ENCE picked “The number you have dialed is…”

It’s been a while since we had a proper catastrophe.

Like, proper, proper f*ck-up.

Skyesports set up an event in Mumbai, and it’s been truly awful. The tables look like something you were mis-advertised on Facebook Marketplace and now you’re too weak to call the other guy a liar about.

You’ve got a crap table (that apparently has nails sticking out of it), a PC that allegedly doesn’t run the game properly (reports of under 100 FPS for some teams, though it is CS2), electricity going out and vetoes - and we’re not joking here - were being done over the phone.

We like to imagine hampus lying on his front twirling his hair doing the veto.

BetBoom dropped out because they thought the tournament was unfair, with rumours suggesting they had worse PCs than some of the other teams. s1ren suggested he got ‘poisoned’, though this is translated, and probably just means sick.

It’s only been two days of the event that continues through the weekend.

There’s been loads of tech pauses, with a three hour one happening during The MongolZ vs True Rippers, the Indian team. MongolZ made a massive comeback from 5-11 afterwards. No comment.

We could talk more about the games, but frankly, they don’t matter. They’re being played on rubbish PCs on freecycle tables while everyone seems to be getting sick (add lauNX). Caring about who wins is like watching Takeshi’s Castle and caring who wins. Spoilers: nobody does.

BO1s? More like BOGones

IEM Cologne is officially more prestigious than the Majors. Source: We made it up.

Let’s be real, BO1s kinda suck. You know it, we know it, pros know it. It just turns a game of skill a bit too much into a game of luck.

This is why we’re incredibly happy ESL is eliminating BO1s for the Play-ins at Cologne, which turns all matches but the Grand Final into BO3.

In other news, IEM Rio just announced its invite list.

All the big names are there: FaZe, Vitality, G2, NAVI… but wait, no Team Spirit? ESL announced, along with the invites, that Spirit declined theirs.

At face value, that seems pretty odd. Bubzkji also wondered why the team wasn’t coming, given that winning this event could cement Spirit as this year's best team. And what about their chance of getting the Grand Slam title and its hefty $1M prize?

In a response to Bubzkji, Spirit’s Head of Marketing explained that it’s simply a matter of “load management of the players.” If they went to Cologne, they would only have 13 days without events this year, quite the schedule.

You win this round, Donk; enjoy the break.

Why is interz back?

We’re back in the swing of things with Overtime on Inferno. This week we’re getting into everything from NAVI’s dominant showing at the EWC to our unfounded dislike of certain underperforming teams. Plus:

RESurrecting fnatic

Every now and then, in the jungle of Tier 2 Counter-Strike, we get to witness true wonders of nature.

This time, we encountered none other than a majestic Fnaticus BlameFialis in all its splendor.

After claiming the RES Series 1 Europe title back in March, fnatic have done it again, winning Series 6. Their success (largely) rests on one man’s shoulders: blameF.

The squad powered through Sangal, MOUZ NXT, and Passion UA in the Playoffs to take home the $50,000 prize, dropping only a single map in the final BO3. The MVP? The Danish powerhouse, who delivered a 1.36 rating across 15 maps.

Alright, it’s time we have a serious talk about the man.

His skill has always been undeniable. Sure, he might have a tendency to bait a little bit here and there - or as we like to call it, ‘tactical maneuvering’ - but he is unquestionably a top-tier rifler with insane aim.

So, it’s no surprise he’s currently shredding teams like Passion UA and MOUZ NXT to pieces, with all due respect.

Can he steer fnatic back onto the right path? We sure hope so.

Calling keyboard warriors

We hope you enjoy this special deep-dive from our resident CS expert simba. If you wanna brush up on your competitive CS skills, he also made Bootcamp, a 6-part free course packed with wisdom.

You’d be forgiven for not keeping your ear to the ground of the peripheral realm of social media, but a couple of brands caused quite a stir over the last couple of weeks.

A keyboard arms race was kicked off, courtesy of Razer’s new “Snap Tap” feature, included in a software patch for their latest line of keyboards.

With a short video demonstration posted on X, the CS community’s attention became fixated on this “breakthrough” in technology.

Some were keen, others felt it crossed the line between tech and cheat, such as ropz, who said it shouldn’t be allowed at all. So what’s the big deal, what does “Snap Tap” do anyways?

Before you can understand what Snap Tap does, it’s important to know what a null bind is: A null bind refers to a special bind typically created with console commands that make you unable to pass the input of multiple keys at the same time.

These binds, or “nulls,” can be applied to any key, but are typically only applied to movement keys in CS, specifically those that are used for (counter) strafing. This prevents A and D key presses from being passed at the same time.

TL;DR: These special binds enable you to hit frame-perfect counter-strafes every time.

In a game where precision is measured in milliseconds, this is a huge advantage. So much so that most competitive CS leagues banned null binds (and still do, at the time of writing.)

It’s known as SOCD, or Simultaneous Opposite Cardinal Direction. Sounds like something you’d catch on a really bad night out, but long story short, whenever you see that acronym, it’s referring to this tech. And it’s been around for ages (note post date).

So where does Snap Tap fit into all this? Like a square peg, in a… square hole.

Snap Tap does the same exact thing that null binds do, the only difference being that the inputs are done in Razer’s keyboard firmware rather than in-game.

A head ESL admin confirmed that the keyboard is allowed in tournaments, making it a relatively safe assumption that implementations from other keyboard manufacturers like Wooting are also safe to use.

There’s been no official statement from ESL in regards to whether pro players can use null binds instead of shelling out hundreds for a new keyboard. But FACEIT have confirmed that you can use either on their platform without fear of being bludgeoned by the ban hammer.

There’s no guarantee that this is the way it will stay, so we’d recommend keeping your wallet (and config) closed for the time being.

War never changes, but keyboards certainly do.

💸 Esport-all gone now

🤓 Way too technical

🏆 You can’t always get the cup that you want (right away)

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, Horizzon, simba & napz.
Welshy coded the email and Crash_ copy edited.

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