell.

Death by Update

Valve’s recent Major rulebook changes have claimed their first victim.

If you are a devoted Tier 2/3 follower who rarely misses a CCT game, you’ve likely heard of iNation. If not, it probably means you have a life.

The Serbian org has announced they are ceasing operations and releasing their roster, who are now open to new offers. iNation cited Valve’s “recent update concerning the Major and RMR” as the reason behind their decision.

Now, if you are out of the loop, here’s the recap: open qualifiers are dead. From now on, if you’re a random 5 stack with Major dreams, you better start grinding Valve’s Standings.

After qualifying for the Paris Major RMRs through the open qualifiers, iNation felt like the uphill journey wasn’t for them, and pulled the plug on the project. According to the org, Valve’s decision “significantly impacted our core objectives and reduced the feasibility of achieving our goals”.

However, they hope “this is a temporary farewell and not a permanent goodbye”, leaving us to wonder if this is just an isolated case or the beginning of a cascading effect that could change the landscape of competitive CS.

Where does Stewie go?

Illustration/Photos by Fuffy

We are all wrong sometimes, but few are as wrong as consistently, as stylishly and as amusingly as our pair of half-wit hosts. Stewie2k lifted the trophy and proved them both wrong. HA! Fools.

• The three days of summer

• Recreating donk in the aggregate

• Stewie2k to FURIA??? (not a real rumour)

Grand Theft Data

Illustration by Andy. Sources: Robert Kuykendall, dust2.us

60 days after being unbanned from Faceit, NA player nbgee12 has gotten re-banned, this time permanently for attempting to steal SSDs belonging to players at IEM Dallas.

You read that right, this genius decided that it would be a good idea to piss in the cereal of the company who just unbanned him. As nbgee12 himself recalls on stream, he was on a Discord call whilst he entered the venue at 4 AM. He then went ahead and took SSDs belonging to the likes of Stewie2K and NiKo, and brought them to his hotel.

He was quickly caught thanks to CCTV footage, and was originally handed a 5 year ban before it was elevated to being permanent.

Now you might wonder what caused someone with eyes on going pro in CS2 to do this, we did too. nbgee12 himself came out and blamed marijuana use for his direction. That might have worked during reefer madness, but not now.

G2’s manager Peca raises valid points about security at events, and how this costs valuable prep time. We’re lucky all that happened was that a few SSDs were stolen, who knows what someone with bad intentions could’ve done.

Now excuse us, we’re going to enjoy a joint and rob a bank.

🗣️ Stewie2K speaks up following Dallas

• Stewie has harsh words for nbgee12

• He also clarifies what’s happened with his prize winnings

🔥 We are so back

• This year’s edition of IEM Dallas trumped last year’s viewership numbers by quite the margin.

• markeloff stood in for FAVBET Team after six years away from the server. And held his own impressively.

🏆 Collector items for the future?

• This could be the last ever APEKS jersey signed by their former team. Before their unfortunate end

• Rare photo of a bearded blameF…or is it?

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, Horizzon and benji.
Welshy coded the email.

How did you like this edition?
Help us improve by clicking a smiley below.

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MongolZ  13 9  Heroic fnatic  13 3  CoL E. Fire  11 13  BetBoom NIP  13 10  Heroic CoL  9 13  FURIA

• Complexity continue to crumble: Complexity were a very good team at one point, but man, they’ve gone downhill. They’re almost definitely making changes, in fairness, but their performance in Abu Dhabi left a lot to be desired.

The compass points north for FURIA

We have absolutely no idea what’s going on in YaLLa Compass 2024.

Not just because you’re not allowed to clip anything, for some reason. Not just because it’s coming to the end of the season and we assumed an event like this would be filled with teams we’ve never heard of - but because it’s mental.

FURIA are actually winning games, for a start.

It’s been a while since we saw a good face of FURIA, and when they lost their first game we were all expecting more of the same old rubbish they’d been delivering, but they fired back to win all four other BO1s to top their group - with BetBoom in second place, by the way.

fnatic stole the third spot, which means that Complexity, BIG and Eternal Fire all miss out in Group B. Eternal Fire’s only win came over BIG, and BIG’s only win was FURIA’s only loss.

