• nitr0 has officially returned from his premature retirement, where he did absolutely nothing else for a few months.
• Farlig has been made a free agent - average Twitter user ‘don’t tag Astralis in the comments of the article’ challenge. Difficulty: Impossible.
• daps has created his new orgless roster. We’re sure it’s going to stay like that for ages. Bwills has replaced RUSH who was in the original rumour, with Infinite, Minus and Swisher.
• Jonji has returned from a similar break, albeit only as a stand-in for now.
• Newsletter favourite malbsMd has been announced on 00Nation to link up with coldzera.

The first tournament of the year has seen its online stage come to an end, and boy was it good. And good news: there’s going to be more!

MOUZ NXT were up to their usual hijinks, dropping names left and right - despite having lost their star AWPer to the main roster - and finishing top of their group. They did so well in fact that they got as many points as the bottom three teams of their group (FURIA Academy, VP Prodigy, and Eternal Fire Academy) all combined.

They weren’t the only German org to do well however. BIG Academy topped Group A beating NAVI Junior - or rather a shadow of what NAVI Junior used to be. This means both BIG Academy and MOUZ NXT qualified for the LAN stage straight away.

The rest of the teams were condemned to the play-in, with their group placements deciding how far along the road they were placed.

Astralis Talent, who finished last of their group, walked the entire road to greatness however, taking down Fnatic Rising, NAVI Junior, and Young Ninjas in the process of qualifying.

VP Prodigy looked like they were going to do the same, coming all the way from the Quarter Finals to the Finals. Spirit Academy was too much for them to handle however, giving Spirit Academy the final qualification spot.

We like to think our writing isn’t confusing, but we you can never be sure. So, just because we love you so much, here’s a TL;DR of the TL;DR.

Qualified for the LAN stage (11/02 - 13/02)

• MOUZ NXT
• BIG Academy
• Spirit Academy
• Astralis Talent

And just because we know your thirst for these hotshots hasn’t been quenched just yet, here’s our selection of the “Ones To Watch” not only in the upcoming LAN Finals, but just in general.

TL;DR’s One’s To Watch:

• mhL: come on man, there’s no way you didn’t see this guy coming. He joined the team just short of two weeks ago, and he’s already achieving insane ratings.
• KaiR0N: 17 years of age, and Spirit Academy’s star rifler is already the highest rated player of the tournament, with a rating of 1.38. A performance of monstrous proportions.
• headtr1ck: in spite of his major efforts - he’s one of three players with a 1.3+ rating - his team NAVI Junior failed to qualify. Some have already dubbed him the next m0nesy, who they dubbed the next s1mple. Just saying...

The words “Funspark ULTI 2021 Finals” don’t usually spark such joy for most of us, but we’re legitimately excited. Counter-Strike is back, for real.

There’s not too many new and exciting rosters - there’s no G2, no FaZe and no uh, Last Dance - but we do get another look at k0nfig on Astralis and our first glimpse of Complexity’s new team. Though it’s under the Extra Salt tag, obviously.

Tuesday kicks off with a slow burner, as Entropiq and Ecstatic meet in the early game, but at least we get some Astralis at 3pm CET. They’re facing one of those typical CIS banana skins - K23, with xsepower and the Steam Authenticator Code, X5G7V.

Wednesday morning brings us a war as old as time - or perhaps, the early 20th century - England vs Germany. fnatic bring smooya to face his old organisation, as we get to see BIG with faveN try and look a bit better than they did with gade.

Shouldn’t be too hard.

fnatic are going to be pretty busy, too, because they’re the headline act of the Malta Vibes Knockout Series 5. And we say headline act as if they’re a band at a festival, because that’s what we assumed ‘Malta Vibes’ was.

They’re joining teams like Copenhagen Flames, forZe, DBL Poney and SINNERS in what is a tournament packed with loads and loads of teams. Seriously, there’s multiple UK teams, a Mongolian team, two academy teams, and even SIXER.

Remember when he was on a good team? Simpler times.

• Is the answer to the age old question “what to expect from ropz in FaZe”. Don’t believe us? Fine, maybe Hawka can convince you.
• Takeaway from this entire “suing Valve” thing: install Steam, that way you’ll be taking Ws in-game and in courts.
• Do you still suck at CSGO, even after we gave you guide after guide? Well, luckily for you STYKO made a part two to his actually useful binds series.
• Ever wanted to ask Moses questions like “how’d you split the sea” and “do you feel bad for the Egyptians”? Well, now you can.
• One might even say that EU Tier two CS is above NA Tier one CS. That “one” is us, we’re saying it.
• We’ve been told cats aren’t allowed at bootcamp, torzsi.