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December 16, 2022

Welcome to the 327th edition of the newsletter. That number isn’t particularly relevant, but we’re still amazed we got this far. Anyway: Astralis is being saved by the boffins, FaZe Clan are back on top and Heroic are back on… the bottom.

A Major update

There’s good news, and there’s bad news.

Which do you want first?

Oh, yeah. That’s kind of on us. We’re writing the story. We’ll start with the bad.

Open qualifiers for the RMRs are not completely donezo, but good teams being there might be. Teams who score well on the ‘Regional Standing’ will be transported seamlessly into the Closed Qualifier, where they can continue to lose.

Look, if you couldn’t get out of the Open Qualifier with four tries against Russian level 8s who only play Mirage and Astralis, you weren’t going to get out of the closed one either. Which makes the whole thing a bit pointless.

And importantly, far less fun. Watching Astralis lose to nobodies via the ESEA website’s tournament bracket was hilarious.

Instead, the Regional Standings will be used to bore everyone into having all the big names who aren’t very good into a Closed Qualifier to lose to the good teams. Boring!

There is good news, mind you. The Asian RMR has been expanded to eight teams - still the same amount of spots (though perhaps that might change when, we don’t know, there’s a Major in the east, maybe one with Perfect World), but at least we’ll get the best Asian teams.

Will be quite funny when it turns out that it was just IHC and Renegades all along.

See you in Paris!

Author: 
aizyesque

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OG just love a BLAST group stage

Illustration by Fuffy. Source: BLAST (rain), BLAST (nexa)

We’ve got some apologies to make. Last Sunday, we joined the furor against OG’s presence at BLAST World Final.

Now, those plucky pricks are in the semi-finals. After beating Heroic on Wednesday — which we obviously wrote off as a fluke against a stand-in — the #18 team in the world went and beat Vitality as well.

And it’s a bit harder to downplay that victory. Vitality battered NAVI in their opener and any time you beat ZywOo you deserve to gloat a little bit.

It’s legit. No best-of-ones, no bugs, no veto tricks. Not even a busted M4A1-S. They’ve played more maps than FaZe played at the Rio Major, so we can’t bleat about sample size either.

Now, two best of threes don’t mean Striker was wrong about OG being here. Even N0tail wouldn’t argue they’ve been anywhere near the 8th best team of the year.

But, this year hasn’t gone to plan for many of the top tier. The top ten changes more often than Britain's weather, and despite not really deserving to be here OG have put in a performance of someone who does. That’s all that matters.

We did see some semblance of normality in the other group, with FaZe reigning supreme. Aside from Rio, they’ve gone pretty deep into every event this year, and victory over G2 and Liquid means they have done the same here.

The Liquid win was the interesting one, where we got to see FaZe’s debut on Anubis. karrigan has always loved a veto, but you can’t blame Liquid for letting Dust2’s replacement into the map pool considering they beat Outsiders on it the day before.

What we can blame them for is being absolutely rubbish on it the second time round. karrigan used the post-match interview for the closest thing we get to trash talk these days, saying that Liquid’s T-side was so “slow” and so inattentive to mid that they could play a 2-1-2 comfortably.

FaZe even let Twistzz AWP, proving that not only is the Canadian NA’s best rifler he’s probably their best sniper too.

“Liquid didn’t adapt well enough”, karrigan finished — which is strange, considering we thought that YEKINDAR was Pep Guardiola re-incarnated, with the strat book of prime gla1ve and Jame combined into one superhuman mid-rounding machine. No, just us?

Author: 
NER0

Oops!

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:

  • Why Outsiders will do well at BLAST (lol)
  • Why Liquid are making top four
  • Why it’s not left wing to think s1mple is better than Shroud
Author: 

A major hangover

Illustrastrion by NovaH. Source: cadiaN

Not too long ago, in a country far far away. (from Abu Dhabi)

Two teams, Outsiders and Heroic, faced off in a battle for who would be crowned the MAJOR CHAMPIONS. Outsiders won it, becoming the world’s #1 team, and the losers, Heroic, took their own title in Copenhagen. Thus becoming their country’s finest and dethroning Outsiders as #1.

These two groups of warriors entered Abu Dhabi looking to solidify themselves as the best team post-player-break. So naturally, they’re both knocked out in groups. wait, what?

Outsiders started off with a tough game against Liquid. But with map 1 going Jame and co's way it looked like they were ready to continue where they left off. But then, something happened.

Anubis. Outsiders looked like amateurs at times on, to be fair, a new map. But it gave Liquid momentum which won them the series. Leaving Outsiders to face G2, easy enough, G2 have been bad all year and looked uninspired back in Copenhagen.

So G2 beat Outsiders 2-0 because there’s no such thing as sanity anymore. This included a 16-1 beatdown on Mirage that was almost good enough to apologise for trashing on G2 all year. Almost.

Leaving Major finalist:

Heroic.

cadiaN was dealt a solid hand, playing OG whose last win was over a month ago, they even lost to HAVU before Blast. Still, they went bust against Degster the dealer who dropped 40 on the last map of Anubis to take the series.

Which left a lower-bracket date with Na'Vi, where 1 in the name, #1 in the game rang true. B1t and s1mple ran wild against Heroic, who we should mention did have a stand-in. Even if that stand-in is a fired-up k0nfig. So we say bye to the second Major Finalist.

This does open the opportunity for an Airport re-match of the Rio Grand Final. There'll be about as many fans there as in the Arena on Sunday anyway.

Author: 
Horizzon

Riding the wave

🤞 At the right place, at the right time

  • He doesn’t care whether you’re team s1mple or Shroud, Cooper’s just here for the ride man.
  • Again, Cooper gives us another banger. This man just doesn’t miss.
  • So you’re telling me this guy just happened to leave Russian ESforce only to then just coincidentally roll into the role of CEO of VP? Something’s fishy, and it’s not the sushi we had for breakfast.

🤢 Jerseys nobody wants

  • Can’t imagine why anyone would want to buy a jersey signed by dev1ce, dupreeh, gla1ve, and Xyp9x. What do you mean it’s for charity?
  • Shots fired at BIG by MOUZ. Make sure to recycle properly.
  • Although, the response by BIG’s Draulon isn’t half bad either. Came for the burn, stayed for the comeback.

🤦‍♂️ Ye good ole

  • Nothing quite like winning a game because your opponent overslept. Classic.
  • We’re quite happy with the fact Jame winning a Major hasn’t affected his memeability. Yes, that’s a word.
  • Somewhere a marketing intern is regretting his decision to stick a poster on a pillar. It’s always the interns, isn’t it? Now we know how stretched dupreeh looks like.
Author: 
napz
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