The big boys at ESL Pro League are like trolleys with broken wheels.

All over the bloody shop.

Perhaps the worst has been The MongolZ, who seem to be hitting a trough at the absolute worst time. They’re 0-2 after yesterday, having lost to HOTU and Inner Circle - which is, for those unaware, not good.

HOTU and Inner Circle have been revelations at this event so far, but they’re also both 1-1 having lost their other games, albeit both to Spirit. That’s what a big team is supposed to do.

None of them have really covered themselves in glory, with only mzinho going above a 1.00 and only 910 having a positive K/D. Just before the Major, they’re capitulating.

The Asian Major dream might be dead.

They weren’t the only team to suffer a pretty ignominious loss either - Vitality lost the opening round 0-2 to Gentle Mates, and despite all evidence to the contrary we refuse to accept that they’re any good.

They did hit back with a simple win over GamerLegion, who have four of the five lowest rated players at the event after playing MOUZ and then Vitality. Seeding has really screwed them over, there.

The 2-0 teams are all pretty reasonable - the aforementioned MOUZ beat Gentle Mates, Spirit (obviously), Falcons and G2. m0NESY seems like he might be back in a small sample size, and Falcons got a pretty legit win over NAVI.

Of course, nobody knows how good NAVI are any more.

In the 0-2 bracket, you obviously have FaZe (who lost to 3DMAX), The MongolZ, GamerLegion as you all know, but Astralis which you didn’t know. But probably could have guessed.

They lost to Falcons and Aurora, who we’ve largely forgotten existed, and now have to play FaZe to stay in the competition.

The full list of today’s games is here, but there’s some absolute bangers to talk about first. Don’t worry if you wake up late, because the less interesting and consequential games are up first.

At 15:30 CEST you get to watch Astralis v FaZe or MongolZ vs GamerLegion, both for elimination, and after that MOUZ v Falcons or Spirit v G2. We’ll be picking Astralis v FaZe for a generational hate-watch (no matter what happens, the haters win) and after that, it honestly just doesn’t matter. They’re both great games.

What a fantastic era of CS to live in.

Your opinion

Here’s what you said when we recently asked you whether you would pay to watch CS from home:

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes (28%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 No (72%)

Some of your takes:

💰 willt12: “If it was a one time payment to watch the whole season I would be more likely to pay.”

🔄 Taken: “I would probably just stop watching it and watch reruns. Major events would be way too expensive for a few days entertainment.”