What on Earth is going on?

In the A group, things made a little more sense. A little bit, anyway. Sashi beat Astralis, but lost every other game, while ENCE similarly stumbled to a ignominious end, going out 1-4.

HEROIC’s patchy form continued, but Astralis snuck in in 3rd, leaving TheMongolz and Ninjas in Pyjamas at the top with four wins apiece.

Yes, that NIP. Honestly, we’re sort of glad to see them looking like a real team again. It’s no fun punching down that much - and if we’ve learnt anything about them, it’s that pride always comes before a fall.

TheMongolz’ only loss came to Astralis to close out the group, and they seem to be in fine form. Perhaps their time has come - or perhaps they too are just looking good against new teams in a smaller tournament.

Time will tell.

Death by Update

Valve’s recent Major rulebook changes have claimed their first victim.

If you are a devoted Tier 2/3 follower who rarely misses a CCT game, you’ve likely heard of iNation. If not, it probably means you have a life.

The Serbian org has announced they are ceasing operations and releasing their roster, who are now open to new offers. iNation cited Valve’s “recent update concerning the Major and RMR” as the reason behind their decision.

Now, if you are out of the loop, here’s the recap: open qualifiers are dead. From now on, if you’re a random 5 stack with Major dreams, you better start grinding Valve’s Standings.

After qualifying for the Paris Major RMRs through the open qualifiers, iNation felt like the uphill journey wasn’t for them, and pulled the plug on the project. According to the org, Valve’s decision “significantly impacted our core objectives and reduced the feasibility of achieving our goals”.

However, they hope “this is a temporary farewell and not a permanent goodbye”, leaving us to wonder if this is just an isolated case or the beginning of a cascading effect that could change the landscape of competitive CS.

Where does Stewie go?

Illustration/Photos by Fuffy

We are all wrong sometimes, but few are as wrong as consistently, as stylishly and as amusingly as our pair of half-wit hosts. Stewie2k lifted the trophy and proved them both wrong. HA! Fools.

• The three days of summer

• Recreating donk in the aggregate

• Stewie2k to FURIA??? (not a real rumour)

Grand Theft Data

Illustration by Andy. Sources: Robert Kuykendall, dust2.us

60 days after being unbanned from Faceit, NA player nbgee12 has gotten re-banned, this time permanently for attempting to steal SSDs belonging to players at IEM Dallas.

You read that right, this genius decided that it would be a good idea to piss in the cereal of the company who just unbanned him. As nbgee12 himself recalls on stream, he was on a Discord call whilst he entered the venue at 4 AM. He then went ahead and took SSDs belonging to the likes of Stewie2K and NiKo, and brought them to his hotel.

He was quickly caught thanks to CCTV footage, and was originally handed a 5 year ban before it was elevated to being permanent.

Now you might wonder what caused someone with eyes on going pro in CS2 to do this, we did too. nbgee12 himself came out and blamed marijuana use for his direction. That might have worked during reefer madness, but not now.

G2’s manager Peca raises valid points about security at events, and how this costs valuable prep time. We’re lucky all that happened was that a few SSDs were stolen, who knows what someone with bad intentions could’ve done.

Now excuse us, we’re going to enjoy a joint and rob a bank.

🗣️ Stewie2K speaks up following Dallas

• Stewie has harsh words for nbgee12

• He also clarifies what’s happened with his prize winnings

🔥 We are so back

• This year’s edition of IEM Dallas trumped last year’s viewership numbers by quite the margin.

• markeloff stood in for FAVBET Team after six years away from the server. And held his own impressively.

🏆 Collector items for the future?

• This could be the last ever APEKS jersey signed by their former team. Before their unfortunate end

• Rare photo of a bearded blameF…or is it?

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, Horizzon and benji.
Welshy coded the email.

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Cloud9  13 5  OG MOUZ  16 12  Heroic BIG  Today  fnatic NAVI  Today  VP Preasy  Today  Spirit C9  Today  BetBoom

• Revenge tour: nafany’s clearly not too happy with Cloud9 given his kick, and he has an excellent chance to get one over them en route to qualification tomorrow. His BetBoom face Cloud9 in a 2-0 game. It could get real spicy.

