You shall not rest. Counter-Strike certainly won’t.

We’ve barely left IEM Rio behind us but there’s another LAN event on our screens: Elisa Masters Espoo 2022. No, it’s not pronounced like that, don’t worry 💩

Two round-robin groups of six decent (including fnatic, ENCE, and BIG) to bad (Astralis, Bad News Eagles) teams have finished already, with the favourites mostly making it through.

With one big surprise: 500.

Having been signed to a new organisation at the end of October, SHiPZ and co. stormed into Finland with a point to prove and frags to bag.

Their victims en route to playoffs included Complexity (16-14), Bad News Eagles (16-8), SAW (19-17), and least shockingly, Astralis.

What was shocking was the manner in which Astralis shat the bed.

After a 1-14 T-half against fnatic that ended 7-16, they only went and did it again. This time though, their opponents didn’t give them any pity rounds.

500 won the pistol and the follow-up, to give Astralis their second most embarrassing 16-1 defeat of all time.

Astralis, for their part, recovered to make playoffs by beating (and eliminating) Complexity 19-17 in their final best-of-one. But that doesn’t mean we have to be nice to them.

The reason dev1ce isn’t here is because they wanted to ease him in and “create room for [his] best version”. They just forgot that, maybe, just maybe, we’d have wanted to see a decent version of Astralis.

Final Group A standings:

1. Sprout 🟢
2. ENCE 🟢
3. BIG 🟢
4. HEET 🔴
5. GamerLegion 🔴
6. HAVU 🔴

Final Group B standings:

1. fnatic 🟢
2. 500 🟢
3. Astralis 🟢
4. Complexity 🔴
5. BNE 🔴
6. SAW 🔴

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:

• aizyesque’s new Twitter gulag (@ElliottBCFC, now)
• Are fnatic built to win now, or later?
• Is torzsi good enough for MOUZ?

The drama never stops in CS:GO and this time it’s in TITAN-ic proportions.

The Czech veteran, oskar, has spent most of his unfruitful 2022 at TITANS. An organisation that’s had so many names it looks like a list of teams Maikelele’s played for.

Before joining TITANS, oskar played for the promising SINNERS team, with the now OG star NEOFRAG as his teammate. The young team was one of the rising forces in tier 2 but for some reason, oskar left. Later, it came out that the reason was a bigger paycheck, according to Striker.

Unfortunately for oskar though, it looks like there won’t be any paycheck at all.

Former TITANS player Nodios went on Bootcamp, a Danish CSGO podcast, to talk about his contract situation. The organisation allegedly refused to pay him ~4,700 EUR, citing empty coffers. Is that how contracts work?

To make matters worse, the amount was already reduced from the originally agreed ~10,000 EUR due to Nodios terminating his deal.

Whether or not oskar is also owed money by TITANS is unclear but it seems to be the case. He took to twitter to call the organisation a clown show, whine about how he wasted a year and saying he left due to contract terms not being met.

oskar is the second player to leave the roster, following MSL back in late October. But players like supra, suNny, sergej, and coach lmbt are all still trapped under contract. Which begs the question, who’s next to go?

All we know is that the drama is only getting started. grabs popcorn

Oh yeah baby, it’s all coming together.

This is all a storyline just waiting to happen, and it’s making us all giddy in all the right places.

kennyS, after six years with G2, has now joined Falcons where he’ll look to make his return to the CS:GO scene. Six years after him, apEX, and NBK shuffled on through to the “French Superteam”, he’s now back with the Natural Born Killer - and they have a goal.

The 27-year-old icon says he wants to “finish his career in a way that is not being on the bench” and we can’t blame him. With the Paris Major already in everyone’s sights, there’s one thing that’s clear: they want to be there.

They are joined by some more household French names. NBK and kennyS lead the charge as eldest members, but misutaaa looks to prove his Vitality stint wasn’t the only thing he has in him.

Another relative youngster of the French scene is Python. His name’s floated around before, but he’s never really broken through. He spent about two months on Heretics and almost a full year across the border with Unicorns of Love.

That leaves just one more spot on the team. That spot is reserved for the man who was once seen as the next generation - someone who’s been thrown at the wall a lot but has never really stuck to it.

He was once called up from one of the earliest academy teams, joining a deconstructed EnVyUs who were well past their prime. Envy was small, and G2 had become the top dog in France. That didn’t stop hAdji, however.

All in all, this team has it all. Generational talent that’s looking for their jump back in along with some misused youngsters as well as a well-balanced fifth.

On paper, it’s all good. Up until the point that you remember they’re French.

💾 Jame’s saviour techniques

• Looks like Jame’s not so holy after all. That’s right, he only cocks the AWP if he’s also cocked his… yeah.
• If his previous tip proves ineffective - he does more than just the five-finger-shuffle to get himself into a Major winning mood.

😮 Org tweets that actually made us laugh (for once)

• Endpoint self-awareness is on point.
• Come on Heroic, you can’t be doing NIP dirty like that. They kinda deserve it, but still.
• If you think some organisation social accounts feel boomery - just remember it could always be worse. Thanks, Olympics, very cool.

💰 Money problems?

• These damn Maltesers aren’t so sweet after all. Just pay out your prizes guys…
• Not the best time to be promoting crypto content Team Liquid.
• Got about $400K laying around gathering dust? If yes, boy have we got an offer for you.

🪶 Major fluff

• Counter-Strike’s mom is proud of her son but heartbroken at the same time. Let’s give her some love.
• There’s nothing like a good map to end the newsletter with - and we’re not talking de_inferno. Thanks to Redditor u/stjimmy101 for making this awesome Major-related map!