• Sprout have been really busy in the last few weeks, trialling new IGLs, cutting Zyphon, moving refrezh to new roles and now, undoing all of that by swapping out refrezh for Zyphon again. So now it’s just -refrezh +BERRY. Capisce?
• SmithZz has been kicked from the team he created after a few months, in what experts are calling ‘the most obvious sword-falling since fnx rejoined Imperial’. How could anyone have predicted this?
• guerri is free! After months of protesting, FURIA’s coach has been graciously allowed to stand behind his team and not cheer for the Major. Yay!
• Anonymo have disbanded, leaving innocent, Demho, Vegi, mwlky, SZPERO and imd without a team.
• Fessor has replaced Nertz on Endpoint - giving the talented Dane a great shot at reigniting an impressive stint at the start of his career.

Our resident Rainman NER0 has been up to his old number-crunching ways to tell us that yes, saving IS cringe.

Or something like that. We just skim read it so we could moan about Outsiders and Inferno.

We are blessed, though. Harry brings us numbers that match with the eye test, and this article is no different. From the fact that ‘Jame saves 5% (or percentage points) more than any other player’ to the fact that Inferno is a ‘save heaven’.

Harry asserts that ‘Inferno stands out for all the wrong reasons’ and that its sites are ‘nearly impossible to retake… even in matchmaking’, which is definitely something that we’ve seen and felt. For the last year.

In fairness, this won’t be helped by the fact Outsiders - who save more than anyone else - won a Major. They’ve made the game more boring for all of us.

If that whets your appetite for more, we do recommend reading the full thing. But if you can’t be arsed, just know it says Inferno stinks and Outsiders are boring. Support Complexity instead!

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 FURIA might be rubbish
• UKCS KEKW
• The Sprout clusterbang

Ever since device went on break in 2021, we’ve all had a lot of questions, ones that haven’t been answered apart from a few Jaxon reports or Twitter rumours. But on HLTV Confirmed the man himself finally put a stop to (most of) that speculation.

device shared that he doesn’t regret joining NIP, and that the home Major in Stockholm was the only thing that kept him playing in 2021. After that, his body “just shut down.”

He couldn’t sleep. There were frequent panic attacks. He had suffered with IBS even in the Astralis days, throwing up before matches like the IEM Sydney final in 2018.

He was used to stress, but this time was “a different pressure.” A break was the only option.

A break during which, for the record, he was not paid. Not by NIP, nor the Swedish or Danish governments.

But Counter-Strike was always going to pull him back in. Once it did, and device started playing FACEIT games again, speculation was rife on a possible return.

He even considered making a Danish team with jabbi and HooXi in the summer of 2021 before the two received offers from Heroic and G2.

A return to NIP “wasn’t on the cards,” something he did not expand on. As was the HUNDEN situation, where he promised he “wasn’t following” the scene and instead treats people “as they have treated me.” So yeah — he still has the Astralis PR stuff on lock when he needs it.

But for most of the interview he was very frank, and it’s hard not to believe him when it comes to his break.

The return to Astralis has been vilified by some, but you can see why the opportunity link back up with gla1ve and Xyp9x was so tempting. The Copenhagen office, and blameF’s presence, are cherries on top.

It was the most boring, but also the most logical ending. device did receive international offers, and it’s fun to imagine device in Liquid, or Vitality with ZywOo rifling, or any number of international projects.

But after his struggles, can anyone blame him for returning to the comfort of home?

We certainly won’t. But now he’s chosen a tougher path, to re-boot an Astralis starship that some wouldn’t even use as scrap metal anymore, a sporting spotlight is back on the 19-time MVP.

The time for talking is over. Now, it’s time to win.

NA fans really can’t have anything, can they?

After a close loss to BIG in their opening game, Complexity had the comparatively free hit of Movistar Riders, who had been urinated on by Heroic in an earlier game.

Seriously. Heroic took the Mickey.

Movistar Riders picked Vertigo - a map they’d gone 0-7 on since August - and smacked Complexity on it. No matter, it was a pick Complexity weren’t ready for - and Col fired back with a huge lead on Ancient. A historic lead.

Well, it became a historic lead once they lost it - because nobody has ever lost a 10-0 T side lead before. Complexity fell 0-2 to Movistar Riders, somehow.

We swear they were good a week ago.

It’s not even like they can take solace in the Brazilian teams, who they’ve tried to retcon as American. FURIA might have picked up a win, but it was over Imperial, and they got smacked by MOUZ. Not helped by arT doing some fantastic trolling.

Imperial, in the meantime, conspired to lose to SAW. That’s a lot of money spent to tread water.

BIG came very close to taking down Heroic, but the Danes stood tall down the stretch to deny them from 10-14 down on Vertigo, making us delete the line about ‘BIG’s bi-annual overperformance’ and rewrite this paragraph.

We’re the real victims, guys.

😡 Sometimes the pixels make us angry

• Honestly, Olympics, is it “we’ll work to represent esports on the world stage” or “we’ll choose something related to conventional sports because it sells better”. Spineless.
• cs_summit was usually the highlight of our year. Players and talents at an event as laid-back as our newsletter… We’ll miss that.

👍 Cool

• We’ll be real quiet so you don’t miss it, but this ladder drop is completely silent.
• We don’t know who Vindex are or what they do, but if it means faceit mickey will have an easier time wiping away those pesky cheaters then we’re all for it.

🦅🇺🇸 Get NA CS’ed

• Nothing quite like a TK to ruin your matchma- eh, league game.
• “Let’s invite EG instead of ATK, they’ll do better right?” - Wrong.