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November 22, 2021

Fnatic keeps on winning, G2 are reading our newsletter apparently, and Blast is starting on Wednesday!

Famous last words

What's the first thing you do, when you become the coach of a team?

Build solid fundamentals? Evaluate the team composition? Retweet Coach Quotes on Twitter?

None of the above if you ask BIG's new coach enkayJ, who used his first interview with HLTV, to spin the narrative that syrsoN is a better AWPer than sh1ro.

Did he really just say that?

Now we're on board with syrsoN as a great role-player and the man's probably the best scout-player in the world.

But... sh1ro is top 3 player of the year in 2021 with 1.24 rating against top 20 teams, while syrsoN is at 1.06. It's not even a close call here.

Anyway it's all a moot point, because sh1ro nailed syrsoN and BIG to the wall in the V4 Future Festival semi-final with one of his best performances this year.

  • 53-21 K:D ratio
  • 103.5 ADR
  • 92% KAST (!!!)
  • 1.85 ratingTh

Ah, and sh1ro went 10-3 in the heads-up duel on AWP vs AWP against syrsoN. Case closed.

The Best of 5 Grand Final against Entropiq, was a different matter altogether. With $171,000 up for grabs for the winner, and Russian hotshot El1an on the opposing side, Gambit struggled for control during most of the match.

So much indeed, that Entropiq threatened to turn a 0-2 into a reverse sweep after winning Overpass and Mirage.

But then nafany and Hobbit stepped up on Dust2 and and went +31 combined in 20 rounds. And that was it. A double 2.05 rating for the duo and Entropiq had to accept 2nd place and $68,000 in prize money,

Meanwhile nafany and co. can enjoy a well-deserved victory and keep chasing the 2nd place of 2021. With two tournaments left in the year, they're closer than ever to the elusive #1 spot.

Author: 
PHedemark

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Men's Moustache Masters

What's better than Counter-Strike?

Counter-Strike for a good cause, obviously, and that's exactly what the Americans over at M(o)ustache Masters have been putting on for the last few years.

We were so intrigued that we sent aizyesque over the pond to spend some time on camera, with... mixed results. But he's on the front lines over there, and seems to be having a good time.

"I'll tell you something", he told us, "It's so nice to have the atmosphere of the guys and gals and everyone else just chilling, hanging out, watching Counter-Strike and burning the inside of their mouths with hot sauce."

"It's not a LAN in the sense of all the teams playing are there, but the talent is all on site and there's some real comraderie and good vibes - and it's all for charity."

Excellent stuff. Though by the time you're reading this it's likely a bit too late to get involved, they ended up raising $20,000 (Red. at time of writing) for the Movember foundation, going towards helping men deal with testicular cancer, prostate cancer and mental health issues.

It was full of wild Zeus kills, far too many knives and some of the highest quality Negev play we've ever seen. If that's not representative of NA Counter-Strike, we don't know what is.

Author: 
aizyesque

ropz as a free agent?

Tune in to this week's episode of Overtime on Inferno where your favorite hosts aizyesque and Logan Ramhap go deep on the biggest news in CS:GO:

  • ropz as a free agent
  • How m0NESY would fit into G2
  • Why shox to NA is a bummer
Author: 

Dead teams and sick lineups

Recovered from the Major yet? Nope? Neither have we.

But there’s no time for recovery; Blast Premier Fall Finals kicks off on Wednesday, before the Royal Arena opens for 12,000 fans on Friday.

Although there is a catch - Vitality and Liquid are not just bad, they are … there's no other word for it: Dead.

Throw in how good NaVi are looking, and there is the threat that some of the games will be anti-climatic. But this is still Counter-Strike. On LAN. WITH A CROWD. How can you not be hyped?

Key to maintaining that hype might be Heroic, with cadiaN declaring that they “are the only team who can beat” NaVi. And we could get a preview of that as early as Thursday since they’re on the same side of the bracket.

All we need is for NaVi to beat BIG (lol) and Heroic to beat FaZe. By the way, did we mention that ropz's contract is running out?

It might be harsh to karrigan’s boys - the ropz rumours are still just rumours ­– but Heroic have to be heavy favourites after their strong showing at the Major.

It’s definitely not harsh, however, to call the next match-up, Vitality-Liquid, the graveyard derby. EliGE has all-but-confirmed Liquid’s death, saying that they “are making changes” and haven’t even practiced since Stockholm.

And you speedreaders already know about Vitality’s impending Danish conquest. So what will we get when you mix 10 very talented CS:GO pros and 0 f*cks given? Well, maybe - no promises - a sleeper banger.

Okay, there probably won’t be good “fundamentals”. But they're boring anyway. Fundamentals are how you end up with an Astralis era. Instead of that, we'll get Stewie jumping through smokes, FalleN missing quickscopes, and ZywOo being ZywOo. Much better.

Good news though. The Astralis era is gone, but the new kings are here! We get blameF AND k0nfig on debut - a double defib straight into the sleeping giant of Danish CS. We can't wait for the Danish Corner hype.

Plus their matchup is a double debut, against NIP with es3tag. But dev1ce has been playing this rivalry down, calling Astralis “just another team”. And that’s after beating them 16-1 at the Major. Ouch.

BLAST is obviously gonna slap. That's a promise.

Day 1 matchups:

  • NaVi vs BIG
  • Heroic vs FaZe
  • Liquid vs Vitality
  • NiP vs Astralis
Author: 
NER0

The nexa move for m0nesy

  • nexa is just making sure his new teammate will fit in. What a nice guy.
  • What's better than #1 player in the HLTV Top 20? Definitely Esports PC Player of the Year...
  • Although with these stats it's almost impossible for s1mple not to get both.
  • You'll have to trust our translation skills - and by that we mean Google Translate - but it seems like all of us were dreaming, and coldzera is wide awake.
  • The future is indeed interesting. Although Liquid XTQZZ might be too similar to liquid ecstasy... Don't google that if you want to stay off of FBI lists.
  • So basically what you're saying dev1ce is that you went to Sweden only to look outside of Sweden for talent? Sound plan.
  • Fnatic are being such farmers right now we're surprised they haven't started going to pracc on tractors.
Author: 
napz
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