A non-consequential change

Do you ever see a roster move that just… doesn’t bother you at all?

Like, you read the news, and you understand what’s going on, and it all makes sense, but you simply do not care?

That’s where we’re at with this one, sadly.

On the face of it, MIBR benching drop could be quite interesting. drop is an okay player, but he does nothing of note really, and if they could get a proper upgrade, maybe, just maybe, they’d stop being so mediocre.

There’s loads of talent in Brazil, and loads of players who could help them achieve more than the absolute nothing they’ve done since the last Pro League. Who’s the lucky guy? dumau? lux? One of the 9z guys? roman from SAW?

No, it’s brnz4n. The guy they benched for Lucaozy.

Has a move like this ever been good? Bringing back the guy you benched to try and go from top 20 to top 10? Especially when it’s brnz4n, who was benched for not really being all that good.

This team desperately needed new blood, but they’ve just transfused some from the bench instead.

What a waste of time.

What is dead may never die

With the PGL Cluj-Napoca group stage now complete, it's time to look at the results and try to make sense of them. Seriously, how on earth did SAW manage to make the Playoffs?

3-0 match3ups

Both FaZe and The MongolZ cruised through their opponents, only dropping a map across three series.

As we’ve said before, with frozen and EliGE in demon form, this feels like FaZe’s event to lose. And based on the bracket, we’d bet on a FaZe x MongolZ showdown for the trophy, with experience slightly tipping the scales in FaZe's favor.

3-1 & 3-2

Eternal Fire, new look MOUZ, paiN, Astralis, and Falcons – yes, Falcons finally look somewhat decent - also locked their spots in the Playoffs, though some had a shakier journey than others. We’re looking at you, Astralis.

But the biggest surprise came from a dead team. After early losses to FaZe and Astralis, SAW - who are benching roman and Shr after Cluj - somehow came back from an 0-2 deficit, securing a Playoff spot with wins over FlyQuest, Complexity, and 3DMAX. One of the forces behind their resurgence? Shr’s 1.11 rating performance across 11 maps. Guys, are you sure that’s the one you want to bench?

2-3 & 1-3

The 1-3 teams - MIBR, Wildcard, and Complexity - don’t deserve too much attention. They greeted us with poor performances across the board, which already led to drop being dropped.

That said, we’re a bit disappointed with 3DMAX, VP, and BIG. Honestly, we could’ve seen any of these teams taking SAW’s or Astralis’ spot in the Playoffs.

0-3

We knew FlyQuest weren’t any good, but losing to the dead team in the 0-2 matchup is probably the definition of rock bottom.

As for Imperial Valkyries, it’s clear that they’re still far from this level of competition. They were demolished by every team they faced, winning just 23 rounds across 6 maps. Gotta keep grinding.

No reason to smile in my life.

We don’t have a guest this week, but there is a special appearance from the best interviewee ever: deko. He’s just the greatest.

The bigger they are

Another chapter was added to Astralis’ book of disappointments.

In the decider match for the last spot at IEM Dallas, Heroic faced their old rivals Astralis. It’s a good setup for a match, and it should be clo… huh? Oh, it was a massacre.

Astralis won 5 rounds, not on a map, but in the entire series.

xfl0ud battered cadiaN’s crew on map 1, Mirage. He netted his best rating ever, a 2.63, for reference, the highest rating donk’s gotten against a top-10 team is a 2.50. That we could easily find. That statistic isn’t a surprise when you realize he had 25 kills in 16 rounds.

Even yxngstxr got in on the action.

Now, let us be frank, we’re not huge fans of him, but he shat on Astralis, and we’ve got time for that. For Christ’s sake, just like at his map 2. He matched xfl0ud’s 2.63 rating, which at this point has to be some subliminal message.

Though we’re not sure if it should count, we’re pretty sure cadiaN was trying to get fired. He wants that sweet severance cash.

Astralis were constantly throwing away man-advantage situations, which is one thing if you’re playing against ZywOo and ropz, but a whole other thing against this Heroic. The most egregious example of all was one round where Astralis had the B bomb site with Heroic all but saving, and instead of planting, they went A. It took them so long that Sunpayus caught them lacking and opened up a retake. That was a 5v3 they threw away for no real reason. If this was Nemiga vs CYBERSHOKE there’d be match-fixing threads on Reddit.

Even by our standards, this was some premium hate watch material. Though at this pace it’s not long before Astralis are not fun, just sad.

The most thrilling playoffs of 2025

The PGL Cluj-Napoca playoffs are here, and FaZe should probably win the free tournament, but that’s a strong “should.”

They first have to go against SAW, a dead team, but that dead team has already overcome the likes of FlyQuest, Complexity and 3DMAX at this event.

Okay, FaZe really need to win this one.

On the same side of the bracket is two far harder opponents, Eternal Fire and Falcons. The Turks have already taken down Falcons twice this year, our money is on them, but Falcons are beginning to look like an actual team, so we do have our doubts.

It’s probably going to be the best game of the quarter-finals, so we’ll be tuning in, but we never miss a chance to watch XANTARES play.

The other side of the bracket sees paiN take on MOUZ, a game that we have no clue which way it will go.

Brollan’s MOUZ haven’t exactly been consistent yet, but they have performed slightly better than we expected. As for paiN, they’ve been waiting for a moment like this for a long time, and that hunger could carry them far.

It’s biguzera vs Brollan. Brazilian flair vs whatever MOUZ have got going on. It could bang. It could be entirely dreadful. There is a chance we shall be seated.

The final game sees The MongolZ take on Astralis, which given the absolute pumping the Danes just received at the hands of HEROIC, should go the way of The MongolZ.

This is probably their best chance to win an event all year, and it feels like a necessary next step on the ladder, too.

All we know is that The MongolZ are quite good and Astralis are rubbish, so we pray to God that we’re right on this one.

🇩🇰🧠 Not just heroics

🇷🇺🔫 From Russia, with talent

💰 It’s all about the money

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, AN1MO, Horizzon and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Crash_ copy edited.

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