Remember when we said that NiKo got through IGLs quicker than we got through tubes of Pringles?

Well, it’s confirmed now: Aleksib is out of G2. Not that they, you know, announced it or anything.

Meanwhile, JACKZ gets a 150 second long heartfelt fragmovie/vibecheck. Nobody’s gonna believe Ocelote when he tells his kids he “doesn’t play favourites” now.

Replacing JACKZ is jks, a move which half of CS:GO Twitter has spent arguing about already. “JKS is a lurker, JACKZ is an entry11”, they cry, forgetting that JACKZ has spent every round since NiKo joined holding angles in T-spawn. Nope, no discussion on this one: jks is a far better anchor than JACKZ — on T and CT.

Aleksib’s replacement, however, is a bit more interesting. After getting pied by tabseN (and presumably Snappi as well) G2 have picked up HooXi.

Yeah, the bloke from Copenhagen Flames that passes the 20-kill mark about as often as G2 win finals.

But, listen. It’s a team game. And XTQZZZ has already been on the PR offensive to HLTV, saying that G2 need a looser system than Aleksib provided.

HooXi, apparently, can provide this, as well as moving into the entry pack with huNter to ‘free’ NiKo to lurk just like the good old days (when G2 came 2nd, rather than 8th).

Speaking of NiKo, how will XTQZZZ get Counter-Strikes’ favourite scoreboard-checker and IGL smasher to respect a guy who has a 0.80 rating most events?

Nothing to fear, says XTQZZZ: “I've never seen NiKo looking to call the shots, nor have I seen him contradict the vision of his IGL…I have seen much worse [players for team chemistry than NiKo]”. Well, that’s settled then. All aboard team HooXi.

And we’re on board too. As long as we get to see NiKo’s webcam every time he has to spectate HooXi in a clutch.

Meanwhile, Vitality are also binning off their supportive players. misuutaa is off to Falcons, to be replaced by Spinx.

About three minutes later, apEX took to Twitter to boldly declare  that “now we have Spinx, we have perfect roles”.

Which, to be fair, seems true. apEX and dupreeh back entrying, magisk and Spinx on the wings. But that begs a question: What on earth was the point of all that misuutaa nonsense?

You could tell from the very first game he was less-suited to his roles than we’re suited to repeating our slander to players’ faces. Just wasn’t gonna happen, was it?

Oh, that reminds us. You know what else isn’t gonna happen? dev1ce returning to NIP, at least according to hampus, something practically confirmed by old devve not even being a sub on NIP’s EPL roster.

When the news was telling us that the Northern Lights were set to be visible this week, we were expecting Aurora Borealis, not Aurora beat Astralis.

Is that a reach? Maybe.

But Astralis bombed out of the RMR Qualifier to a team called Aurora, and we don’t get to talk about Astralis lo- alright, never mind, that is just a lie.

Loads of great teams have tried and failed to stop blameF baiting his en- erm, from going positive, but Aurora seem to have cracked the code. farlig’s woes are continuing, and Astralis’ decision to not make a roster move is looking a little strange.

They weren’t the only team embarrassed, though.

Both fnatic and Entropiq failed to make the top five with losses to Falcons and Sprout respectively; but both of those teams are looking a hell of a lot stronger since the changes.

Sprout especially; who went on to win the whole thing under the new tutelage of refrezh, while misutaaa looked a threat in his new position at Falcons.

OG avoided some embarrassment by sneaking into 5th and taking the last spot at the European RMR, while Eternal Fire, AGO, Copenhagen Flames and Endpoint all will have to join Astralis and co. in the next few qualifiers.

MOUZ, and Astralis-slayers Aurora, took up the other two spots, and avoid our ire, more importantly.

Astralis couldn’t, could they?

Tier 1 CS:GO is back! Finally! It’s been about a million years, but it’s back!

Okay, so it’s only actually been a month since IEM Cologne, but in 2022 time that’s either a decade or about 10 minutes.

This week will see the beginning of the Blast Premier Fall Groups, where we’ll finally get to see the results of the player break and subsequent roster decisions (or Astralis’ lack thereof).

FaZe might have a pretty easy shot  through group C. They’re opening with a series against almost 1/4 of EG’s players, including the newly promoted HexT and neaLaN.

A win against FaZe might at least get them out of 217th place in the HLTV rankings.

In Group A, Vitality might have a chance to try and show that they’ve learned something over this break. Their group has Astralis, who just failed to make the RMR, OG, with a still relatively new lineup, and NIP as…NIP.

All in all, anything other than a won group is probably a loss for ZywOo and co, especially as they formally signed Spinx this week.

Group B, at the time of writing this, is the most open simply because of the s1mple situation. Neither he nor Navi have, at the time of this writing, clarified if he will or will not be playing and while headtr1ck has shown that he’s not bad, he’s not s1mple.

On the other hand with or without their superstar, I’d expect a NaVi win in group B. hallzerk might be a good addition to Complexity, but 3 weeks isn’t going to be enough time for him to turn that team around.

Keeping YEKINDAR for now gives Liquid a shot, too, though it sometimes feels more like they’re auditioning for him than he is for them. G2’s newest duo of jks and HooXi have had even less time to get their feet under them.

👴🏼 Old School

• Growing up means your heroes grow up as well. For the first time in CS:GO, f0rest is now a Free Agent. Apparently f0rest is 34, and we suddenly felt very old.
• What is the “DOOR STUCK!” clip of CS:GO? We’ll nominate this gem.
• Tuscan is… actually back. Or de_cpl_mill as Pepperidge Farm (still) calls it.

🪙 Coinflips

• Don’t get it twisted. Help smileybeef end the discussion of all discussions: Rush A or Rush B.
• ORDER is almost bankrupt, despite getting a $3.6M in 2021. Still a better business case than Trainwreck’s gambling streams or FaZe Clan in Q2 though.

🔢 Large numbers

• ESEA are a professional tournament operator, and have set up thousands of tournaments before. They reads notes had 45 servers for the Brazilian RMR qualifier with 450 teams in? And the explanation isn’t even good.
• It’s not CS:GO, but Astralis are potentially looking to sell their LEC spot. The only question we have is: “dev1ce and valde when?”
• If they come back, maybe they can become part of Astralis’ virtual cardio program, courtesy of the new RMR-season. Actual qualifier for the Major btw.