We’re not going to pretend we know how BLAST’s format really works.

What we do know, is that fnatic are struggling with it too.

Not because they don’t know how to qualify, they’re just incapable of actually beating the teams to actually do it in the first place. On Saturday, Sangal gave them a bit of a lesson en route to qualifying for BLAST Showdown.

Whatever that means. Alright, we’ll stop trolling.

BLAST Showdown is essentially a qualifier to the main BLAST Pro Series, where the teams who fell out of contention in groups during the last BLAST Pro Series and some new teams attempt the gauntlet.

But fnatic won’t be there. Unless they qualify again, or get invited.

Life for fnatic since the induction of their new roster had been going remarkably well, and this is certainly a kick in the unmentionables following that.

For Sangal, however, it is an impressive scalp to take.

Their new roster has been gathering attention as they started anew with fresh, young talent, and really trying to build something. This is a marquee win, a statement that they are dangerous.

soulfly in particular, who popped the hell off against fnatic, had a massive rise in stock price.

Believers will be rewarded.

After posting less than a 1.00 rating for 13 maps in a row upon joining G2, the narrative around HooXi threatened to turn toxic.

But then, something strange happened: G2 started winning. m0NESY began to look like s1mple’s second coming. NiKo was only just behind him. jks was… better than JACKZ.

In 10 maps of ESL Pro League, G2 won all 10. They even 2-0’d FaZe.

HooXi was reborn from the ashes as the Gigachad himself, with copypastas and memes as his throne and sigil.

For the blind, He is the vision. For the hungry, He is the chef. For the thirsty, He is the water. We all know the script by now.

It’s a marketing miracle for G2. Not only does HooXi seem like a good IGL, he’s taking the jokes well. So well, in fact, that he even did an AMA on G2’s Reddit.

He revealed his diet tips (Red Bull and Pringles), how he “made NiKo shut up” (the answer will shock you!) and what his mum thinks about all the gigachad memes.

Amidst the memes, the mighty HooXi even gave us some meaningful insight. Adapting to an international team is “equally hard” inside and out of the game, a challenge made worse by the loss of roej and Vorborg as his right-hand men.

But, so far at least, it’s working. We were pretty harsh on G2’s pick up of HooXi but so far he’s proving everyone wrong.

He’s a real throwback, from the pronax and Ex6TenZ era of when an IGL in the red correlated with trophies. And you can see how he’s won over NiKo and huNter- — he just seems like a stand-up good bloke.

So who’s arsed if he gets 15 kills a game? He’s a perfect fit for G2’s loose playstyle and — just as importantly — their social media. G2 are jetting off to cloud nine on a feel-good honeymoon for the ages.

What happens after the honeymoon? Don’t worry about that, sweet summer child. Winter isn’t here yet. Just sit back and enjoy the show.

After Vitality and G2 topped Groups A and B in ESL Pro League Season 16 it was only fitting that MOUZ, another international squad, came out in first place of Group C. With frozen in ice-cold form, and xertioN impressing on debut, dexter’s boys went some way to proving their IEM Cologne run was no fluke.

Elsewhere, Heroic qualified for playoffs on Saturday, meaning their game against Astralis on Sunday was a dead rubber for Denmark’s second favourite team.

Not that anyone told cadiaN, of course. Despite Heroic’s qualification for playoffs they didn’t let anything slip. Unlike Astralis, who let cadiaN sneak past k0nfig into Secret on Nuke with just a p250 and no armour to kill blameF and give Heroic a 15:13 lead on map three. What is it with this guy and p250s in Pro League?

Finishing it off with an A Rush, Heroic got themselves a confidence-boosting win — and shattered Astralis’ mentality while doing so. gla1ve’s men were a shambles for parts of the series, losing to force buy after force buy.

And they can’t even blame Farlig, who performed far better here than before the summer break. If device is somehow pried away from NIP, Astralis will still have many a problem to fix.

ENCE, too, struggled for form. Which maybe shouldn’t be a surprise: Snappi’s men have struggled since Dallas in truth, and losing star rifler Spinx hardly helps.

Still, they should have won more than two maps in this group. They even lost 2:0 to Complexity, for god’s sake.

Sure, a misfiring Astralis can lose to NA. We expect that.

But ENCE? This is like when the goody-two-shoes at school gets caught cheating on their homework. We thought you were better than this, lads.

Complexity, for their part, have been impressive. Their wins over Astralis and ENCE were nearly as good as our Fall Out Boy references on Friday, with Grim finally looking like his pre-Liquid self. They even looked okay in losses against serious(ish) teams like MOUZ and Heroic, something that could not be said before hallzerk joined.

Will they do anything in playoffs? Probably not, but at least we won’t have to see blameF drop 25 kills in a 16:10 loss again. So thank you, NA.

Don’t get cocky, though: EG are in Group D, so we will return to our regular programming shortly. It’ll take centuries before NA goes two Pro League groups without embarassing themselves.

• MOUZ 4-1
• Heroic 4-1
• coL 3-2
• Astralis 2-3
• ENCE 1-4
• HEET 1-4

We’re not going to lie, we’ve had our fair share of crazy parties with one too many shots, and before you know it you’re ding-dong ditching that rowdy neighbour of yours at 3AM. We’re sorry Mr. Smith.

But we never associated ourselves with known misogynists and doubled down on it as well.

This weekend Carlos Ocelote, CEO of G2, got into major trouble - and not just with his parents for getting home late. He posted a video of himself having some fun times with the Tate brothers who have been breaking the internet recently. They are some controversial figures, to say the least.

After being called out for his poor choice of party-crew, Carlos doubled down and said he’ll “party with whoever the f- he wants” which we guess is true.

But for pretty much everyone in the esports scene Carlos = G2 which means G2 = Carlos. And that creates a pretty bad look for the org when their CEO is seen associating with such divisive people as the Tates.

So G2 kind of went “hey Carlos, maybe don’t do that”, and now he’s temporarily out of his job (with no pay) for the next eight weeks.

Carlos followed up with an apology post which would probably win the Pulitzer in the category for ‘Best PR-sent-me-an-excuse-letter-to-post-after-I-f*cked-up writing’, if that category existed.

All in all, it’s incredibly saddening to see single poor decision ruin someone who seemed like a cool guy. We hope Carlos takes home a big fat lesson and comes back better in two months.

Just focus on Gamers Two (TM), Mr Ocelote.

⏰⏪ Great Scott!

• There’s nothing like watching people do it way better than you ever could to get you in the mood for playing CS. Thank you Vital for giving us the 2020 rewind!
• A face from the past makes his return, as maLeK is back in business with EG - joining them as Strategic Coach (whatever that means).
• Looks like s1mple really backtracked on his 2020 bold prediction after the Kinguin tournament…

👑 The true Kings

• Brazil is making esports history by becoming the first country to become “world champion” in all three major 5v5 shooters. Respeita.
• Jack is really rubbing it in with Carlos, isn’t he?
• Hallzerk really knows how to “support” his teammates, if you catch our drift.

🤪 Insane player moments

• k0nfig is making aimbots look bad with how he’s winning these duels.
• HooXi’s winning the battles both in and out of the server. Although mostly out of the server.
• The teams were all lining up for El1an, but El1an just went “nah” and stuck around.