The Major cycle chaos

We made it to the EU Closed Qualifiers and there’s a lot to go through. You ready?

After TSM’s embarrassing attempts at qualifying for the RMR, they immediately benched JACKZ. Quelle surprise. They didn’t even make it this far, for crying out loud. There’s a team called ex-ThunderFlash who made it further than them.

So did OG.

First off, the big teams who fulfilled expectations: NAVI smacked ECSTATIC and 9Pandas 13-6 a piece, Cloud9 moved past OG and 3DMAX, VP swiftly (well, as swiftly as they’re able to) moved into the 2-0 bracket — with BetBoom.

Yes, it will be nafany vs Cloud9 today for a Major spot. Watch it.

In Group B, Astralis and MOUZ stepped into a 2-0 game, with Eternal Fire (who’ve been impressive lately) and AMKAL, which is the Forester/Krad team, who played vs sYnck and KOI, which probably explains it.

Heroic, Spirit, and Preasy found themselves at 1-1 after yesterday — though Heroic’s loss to MOUZ and Preasy’s to Astralis was more understandable, Spirit started off losing to KOI and just scraped past Entropiq in OT.

BetBoom beat BIG badly (not really, it was 13-9, but allow us to spit some bars please) to put them in the 1-1 bracket, alongside OG who lost to Cloud9, 3DMAX who also lost to Cloud9 and fnatic who lost to… SAW. Not the best start, but at least they beat SINNERS!

Group A sees nothing exciting in the 0-2 bracket (JANO, SINNERS, Nexus and Permitta), but Group B has big names. Aurora have been solid in the last year, FORZE and Entropiq have been at big events and EYEBALLERS have… well, JW in 2024. But we still love him.

It’s going to be a bloodbath. It already is, really.

Today’s most exciting games:

• Cloud9 vs BetBoom (17:00 CET)

• Eternal Fire vs MOUZ (17:00 CET)

• Preasy vs Spirit (16:00 CET)

• NAVI vs VP (17:00 CET)

• BIG vs fnatic (16:00 CET)

No magixx without donk

Source: Spirit 

Tier 1 CS is finally back! Okay yeah, it’s BLAST Groups but beggars can’t be choosers.

Just because it’s BLAST Groups doesn’t mean there aren’t a few banger games. BLAST nailed their placing on the calendar to be the first event featuring the all-new rosters of many teams, and we’re ready for their debuts. Spirit especially is an exciting prospect, sh1ro, and donk on one team? Sign us up.

Wait, what do you mean donk isn’t playing?

It turns out the LAN debut of this Spirit team needs to wait just a little longer. donk and magixx are both missing BLAST Groups due to visa issues, and it doesn’t look like there’ll be a solution. They’ll be subbed by their own coach hally and academy player baz.

But, that doesn’t mean Spirit’s opening game isn’t worth watching.

Their opponent is the all-new Liquid, who, yes have already played online, but who cares? It’s all about LANs, even if it’s just a group, LAN brings out the best, or worst, in teams. NA Major qualifiers don’t compare to playing face-to-face with the best of the best.

Especially with all the new teams at BLAST, every team has something to prove.

Like the new-look Falcons who are taking flight against Astralis on Monday. This is an interesting matchup, both teams have known good 3-man cores with 2 new stars added on top, BOROS and stavn headlining that change. We’re excited to see what both teams, especially Falcons with Snappi, are cooking.

It’s not just the new teams that need to prove themselves though.

G2 with nexa need to show their best if they want to avoid the questions about jks being removed. Even if the real questions are only asked come arena time, being consistent in groups is an important first step.

Speaking of group play, that’s been the bane of Complexity, who have run deep in all the tournaments they made it out of groups, but failed to make it out several times. Good luck at a tournament that’s all group play.

There are plenty of other good matchups, and we haven’t even gotten to all the teams with changes, but this is TLDR after all.

Just sit back and watch whatever game is on, odds are it’ll be good.

See the brackets.

