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Valve have finally seen the light and fixed the Major schedule, while Heroic and FaZe inflict the new team tax on NAVI and Liquid respectively.
A (not-so) Major scheduling conflict
Poor Valve, they finally announce dates for Majors WELL in advance. They also make them the last event of the season, like many of us have always asked for. And what do they get in return? Complaints on Twitter.
For those who only care about the Major dates and not complaints from people living their dream, the future events are scheduled for:
2025
- June 9 – 22
- December 1-14
2026
- June 8 – 21
- November 30 – December 13
As for the “spicy” parts, it all started with apEX tweeting: “Players it’s time to fight for our rights :-).” Which basically boiled down him being upset about not being able to do summer holidays with friends and family during July. As Zonic pointed out “the first tournament starts on the 21st of July” so the player’s realistically only have 1-2 weeks of vacation in July before they have to return and practice.
The main contrary opinion came from EliGE. His argument is that Valve’s proposed format is better as it balances the length of each season as opposed to the most recent seasons that had 7 months first, and 5 months second. Both sides then went on to disagree in the replies, a disagreement that achieved nothing. On twitter? We’re shocked
We can see the point to either side.
Players want to spend time with their family and friends. Whilst others would rather not burn out so a few players can have their break be slightly more convenient.
You can easily argue that other sports, notably football (soccer for you Americans) in mainland Europe, deal with the same break schedule. So with players still getting parts of July off, is it really that big of a deal? We’re not pro players of course, but we don’t see any other, better, alternatives.
Sod it, no more player breaks, just CS 24/7/365.25! That’s what you get for complaining.
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New dogs, meet old tricks
Illustration by ANDYJ. Sources: PGL | Joao Ferreira (karrigan), PGL | Joao Ferreira (cadiaN)
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
It makes sense, to be fair, that the new teams aren’t quite firing on all cylinders just yet, and it makes even more sense that Heroic are still really, really good.
cadiaN’s dancing, on the other hand…
The Danes were tested by the new-look NAVI, who managed to edge a tight map two as b1t rolled back the… months and had impact frag after impact frag on Inferno. Oh, and s1mple was pretty decent too.
iM was the catalyst for a strong T side on Nuke, but it was too little too late - NAVI’s porous defence had been sliced open by Heroic for 11. It was a solid attempt, but Heroic marked too large a mountain for the new team to scale.
Liquid, on the other hand, didn’t quite put up the same fight.
They got battered by FaZe on Overpass - not least in large part due to three-kill disaster class from NAF - and then solidly outclassed on Ancient as FaZe guaranteed their arena spot.
Where they belong.
There have been some encouraging signs for Liquid, but much like NAVI they took on too much, too soon. Patsi was a bright spot on the entry, but YEKINDAR and NAF struggled quite a bit in return.
More time needed, is our official diagnosis. At least for now.
The podcast… now with Swisher
Tune in to this week's episode of Overtime on Inferno… no, we’re not gonna do our usual intro here. This one’s special.
Swisher from NA newcomers, M80, joined us for a chat PLUS you get to see aizyesque. In a shirt.
Your gracious hosts, Logan and aizyesque, also get into:
- NAVI’s impressive start (albeit in a loss)
- Why NA is in a better state then before
- Will M80 be the best team in NA?
hampusball gets rolling
BLAST Premier group stages are a perfect breeding ground for upsets.
There’s new rosters — 9 out of 12, actually — and… we’ll just call it a ‘forgiving’ format.
EG beat Heroic in Spring groups this year. OG beat FaZe and Astralis in 2022’s Fall groups.
This year’s benefactors are NIP — who bounced back from a opening day loss to Complexity to rally in the lower bracket and then defeat Vitality in the Group A final.
By doing so they became the first team to qualify for BLAST Fall Finals in Copenhagen, a breath of fresh air for a team that never quite clicked under Aleksib.
This win is a huge confidence boost, but our next question is the important one: Is it sustainable?
Brollan getting 50 kills in two maps may not be, but this is a NIP roster that should have some serious rifling depth. In theory, none of REZ, k0nfig, hampus, or Brollan are bad fraggers. It’s designed to be a team without a weak link.
Buuuut none of them are really consistently great fraggers either. headtr1ck is still raw, and they have essentially put Counter-Strike’s four most inconsistent riflers on the same team.
Beating Vitality is a great sign, a showcase of the team’s potential and of hampus’ style of calling.
But let’s not get too carried away with a result at a BLAST group stage. NIP have shown flashes before — to truly prove themselves, we’ll need to see just a little bit more.
ICYMI in our match section, the finals begin today:
🇪🇺 OG vs. 🇩🇪 BIG - match page
🇩🇰 Astralis vs. 🇺🇸 Complexity - match page
Art is in the eye of the beholder
✨🧑🎨 Everybody’s so creative
- Readers. Do your part. r/place is back, and CS needs your help. Appendage and all.
- These ESL x Champion sweaters are top notch. Personally, we recommend you go with tl;dr yellow when you order one.
- Do you think all those years ago the inventor of the keyboard would’ve ever thought we would be displaying k1to on our keyboards? Not just any k1to by the way, w i d e k1to.
📰 Small news, nothing to worry about. Move along
- Looks like CS2 might be getting a new Cobblestone. What’s the crown-prince of a dynasty without his castle?
- If you’re in the UK and are into opening cases, we’ve got some bad news for you. Or good, depending on how much your bank account is suffering.
📝 Due to previous agreements…
- sLowi was unable to play for HAVU because he agreed with the tournament he is playing at to co-cast. On the upside, he’ll still be able to follow his team’s results very closely.
- We could tell you more about the inconsistencies in the subway service of the new Overpass, however we signed an NDA that expires in 2037. Come back then.
- Speaking of Overpass, did you see how glorious that water looks in CS2?
