The script works in mysterious ways, young padawan. Right now, things are getting real whacko, so let us set the scene.

Enter stage left: Astralis. They competed in CCT Central Europe Series 4, battling teams like ECSTATIC, 1WIN, and Apeks - not exactly the crème de la crème. But why?

Well, that’s actually quite simple, by which we mean that it’s incredibly complicated.

The invitations for IEM Katowice 2023 are set to be sent out today, meaning the official cutoff for the ranking part of the invites is yesterday. This means that any tournament that ended before today that counts toward the very accurate ESL Rankings will affect the invites. Which gives us a few interesting scenarios.

You see, the wonderful messioso took the liberty of making everything a bit more clear. In short, if Astralis would’ve come first at CCT, paiN would have to finish at least second in the latest ESEA NA Cash Cup to stay in contention. If Astralis came second however, things would’ve looked a little better for our friends over on paiN - fourth place would do (bar any miscalculations on our end).

Well, as it turns out Astralis did not disappoint - unsurprisingly - and kept things interesting by falling against their fellow countrymates from CPH Flames. The road is open for paiN, one could say.

One team needn’t worry however: EG. They are pretty much locked in for Kato - or at least the play-in.

Unfortunately, we’re not Doc Brown. We don’t have a DeLorean sitting around, and even if we did, we just broke our flux capacitor trying to make popcorn so we’re bust.

We are, therefore, tied down by the burden of the one way street that is time, and can’t tell you for sure who clinched the last spots at the play-in.

But, we know you trust us — and by the time this newsletter comes out you’ll pretty much be able to verify it for sure. In the meantime our judgement stands at 99% certainty that paiN gaming (yay!), Astralis (boo), and EG (eh) have made it to Kato’s play-in stage.

Really, all we wanted to highlight was the amazing final rundown it became, with calculations and double-stream viewership.

Tantalizing.

Do not adjust your set. Do not pinch yourself. Do not go back to sleep assuming this is a dream.

G2 have won a trophy. A real, LAN, trophy.

No, seriously. Whether a curse was lifted when Carlos martyred himself on behalf of Andrew Tate or Aleksib/JACKZ/AmaNEk/kennyS was the problem all along, it’s all immaterial now. On the same day Messi finally won the World Cup, G2 finally won something.

It’s been five years since G2 won a tier one event, and three years since they last won any event on LAN. It’s been a tough time to be a G2 fan; though that can be said about most periods of history. Especially in the early 2000s, when they weren’t yet born.

You can put as many caveats on it as you want, but we saw m0NESY pick up his first — of presumably many — MVPs for G2. That $600k doesn’t seem so ridiculous now, does it?

With a 1.24 rating, m0NESY was the highest rated player at the event — despite putting up his worst career performance in the opening series. A 0.29 map against FaZe was followed by 34-16, 22-4 and 24-5 scorelines. Talk about a bounce back.

He didn’t do anything ridiculous in the grand final, which is something we’ve come to expect from the teenager, but he was quietly solid. In truth, he didn’t need to be spectacular as Liquid capitulated, as they so often do.

YEKINDAR, who’d been Liquid’s star player all event, dropped a stinker. Though we don’t really fancy running straight at NiKo, huNter-, m0NESY, and a reinvigorated jks either.

Oh, and HooXi. Who managed to go negative as G2 zipped up Liquid. Never change, boss.

The fact that jks stood tall in the semi and the grand final, that huNter- was the best player in the semi-final, and that m0NESY got the MVP seems symbolic; that even without NiKo at his peak, G2 can win.

Or, perhaps, only without NiKo “carrying” can they win. Food for thought, at least.

🔉 Shush

• sjuush shushes us all by quietly re-signing with Heroic. Wordplay, we love it.
• “The key to confusing your enemy is to not know what you’re doing yourself” - Sun Tzu, probably. It’s working on Liquid though.

🐟 Something fishy’s going on

• Mnmzzz couldn’t have put how we feel about MICHU and Apeks any better.
• We swear Richard's only form of communication is through ranting. He’s another species.

🥛 Aged like milk

• Please, kassad, tell us again how G2 wouldn’t win a tournament this year.
• Your favourite spoiled dairy is back again, and he’s set his scope on the Paris Major. Take your time, breathe, the laughter does eventually end.