Everything you gotta know from CS:GO without wasting time on news sites, reddit or twitter.
Everything you need to know, without having to visit every single news site, browse r/go and twitter.
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In today's edition: Drama around the player break, everything you missed from the Road to Rio plus a giveaway from SteelSeries. Don't say we never treat you.
Illustration by NovaH. Handshake icon by The Icon Z
As noted in last week's newsletter the CS Professional Players Association and the tournament organizers, have been negotiating to change the Summer and Winter player breaks. We don't know why, and everyone else seems flabbergasted as well, but let it rest for a second, because the announcement turned into a Twitter feud in seconds.
It all started with Hicham Chahine, CEO of Ninjas in Pyjamas, taking a shot at the CSPPA for not being consulted as the employer. SirScoots, Co-Founder and Managing Director for the CSPPA, laid down the law, noting that the change had nothing do with the employer-employee-relationship, but merely between players and TOs.
G2's Head of Esports operations, Danny Engels, figured that maybe Scoots didn't quite understand what was being referred to and tried another angle. That might have worked if Scoots wasn't also the Grumpy Old Man from our favourite CS:GO-show, The Breakdown. He doesn't take kindly to cheap shots though, so he proceeded to absolutely rip Engels a new one. That's what the Fortnite-kids call "being lasered", or so we've heard.
As we've come to expect when ESL Pro League teams are in hot water, a Flashpoint representative, this time personified by FACEIT co-founder Michele Attisani, came in late and threw a punch below the belt.
Oh you want to know the dates? Changed from June 29th - July 29th to July 6th - August 6th. Now you know. That's like, the whole story. We're unsure as to why everybody is so uptight.
We almost suggested this as a joke last newsletter, but we were concerned it was a bit too far-fetched.
Astralis' 7th man looks likely to be former North scapego- sorry, AWPer, JUGi. No, like actually. Click the link to prove it. It's not a Rick roll, we promise.
JUGi. To Astralis.
Maybe a year or two ago this would have sounded reasonable, but JUGi's stock is at an all-time low after an unsuccessful spell at North, and he's now apparently joining Astralis, as a seventh man. Is he, like, carrying the water bottles at events?
Knowing North's luck, JUGi will turn out to be an absolute behemoth on Astralis and probably drop 80 kills against them. But at least on paper, this move seems bizarre.
North America saw a victory for Gen.G in their Road to Rio, with hometown heroes FURIA pipped at the post in the final. BnTeT must have been having flashbacks as he put the team on his back and carried them over the line, despite heroics from yuurih.
The other big winner in NA was Envy, who snuck into 5th place after beating 100 Thieves. They very much had Turkish star Calyx to thank, who went absolutely ballistic, dropping 87 frags to drag Envy kicking and screaming past the Aussies.
The biggest winner in the Road to Rio in Europe so far, quite literally, are FaZe Clan. Because they've won every single game, topping their group and losing only three maps in the process. Broky, coldzera and NiKo are all sitting at around 1.2 HLTV ratings, and, well, that ought to do it.
The only players higher in HLTV rating than those three are ZywOo (expected), kennyS (not a huge surprise), maka and Farlig (BIG shock). While Farlig's Copenhagen Flames fell at the final hurdle to mousesports, his reputation is through the roof. If Astralis need an eighth...
...then maybe they should look at aizy. No, aizyesque hasn't completely taken over the newsletter, the mercurial Dane has been killing it, and has almost single handedly dragged North into the next stage, despite them playing with a coach. To be fair, Jumpy held his own against G2, who seem to have a... thing about playing against coaches.
Illustration by NovaH
HLTV's Striker wrote a long-form piece on the problems with the Round Robin format, and given how 4-6th in Group A in Europe came down to head-to-head with three teams finishing on 9 points, it's hard to argue he's wrong. Group B could have been just as disastrous.
But that doesn't mean we can't laugh at some people who should never have had to worry about that in the first place.
There's truly nothing more NaVi than being the only tier one team in your entire region's Road to Rio and somehow not making it out of groups, losing to , Syman Gaming and Hard Legion in the process. They won 2 of their 5 games, and s1mple was the highest rated player in the group stage. That's bonkers. This s1mple captain might want off of the sinking ship.
forZe missed out too in Group A, finishing 5th, only ahead of Unique, who are only Unique for their inability to win a game. At least, in CIS. c0ntact went full James Bond, losing all seven games for that sweet 007. You don't even need a licence to kill them.
Source: SteelSeries
When we last checked in with our Speed Readers, they were referring The TLDR to a) show that news about CS:GO can be funny, b) show superiority to their friends and c) get access to our Discord.
Here's another great reason to invite your friends. When you share the TLDR between now and next Monday*, you'll have a chance to win a limited Neon Rider edition of the SteelSeries Sensei Ten mouse, QcK Prism XL or QcK Large for both you and one of your friends (i.e. there's something in it for them as well).
How it works: Each time you refer a Russian feeder, FACEIT rank 4 mate, or fellow redditor to the TLDR, you'll get a ticket entered into the raffle for the full package. 1 referral = 1 ticket. If you win a combo, we'll select someone who you referred to win one too.
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*Giveaway ends at Midnight (CET) on Monday 18th of May and is open to any country.