An exciting NIP team?

The Ninjas in Pyjamas are finally back at a big event.

Luckily for them, it’s not in the UK. Partially because then they’d have to go to the UK, but also because they wouldn’t be able to use any weapons there.

Topical bantz.

Despite basically starting from nothing, Valve Ranking-wise, NIP have finally managed to get through a qualifier, and all it took was beating Passion UA, fnatic and B8 in a BO3, before beating four of their ex-players in a BO5.

As a reminder, FlyQuest get invites for eating KBBQ after going out last at every event.

They’ll be at PGL Astana after beating Metizport in a BO5 that went the distance, but had sjuush to thank for a ridiculously consistent performance over the series, and saving them from the ignominy of losing to their old players.

We have big respect for NIP for this; yes, they tried to cheat it a little bit with the JACKZ thing to get Wildcard invites, but the problem was they had JACKZ on their team, and invariably lost. This time, with their full roster, they’ve qualified the ‘right’ way.

The fact that there are multiple teams here who would probably enhance half of the events in the calendar can’t be ignored - but that’s exactly why this is an impressive result for NIP. They must be fiending for a LAN, and we wouldn’t want to have to play against them.

Snappi always has a chip on his shoulder anyway, so now he’s going to be HUNGRY.

It’s good to see ewjerkz and arrozdoce back, because SAW have been pretty mediocre so far this year and we’ve really missed them. Similarly, seeing sjuush back at the top tier means there’s finally a team with more than one Dane that is worth watching.

Yes, that is pointed directly at Falcons and Astralis.

We’re excited to watch NIP, and we don’t say that lightly. This is a team that might actually do some damage, or at least be a little bit fun to watch.

You’ll only have to wait a month to find out how silly we look, anyway, with PGL Astana starting on May 10th. Team Spirit are there, but no MOUZ or Vitality. ODDIK, M80 and HOTU qualified from their respective regions,

A “major” update

Just over two months after the introduction of Train, Counter-Strike has rolled out another “major” update.

Given the adjective, we were expecting something a bit more impactful, but as is frequently the case, we ended up disappointed.

Basically, the only “major” thing about this update is the ridiculous amount of money flowing into Gaben's pockets.

At the forefront of ‘Spring Forward’ are the three new drop collections - Ascent, Boreal, and Radiant - featuring over 70 new skins. There's also the new Fever case, with 17 community skins, the Shattered Web Knives in Chroma finishes, the Train collection, and the new XM Solitude, a limited-time Armory item.

If we had to pick a standout, it’s definitely the new, mighty-looking AWP Printstream.

If you’ve been scrolling through Twitter lately, you’ve probably seen everyone and their mother unboxing a Doppler finish in their Fever case knives, so maybe now’s the time to test your luck. Just kidding - don’t do that. Unless, of course, burning money is your thing.

And just when you thought it was over, Lord Gaben drops a small crumb for us starving souls who just want some actual gameplay improvements. Inferno and Train got a “Spring cleanup”, as Valve put it, with cleaner surfaces, less clutter, and even a wider banana. Nice.

Overall, if you're an Ohnepixel viewer, you'll be more than happy with this update. On the other hand, if you've been hoping for Valve to fix the glaring issues that still haunt the game, you might have to wait a bit longer.

Is it too soon to start asking for Counter-Strike 3?

donk would be the best AWPer in the world

Can donk AWP? Are Liquid going to be saved by siuhy? Is Brollan a world class IGL? What if up is down? Is rain better than floppy? What’s the difference between a turtle and a tortoise?

AN1MO and aizyesque answer some of those questions on this week’s Overtime on Inferno. Plus:

The dumbest boy alive

If you were a cheater, and you got caught, what would you do?

It’s a difficult question to answer because most of us wouldn’t actually cheat. For the majority, cheating in nearly any aspect of life is completely alien, a thought that wouldn’t enter our mind, and if it did, we wouldn’t act on it.

Obviously we’ve all got every gun on GTA San Andreas, and who hasn’t pocketed some pick ‘n’ mix here and there, but we wouldn’t steal a car. Or pirate a film, of course.

coughs.

The correct answer, apparently, to the hypothetical posed at the start of this stream of consciousness was to blackmail the people in charge of your punishment. Just double down.

Swedish player joel, who first placed bets against his own team, went on to use cheats and then apparently threatened ESIC with false allegations, which is not just bloody stupid. It’s career suicide.

Mind you, so is cheating. You might as well go down fighting.

Perhaps this is why Valve were so keen to ban the iBUYPOWER players for matchfixing the first time around. This is what happens when you let people get away with breaking rules and flaunting the lines.

He wasn’t just cheating a little bit, either. He used Asdfware EFI bootkit (no, we’ve never heard of it) which included aimbot and wallhack features, and he even admitted to that. ESIC delayed issuing the statement to let him find another job, and he thanked them by attempting to blackmail them.

With false allegations…

If you learn a lesson from this, it should be ‘don’t cheat’. It could be ‘don’t let people break rules and get away with it’, too. But for us, the most important lesson to learn is this:

If you’re going to try and blackmail someone, make sure you have some f–cking leverage, you idiot.

He’s been banned for life. Good riddance.

Yet another studio event

PGL Bucharest starts this week, providing everyone with an opportunity to find out just how bad Astralis are, how much worse Complexity are than that, and whatever the hell an Apogee is.

We jest. It’s not all bad. FaZe, G2, and Falcons are all there, at least.

Oh, wait a minute.

Let’s try that again. It’s not all bad; Eternal Fire and The MongolZ are both there.

There, that’s better.

The event is a fantastic opportunity for the two teams, currently both tainted by the same bottler title. They’re the two highest-rated teams in attendance, and given the form of everyone else involved, they have to be looked at as the favourites.

Unfortunately, it won’t actually be that great of an opportunity for the two teams to shake their current reputations, the event won’t actually have an arena portion. At all.

That’s right. PGL is hosting a $1.250.000 prize pool event in a studio. Yeah, we don’t get it either. We know it’s cheaper, but it’s not exactly a great experience for any possible viewer, and it prevents your event from gaining any kind of prestige.

So why give it such a big prize pool? We just can’t tell you.

Regardless, we’re still quite excited for the event. Even if it’s going to be in a studio, lifting the trophy could do a lot for the confidence of both The MongolZ and Eternal Fire. And that’s a good thing for Counter-Strike.

It will also be good when all of the currently underwhelming teams outperform their average placements and then ultimately disappoint again at the next real big event. You know, because we enjoy suffering here at tl;dr.

Speaking of suffering, you just know VP are going to win the whole thing, and we think that’s bloody brilliant.

We can already hear your tears.

🏆 Vitality has it all

🤩 Worthy additions

🤸 Players in weird poses

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

How did you like this edition?
Help us improve by clicking a smiley below.

Give your friend the tl;dr