The crystal balls

Illustration by Fuffy, Source: MOUZ

Roll up, roll up! It’s time for our own bold predictions - from the chaotic ‘best player in the world shouts’ to guessing which move will everyone be annoyed by, there’s something for everyone to laugh at.

• A little EG bashing

• Why everything is stavn’s fault

• MOUZ’ Major win (TBA)

HooXi talks his sh*t

Kassad made a bunch of fuss about the qualifiers the past week on behalf of his team BLEED, especially when they missed a slot due to registering too late.

After three other failed attempts to qualify, HooXi was quick to post a copy-pasta of a Kassad’s own burn that was fired in his direction. He sat on that one for a while.

Oh and it got better, thanks edeninho.

HLTV bold predictions that are actually bold

Illustration by ANDYJ. Source: PGL | Joao Ferreira

Top 20 season is fun for plenty of reasons, but we have a particular fondness for the bold predictions.

Sure, it’s a rolling ball game. Players are lazy, and will go to the last article to steal a pick. There’s even a stats-by-age leaderboard on HLTV nowadays, which is even better for your top-tier pro who has far better things to be doing than scouting talent.

But none of the picks were as boring as last year, when headtr1ck had been picked up by NIP and everyone and their nan decided to ignore the ‘bold’ part of the game.

This year, it’s been bolder than the most egregious font choices of your lecturers at college.

Swedish prodigy nilo took five predictions (guess what - he’s top of the 2023 under-20 rating leaderboard if you exclude donk and w0nderful) but even that is spicier than usual.

Following him was somewhat familiar names like BLEED’s lauNX-, B8’s r1nkle, Imperial’s noway, Preasy and ex-Astralis anchor Altekz, and OG newboy Nexius.

But after that, it was full chaos.

blameF picked xKacpersky, a random Polish kid he’s been playing FACEIT PUGs with. s1mple chose froz1k, a 15-year-old from NAVI Youth — but the crazy part is that Twistzz picked him last year.

sh1ro followed the script of new team Spirit by picking academy boy Magnojez. SunPayus picked KukuBambo, whose gamertag is up there with HeavyGod and MachineGun for unlikely ballers - a true winner in our books.

The only other player to earn a nod from two players was Finnish AWPer podi, an ENCE Academy product who posted a 1.18 rating in 2023.

Half, if not more, of these names will be resigned to history as failures, as strange quirks.

But, for the ones that break free from the jinx to become true greats – and the “I told you so” – must be as good a feeling as any trophy.

👀 Smack My Cheat Up

• European Pro League instigated a little riot when they publicly banned The Prodigies player conss for supposedly cheating, without much due process.
  
  Of course, conss denies everything and EPL are sticking to their guns. Doesn’t help that they tried to justify themselves by posting a video explanation made by the guys who lost to conss…

🤨 Unhealthy obsessions

• Playing so many pugs in a row that even FACEIT says “that’s enough” is taking “I don’t quit ‘til I end this losing streak” to a whole new level.

• CS:GO was the third most watched esport of 2023. You know you guys don’t need to watch everything right? That’s what we’re for.

🎨 Art is subjective

• Sometimes you don’t know yet that you’ve made the best sticker ever until you post it to reddit. Yay for chicken_lover03!
  
  They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Emphasis on they. We don’t know who they are and why they said it - but they said it.

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, NER0, Horizzon and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Incipiens copy edited.

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MOUZ  1 2  FaZe Wings  0 2  NIP Lynn  1 Day  MOUZ ENCE  1 Day  NIP

• El Stand-inico: Both ENCE and NIP are in a period of transition - NIP are waiting for alex’s arrival and have maxster standing in, while ENCE have VLDN playing over dycha due to visa issues, but might also be changing IGL in the coming days. The winner of this game teaches us… absolutely nothing at all, actually.

CS Asia Championships, hold the Asia

Of eight teams, there were three Asian teams at CAC.

So far, two of those teams have been eliminated and the one win they’ve got (combined) was against… TYLOO.

Wings Up got absolutely smacked by MOUZ and comfortably cut down by NIP in an elimination game to meet their demise, while TYLOO at least picked up seven rounds against ENCE.

