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If you power through today’s edition, there’s a lovely baby picture in there as a reward in one of the stories; it’ll make you feel a little bit better about Evil Geniuses.
The narrators of our memories
Illustration by NovaH
Drama drama, what a palaver.
Few things are as needlessly dramatic, divisive, and frankly, fun to argue about as talent announcements, especially for the Major.
It’s a big bloody deal. Well, it’s not really, but it’s fun to pretend it is. These are the voices of the game, and the voices we’ll all be hearing in those YouTube recaps for the next ten years or so.
So without any more of our witter, here it is:
While the last PGL Major had a very nostalgic feel - it was the first one back after so long, so it felt right to have the old guard in - this one is a very modern line-up.
Harry/Hugo and Scrawny/Launders are in, but interestingly, so are Vince/Bleh. This might be a shock to some, but they’ve proven themselves to be an excellent duo over the last few years.
You might not have paid that much attention to them, but you can trust us. Vince also decided against working for ESL after the takeover, so this is a huge gig for him.
The big names missing are Anders/Semmler, who both tweeted somewhat cryptically about their exclusion. We’re not going to make any unfounded speculations, so you can draw your own conclusions.
The other headline news would be the much-awaited return of both Sjokz and Frankie to CSGO - Sjokz did host during the RMRs but had to turn down the chance to do MSI (a LoL tournament) to be here.
You made the right choice, Eefje.
Frankie, meanwhile, is back from her maternity leave and the birth of her wonderful daughter. Any excuse to post a cute baby, we’ll take it. We’re very excited on her behalf. Partly for the Major, but largely for the child.
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Stewie19k
Evil Geniuses are sinking without a trace.
We’ve ragged on them before, but it’s just getting a bit sad now. We thought they’d at least be solid domestically, but that’s not even the case.
They were dumped out of BLAST Showdown in the first round, which wouldn’t be quite so embarrassing if it was an EU/NA mixed tournament, but they were only on the NA side. Well, obviously.
GODSENT cruised past them, and it was the teenager dumau who taught the old dogs some new tricks with 50 kills, while the experienced Stewie2k picked up 19 kills in the series.
Perhaps there’s a lesson there.
CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson hinted that there may be some changes inbound, but whether she means in the server or out of it we’re not sure. Something HAS to change, though.
Despite the doomsayers, there is talent in NA, you just might have to look a little bit further. Good job there’s barely any orgs left, and so all the players are available to approach, eh?
The second game of the NA side was far less eventful; FURIA clapped ATK in two. Fadey and MisteM went a combined 2-15 in opening duels on map one, in case you were wondering what it’s like to play against FURIA as an NA team.
Author(s):
The Eagles are soaring
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:
- The Eagles and their landing
- Why FaZe might have to play Vertigo in the Major final
- Why Vince and Bleh deserve to cast the Major
Copenhagen Flames burn out of BLAST
Source: BLAST
Well, it’s been an interesting week so far in the BLAST world.
Four series into the European branch of the Spring Showdown, CPH Flames have ended their series winning streak at six, including their three straight wins at the RMR last week, and NIP claimed a somewhat surprising victory over the Bad News Eagles amid questions circulating about Dev1ce.
ENCE claimed a pretty narrow 2-1 victory over the Flames on Wednesday, on the back of a brilliant showing by Spinx. The Israeli ended the series with a 71-43 KD and 1.45 rating. Spinx wasn’t the only one who played well, with four players ending with over a 1.0 rating.
Their next game will be against Heroic, who clinched a spot in the semifinal with an easy win over NKT, a roster that many fans probably didn’t remember had clinched a spot in this tournament a few months back.
That’ll be an interesting matchup, given both ENCE and Heroic have looked pretty decent, if not amazing, at points of 2022.
On the other side of the bracket, Bad News Eagles suffered a loss to NIP despite strong performances in all three maps. a 16-7 first map wasn’t enough momentum for the mostly Kosovo-based roster, who went into the half on map two with an 11-4 lead and then gave up a 12-1 second half.
REZ, Brollan, and Plopski all put up strong performances with a 1.5 rating map from each and a total rating over 1.15 by all three. sinnopsyy, who put up a crazy 2.0 in the first map, was unable to help the Eagles win on Ancient or Inferno.
In the last quarterfinal, Astralis took on the Movistar Riders and made a pretty good meal of them. Neither map was a blowout but any series where k0nfig ends with a 1.53 rating and blameF ends with a 1.46 is unlikely to be lost
Talk shit, get banned
👀 Crazy, but true
- This is what we envisioned “Return to LAN” to be all about. One of them got banned, but we can’t tell who or what was said. Call of Duty drives you nuts, like really nuts.
- Did you know that FaZe has held the #1 position in the world for 20 weeks since the team’s inception? Us neither.
👶 Talented or talentless?
- Getting the chance on the main team, is apparently the easiest way to get cut from Young Ninjas? NiP are changing their academy team, out with phzy and LNZ, in with three players we’ve never heard of.
- Speaking of NiP, they’ve just celebrated passed their anniversary of signing dev1ce in silence. We’re not the only ones wondering what’s happening with the Dane.
- Maybe NiP could have gone the way of Astralis Talent, and just chugged dev1ce in Young Ninjas? The Danes had a player out sick, so they borrowed niko from OG to player for their... talent team? Seems balanced.
🧠 Get Smart Or Die Trying
- There are stats, and then there are STATS. Honorary TLDR-editor, Harry Richards, dive into why our current statistical models are plain wrong, and what we can do to fix them. We promise it’s more interesting than it sounds.
- f0rest is the Zlatan Ibrahimovic of CS:GO. There, we said it. He’s pushing 34 but still the statistical best Swedish player, oh and he’s answering a bunch of questions in this AMA.
