Iago, welcome back Othello

There’s an old tip about break-ups that as soon as you break up with someone, you should write down every single reason you can think of as to why you broke up.

Write it down and keep it safe, then any time you think about taking them back, whip it out and read it so that you don’t make a mistake.

Anyway, on a completely unrelated note, Astralis have signed cadiaN.

That means that cadiaN has been reunited (perhaps united is a strong term) with stavn and Jabbi who famously backstabbed him. Metaphorically. More like Iago than MacBeth. He’s back to leading them and looking to bring back those HEROIC vibes.

There’s… just one problem. device is already there on the AWP.

“No problem!” we hear you exclaim. “They’re going to put device back on the rifle just like the good ol’ days where he didn’t win anything!”. Wow. Unnecessary shot at device there. You guys are mean.

You’re also misguided - cadiaN is going to be rifling.

Will he be able to call as well from rifle spots, especially ones that aren’t star roles? Nobody knows. Are he and stavn best mates again? Nobody knows. Are Astralis going to finally be good? Well… we’d err on the side of ‘no’, but nobody really knows.

Oh, we should probably mention who he replaced. Much like Astralis, we’re just going to tell you it’s br0 and move on.

This means cadiaN is probably going to be the role player on this team. He won’t be the star rifler. He’s basically becoming karrigan.

Look, this is a fun move, narratively, but it asks more questions than it answers.

After this change, the starting five is:

🇩🇰 device
🇩🇰 rabbi
🇩🇰 Staehr
🇩🇰 stavn
🇩🇰 cadiaN (IGL)

Rock bottom

What happened to FaZe man?

They have been on a downward spiral for a while, but now they’re truly in free fall.

We really thought they’d bounce back, but getting steamrolled by Complexity? It feels weird just saying it.

When your AWPer isn’t hitting shots, winning becomes a struggle – and broky was nowhere to be seen. Someone check on Poloolpp.

FaZe have a long road ahead if they want to be serious contenders in Shangai.

Unfortunately for Complexity, their joy was short-lived, as they ran into Rolandinho in their next matchup. We’ve already spotlighted ultimate’s performances in the last few EPL recaps, but somehow he raised the bar even higher. The man was an absolute force against JT and co, ending the series with a staggering 1.79 rating and gifting us delicious clips like these.

MIBR are having the tournament of their lives. They shocked everyone by reaching the semis after taking down HEROIC and M80.

We even got to witness a rare saffee 30-bomb in the first map of the M80 series. And the moment Twitter gets banned in Brazil, he decides to pop off. Terrible timing.

Now, MIBR will face Eternal Fire, who are blazing hot after a huge upset win over Vitality. Tough challenge.

As if being unable to tweet wasn’t enough of a curse, Team Spirit made things even worse for BR fans by sweeping FURIA and Imperial. Curiously, they’ve only lost one BO3 this event – guess who they lost to? EHHHH! Wrong answer. It was MIBR. Not our first choice either.

Anyways, do you have plans for today? Scratch those, because we’ve got some bangers lined up:

Cheers, Astralis

Look, ESL Pro League is pretty fun, but the stakes don’t seem so high. Thankfully, Astralis swooped in to give us loads of content this week.

BLEEDing players

Someone get a tourniquet, they won’t stop BLEEDing! Players, that is.

BLEED has benched nexa only 2.5 months after signing him in place of FaveN. Hampus wasn’t even out of the door. Bench player VLDN had already come back to replace Hampus, which leaves BLEED with a spot to fill in nexa’s absence.

It's not really a surprise that BLEED is already making changes. They failed to qualify for the Major, which was their ultimate goal. And kassad went as far as to call their performance embarrassing.

nexa underperformed as an individual, even though, on paper, he was supposed to be a good fit. However, in reality, the team was moving in a different direction from him. Even he said as much to HLTV, admitting that the team had too many different approaches.

There’s not much to laugh about; it’s mostly sad, except for the fact that Thorin called this move a “masterclass,” which is immensely funny.

There was a period when this BLEED team was cooking, so there is talent here. Though finding an IGL that can extract that talent is going to be kassad’s next big challenge. His decisions have been hit or miss so far, so who knows how the dice end up this time. We are watching you, kassad.

With this change, BLEED consists of:

🇳🇴 jkaem
🇸🇪 nawwk
🇬🇧 CYPHER
🇷🇸 VLDN

⏪ Blasts from the past

🤦‍♂️ Absolute Nightmares

😮 These guys are pretty good, eh?

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, Horizzon and benji.
Crash_ coded the email and copy edited.

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