They then lost two close maps to local rivals Lynn Vision in maps they really, really should have won, though, so it’s not great regardless.

Only two teams miss out on playoffs in Asia, and both of them were Asian teams. It’s… not been a great advert for the state of Counter-Strike out there.

In the upper final, we saw a superb performance from blameF to topple ENCE, playing with VLDN, with Staehr joining him at the top of the scoreboard. It was a complete domination on Overpass and Ancient, with a combined four rounds for ENCE on those two.

Snappi picked up 16 rounds in those three maps. Not quite as embarrassing on MR12, but still not good.

FaZe continued their winning streak with a 53 round BO1 against NIP, and a solid BO3 win over MOUZ as ropz went crazy to overturn a 0-1 map start.

That leaves Lynn Vision vs MOUZ for a spot against Astralis in the semi-finals, with ENCE vs NIP for the chance to try and stop FaZe’s reign - both on Saturday morning.

NiKo stays… but at what cost?

Illustration by ANDYJ. Source: G2 CSGO, jks

HLTV have reported that G2 are making changes.

But, it’s one that comes out of complete left field. It’s not HooXi, it’s not NiKo. It’s not even m0NESY.

Instead, it’s the unproblematic jks that, by all metrics, does his anchor role pretty well.

Australia’s last hope joined in August ‘22 so it’s unlikely to be a contractual issue, unless he’s on a very short 1-year ish deal.

So, why on earth have G2 benched him?

The conspiracy theorists will say this is all NiKo’s fault, because everything always is.

NiKo was supposed to go to Falcons, and when he agreed to stay at G2 it was under certain stipulations: Including signing his boy nexa as jks’ replacement.

It’s a stretch, especially given that the report says that G2 ‘were at one point’ targeting nexa, not that they are definitely pursuing him — and that there’s no confirmation that NiKo has renewed his deal, that still has a good few months left on it.

What really happened? We’re at a loss, but it seems like winning Cologne wasn’t enough to keep this inconsistent but stacked roster together.

Finances must be an issue, given that all reports indicated that G2 didn’t really want to keep NiKo on his (deservedly) gargantuan salary as the esports winter sets in.

But was jks really the one that had to go? We’re not sure about that, either.

We love rostermania as the next fan who hasn’t watched a game in three months, but come on. This is just change for change’s sake. The replacement better be far more exciting than bloody nexa.

Back in business

We’ve had some travel problems that left one of our co-hosts stranded in hell (the Netherlands) last week, but we’re back with a bang this week talking about NiKo, mezii, alex and everything else:

• Why NIP fans should actually be excited

• How to replace Magisk

• What are Falcons going to do next?

EG set to blow up their CS team

Illustration by ANDYJ. Source: Jean-Louis Dubois

Look, genuinely, we’re very sad to see Evil Geniuses blow up their Counter-Strike department.

It’s been a phenomenal source of content for us, and it’s going to be so much harder to take the mickey out of teams that aren’t Evil Geniuses. Who are we supposed to mock now? NIP? fnatic?

Actually, that might work.

Evil Geniuses bought the NRG team back in 2019, and things were all rosey. Instant success and lots of love from the American fans fell upon them, and it must have felt like they could do no wrong.

Four years later, we’ve seen their three superstars from back then go different ways. Ethan went to VALORANT, and EG probably wish CeRq and Brehze did too. Both fell off inexplicably, and neither seemed to come close to finding their form ever again.

EG dished out big contracts even as players fell off, and consistently soiled the sheets at big events. They were so bad that they had to request one of the tournament organisers to ask their talent to stop mocking them live on air.

Think about how insane that has to be.

The Blueprint Project was an unmitigated disaster; one can only assume the blueprints EG were working off were of the Titanic, or Chelsea’s rebuild. It was a baffling decision at the time, that we were all told would make more sense in time.

If anything, history has been even more unkind. It makes less sense now than it did then, and it made zero sense in the first place.

It’s a terrible thing for North America for EG to give up on NACS, in many senses, and an organisation with such a name and prestige leaving is never ideal - but we’d be hard pushed to say we’re that arsed.

