Did you know all invites for the IEM Cologne Major will be decided in just over a month? How’s your team doing?

If you’re a fan of NIP, Heroic, Liquid or BC.Game… we have some bad news. It looks like you won’t be cheering for your heroes at the Major. Even worse, they aren’t missing out because of some strong tier one side taking their place.

Instead, you’ll probably be cheering for Monte, Gentle Mates, or HOTU.

Embarrassing losses, poor results in tier one, or (in the case of Liquid) just not playing at all has left the door open for your new favourite players to play their way into the Major invites through tiny studio LANs. Among those rising stars are:

n0rb3r7… Bymas… dav1g…

shudders

But hey, at least DeathZz won’t be there.

We think.

Gentle Mates, HOTU, and Monte all took important victories in prestigious events such as IstanbuLAN, Roman Imperium Cup, and… Copenhagen Gaming Week Showdown (real catchy name, guys) in the past two weeks in order to get themselves into that golden top-seventeen range you need to book a ticket to Cologne. The only question now is if they can hang on to that spot.

Their closest competitors have tried their best to steal those spots, but are failing massively. NIP managed a very impactful loss to 100 Thieves just two games out from their debut, and HEROIC are drowning without a real AWPer on the team. BC.Game tried their best to win the Parken Challenger Championship this week, but took losses to ECSTATIC and orgless team illwill… twice.

Perhaps strangest of all is Liquid, who should be attending plenty of these small LANs to up their LAN win bucket with some seemingly free VRS points. And yet… they aren’t doing anything?

Guess we’re in for another Liquid management classic. But seriously, Liquid better sign up for some banana cup real quick if they want to be in Cologne, and perhaps more importantly, get that sweet sticker money.

No matter what, someone is going to be happy with this Major - either the vast majority of the community… or aizyesque.

Everything else

🔧 Aaaaand it’s gone.

Yoo guys there’s this time stopping exploit in the game right no-

Nevermind it’s been fixed.

🤨 It’s just dumb

We’re sorry, fnl does WHAT to his mousepad? Who tf thinks playing in subnautic conditions could improve their performance?

Apparently 3DMAX lost almost a million dollars to fraud from a former associate. That’s like giving away a Major’s amount of money, damn.

🔄 Roster moves

Imperial have made some decent moves and levied their influence to bring in levi and decenty. God we love puns.

Passion UA are making changes to JT’s prison by removing Grim. Senzu next on watch, while Grim replenishes over on NRG.