A Kosovan Eagle soars over Brazil, A German mouse is riding on its back. Both avoided the Brazilian Black Panthers below them.

What we’re trying to say is BNE, MOUZ, and FURIA, along with Outsiders and BIG have made it out of the Challenger stage. And there are a lot of animal-themed team names.

The first to be legends crowned were Bad News Eagles and MOUZ. Both going 3-0 with style. On their respective run, MOUZ beat Outsiders and EG 16-6 and 16-10 to go into the BO3s.

There they had to win a European derby against Fnatic to qualify as legends as an answer after the first time asking. MOUZ went to Fnatic’s pick of Vertigo and stomped. xertioN put on a CT Vertigo masterclass that would make even the most hardened Vertiglobals blush.

But Fnatic weren’t gonna take it à la twisted sisters and smacked MOUZ back in the face, beating them back on Inferno 9-16. So it all came down to Ancient, both teams ready to put on a high-octane game of CS. But instead, MOUZ just walked over Fnatic again and took a relatively easy 16-9 victory, to secure Legends.

The Eagles had a hard task ahead of them, playing one of the home teams, 00NATION, in their opener. And yet the Kosovan outfit showed why they’re named after predators. Ravaging TACO and co without showing mercy in their 16:3 win. Against BIG though it all seemed lost, down 11:4 at half-time. ****

By god is that zonic’s law with a metal chair!!?

Yes, and it hit BIG on the head. BNE won 12 straight rounds on their CT side to take the map off of the dazed Germans and land in the 2-0 pool.

Their final bout was a BO3 against GamerLegion for the Legend status. A game that we dub the “Pick’Em Destroyer”. In the end, it was BNE who clinched the game, beating GL on Ancient and Mirage to be certain of a Legends spot.

BIG, FURIA, and Outsiders all made it through, going 3-1. BIG and Outsiders both lost against 3-0 finishers as mentioned above, whilst Furia lost to BIG in a ridiculously tight 16:19 win for the Germans. In terms of BO3s though, FURIA found themselves against upset machines GamerLegion. The machine error 404’d, however. Spurred on by the home crowd FURIA sealed the deal.

In the other deciders: Outsiders played Fnatic in two complete opposite maps. On the first map, Fnatic were embarrassed by Outsiders, only managing a single round in the 16-1 defeat, and yet on map two, it went all 30 rounds, ending in a 16-14 victory for the CIS team.

And BIG? Well, they once again took advantage of a lucky draw to beat the South American mix-team from 9z, to clinch yet another Legends ticket for themselves.

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:

• Our predictions for Cloud9, that aged extremely well
• Why the Brazilian crowd made it HARDER for 00NATION
• Who the best team in the world is

You might have noticed that Vitality and Cloud9 weren’t in any of these sections. If you didn’t, you probably weren’t reading closely enough. We’re a little bit offended, actually.

Luckily for them, their bumpy ride did end at their intended destinations.

While Cloud9 started out 0-2 - losing to Grayhound, of course - they were able to grind back and find their feet to ensure they just about squeaked into the Legends’ stage. They had sh1ro to thank for that. When everyone else went missing, the baby-faced sniper put up some monster performances to drag them back into games and stone wall offences. He averaged a 1.45 rating at the Challengers’ Stage.

HObbit did fine too, but his usual partner Ax1le dropped a 1.08. Fair to say sh1ro picked up the slack. And then hit everyone with it until they died.

A similar tale befell Team Vitality, whose patchy form was bailed out at times by ZywOo; but it was Magisk who stood tall in overtime on Vertigo to deny OG. ZywOo, eventually, came online and sparked ‘em out on map three.

fnatic, similarly, survived a scare as they pushed past 9z, much to the dismay of the Brazilian crowd. They’d become so desperate they started supporting the Argentinian/Uruguayan/Chilean mix just because they had one Brazilian player and coach.

That’s like a French person supporting the Cloud9 Colossus because ALEX is kind of French. It does mean that, somehow, there’s an English player in the top 16 of a Major. It’s coming home twice this winter, lads.

None of the players outside of nicoodoz (at +3) went positive, but they won’t care a jot about that. For a team that’s all about firepower, it might be a worrying sign, though.

You have one day to prepare.

The Legends’ Stage begins tomorrow, and it’s going to be crazy. Every team there is great (except BIG), there are loads of games every day, emotions, and hopefully some decent Counter-Strike.

We might even get a good T-side at this stage. Maybe that’s too much to ask.

It kicks off with a choice between Liquid v MOUZ and Spirit vs BNE, with both sounding like absolute bangers. Two potential Major winners, and Liquid v MOUZ.

What a great day to have multiple monitors.

FaZe vs Cloud9 will be up after that, another ridiculously hype clash for a first-round match-up. But that’s because every game here is massive, just look at the B stream, where you get… Sprout vs BIG.

Alright, forget we said anything.

Don’t worry, you can go straight to s1mple vs ZywOo. In a round one matchup. God, we love the Major. Outsiders take on Heroic in a low-key banger on the B stream. It’s not quite the same, but at least you’ll be able to catch the end of that game once NaVi have finished because Jame will ensure they’re in round five.

Brazil’s only entry FURIA will take on ENCE to kick their Legends’ Stage off, but the B stream game of NIP vs fnatic is our pick. What used to be the Swedish derby now has just four Swedish players in it, but it’ll still feel like a derby.

Even if there’s no crowd for that.

If that wasn’t enough, there will be another eight BO1s on the first day alone.

Get the snacks in. It’s going to be a beast of a day.

📈 Vitality’s Major

• It’s not zonic who says “ZywOo go kill”, it’s ZywOo who says “ZywOo go kill”. Seems reasonable.
• Luckily he listens to himself, because if not, their Major would have ended already.
• Speaking of Majors and ending, it seems like Magisk found his Astralis-Major plot armour just in time. What a deagle.

🇧🇷 More of the Major

• There are major protests in Brazil following their presidential election, which means fans have had a hard time reaching Rio.
• It sucks when fans can’t attend as they want to, but maybe this guy would have been better off not going at all.
• The Brazilians are out in force though, to the point where CS:GO commentator-extraordinaire, Gaules, is the most-watched channel on Twitch in October. Imagine what that’s going to look like in November 👀

🔁  Changes aplenty

• Former Valiance and CR4ZY manager Petar Marković have just been announced as GM for G2 Esports. We guess that means HooXi gets booted before any of the cousins.
• We all remember how w0xic really wanted to play in a Turkish team. Yeah, not so much anymore. In fact, he’s benched himself from the organization he co-founded. That’s how over it he is.
• It takes less time to replace a monitor at the Major than it does for OG to piss off Charles Leclerc.