They’ve mismanaged a team so badly to the point that the org who sold the team are coming back to CS in a better position than the team who signed them.

Game over, Evil Geniuses.

• Ankara mezii! apEX must be delighted as Vitality completed the signing of mezii from fnatic this week. We’re on record as saying we quite like this move, but don’t get too cocky, English people.

• The zoomer power rangers have re-cast a member. 1WIN star deko has replaced lattykk on Aurora, officially ending the RGB hair era. hooch also joins the team filling the coach vacancy. We’re going to miss the coloured hair bandits.

• 14 teams later, it’s joever. NaToSaphiX has retired from competitive play after running the gamut of CS teams. Take him out of your cadiaN replacement sweepstakes.

Bad day at the office

VLDN, that teamkill must’ve been bought beforehand with how scripted it feels.

Source: Twitch

They know ball (but it’s Counter-Strike)

🧐 Weird team shenanigans

• Sergio Agüero and Lionel Messi are investing in a team, but it doesn’t involve any balls. That came out wrong.

• An Australian, a Russian, a Latvian, a Lebanese, and a Jordanese walk into a Chinese org. That’s it, that’s the punchline.

• At first glance, skullz leaving paiN doesn’t seem consequential. But with his rumoured move to Liquid, things suddenly get interesting.

🔭 A different point of view

• ENCE don’t sell and rebuild, they just… build?

• trace tells us why s1mple not switching to CS2 is not like him not switching to CS:GO. Long story short: he was broke, s1mple isn’t.

• SirScoots really wants to take over EG. Like really.

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, NER0, Horizzon and napz.
Crash_ coded the email and aizyesque copy edited.

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Help us improve by clicking a smiley below.

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MOUZ  1 2  FaZe Wings  0 2  NIP Lynn  1 Day  MOUZ ENCE  1 Day  NIP

• El Stand-inico: Both ENCE and NIP are in a period of transition - NIP are waiting for alex’s arrival and have maxster standing in, while ENCE have VLDN playing over dycha due to visa issues, but might also be changing IGL in the coming days. The winner of this game teaches us… absolutely nothing at all, actually.

CS Asia Championships, hold the Asia

Of eight teams, there were three Asian teams at CAC.

So far, two of those teams have been eliminated and the one win they’ve got (combined) was against… TYLOO.

Wings Up got absolutely smacked by MOUZ and comfortably cut down by NIP in an elimination game to meet their demise, while TYLOO at least picked up seven rounds against ENCE.

They then lost two close maps to local rivals Lynn Vision in maps they really, really should have won, though, so it’s not great regardless.

Only two teams miss out on playoffs in Asia, and both of them were Asian teams. It’s… not been a great advert for the state of Counter-Strike out there.

In the upper final, we saw a superb performance from blameF to topple ENCE, playing with VLDN, with Staehr joining him at the top of the scoreboard. It was a complete domination on Overpass and Ancient, with a combined four rounds for ENCE on those two.

Snappi picked up 16 rounds in those three maps. Not quite as embarrassing on MR12, but still not good.

FaZe continued their winning streak with a 53 round BO1 against NIP, and a solid BO3 win over MOUZ as ropz went crazy to overturn a 0-1 map start.

That leaves Lynn Vision vs MOUZ for a spot against Astralis in the semi-finals, with ENCE vs NIP for the chance to try and stop FaZe’s reign - both on Saturday morning.

NiKo stays… but at what cost?

Illustration by ANDYJ. Source: G2 CSGO, jks

HLTV have reported that G2 are making changes.

But, it’s one that comes out of complete left field. It’s not HooXi, it’s not NiKo. It’s not even m0NESY.

Instead, it’s the unproblematic jks that, by all metrics, does his anchor role pretty well.

Australia’s last hope joined in August ‘22 so it’s unlikely to be a contractual issue, unless he’s on a very short 1-year ish deal.

So, why on earth have G2 benched him?

The conspiracy theorists will say this is all NiKo’s fault, because everything always is.

NiKo was supposed to go to Falcons, and when he agreed to stay at G2 it was under certain stipulations: Including signing his boy nexa as jks’ replacement.

It’s a stretch, especially given that the report says that G2 ‘were at one point’ targeting nexa, not that they are definitely pursuing him — and that there’s no confirmation that NiKo has renewed his deal, that still has a good few months left on it.

What really happened? We’re at a loss, but it seems like winning Cologne wasn’t enough to keep this inconsistent but stacked roster together.

Finances must be an issue, given that all reports indicated that G2 didn’t really want to keep NiKo on his (deservedly) gargantuan salary as the esports winter sets in.

But was jks really the one that had to go? We’re not sure about that, either.

We love rostermania as the next fan who hasn’t watched a game in three months, but come on. This is just change for change’s sake. The replacement better be far more exciting than bloody nexa.

Back in business

We’ve had some travel problems that left one of our co-hosts stranded in hell (the Netherlands) last week, but we’re back with a bang this week talking about NiKo, mezii, alex and everything else:

• Why NIP fans should actually be excited

• How to replace Magisk

• What are Falcons going to do next?

EG set to blow up their CS team

Illustration by ANDYJ. Source: Jean-Louis Dubois

Look, genuinely, we’re very sad to see Evil Geniuses blow up their Counter-Strike department.

It’s been a phenomenal source of content for us, and it’s going to be so much harder to take the mickey out of teams that aren’t Evil Geniuses. Who are we supposed to mock now? NIP? fnatic?

Actually, that might work.

Evil Geniuses bought the NRG team back in 2019, and things were all rosey. Instant success and lots of love from the American fans fell upon them, and it must have felt like they could do no wrong.

Four years later, we’ve seen their three superstars from back then go different ways. Ethan went to VALORANT, and EG probably wish CeRq and Brehze did too. Both fell off inexplicably, and neither seemed to come close to finding their form ever again.

EG dished out big contracts even as players fell off, and consistently soiled the sheets at big events. They were so bad that they had to request one of the tournament organisers to ask their talent to stop mocking them live on air.

Think about how insane that has to be.

The Blueprint Project was an unmitigated disaster; one can only assume the blueprints EG were working off were of the Titanic, or Chelsea’s rebuild. It was a baffling decision at the time, that we were all told would make more sense in time.

If anything, history has been even more unkind. It makes less sense now than it did then, and it made zero sense in the first place.

It’s a terrible thing for North America for EG to give up on NACS, in many senses, and an organisation with such a name and prestige leaving is never ideal - but we’d be hard pushed to say we’re that arsed.

They’ve mismanaged a team so badly to the point that the org who sold the team are coming back to CS in a better position than the team who signed them.

Game over, Evil Geniuses.

• Ankara mezii! apEX must be delighted as Vitality completed the signing of mezii from fnatic this week. We’re on record as saying we quite like this move, but don’t get too cocky, English people.

• The zoomer power rangers have re-cast a member. 1WIN star deko has replaced lattykk on Aurora, officially ending the RGB hair era. hooch also joins the team filling the coach vacancy. We’re going to miss the coloured hair bandits.

• 14 teams later, it’s joever. NaToSaphiX has retired from competitive play after running the gamut of CS teams. Take him out of your cadiaN replacement sweepstakes.

Bad day at the office

VLDN, that teamkill must’ve been bought beforehand with how scripted it feels.

Source: Twitch

They know ball (but it’s Counter-Strike)

🧐 Weird team shenanigans

• Sergio Agüero and Lionel Messi are investing in a team, but it doesn’t involve any balls. That came out wrong.

• An Australian, a Russian, a Latvian, a Lebanese, and a Jordanese walk into a Chinese org. That’s it, that’s the punchline.

• At first glance, skullz leaving paiN doesn’t seem consequential. But with his rumoured move to Liquid, things suddenly get interesting.

🔭 A different point of view

• ENCE don’t sell and rebuild, they just… build?

• trace tells us why s1mple not switching to CS2 is not like him not switching to CS:GO. Long story short: he was broke, s1mple isn’t.

• SirScoots really wants to take over EG. Like really.

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, NER0, Horizzon and napz.
Crash_ coded the email and aizyesque copy edited.

How did you like this edition?
Help us improve by clicking a smiley below.

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