The Thunderpick World Championship has kicked off, and you might be asking “Who cares?” Normally you’d be right, but this one is special.

s1mple returned to the competitive stage, and that’s about the only reason anyone would bother tuning in to the misery that is Falcons’ CS. Over 100k people to be exact.

Don’t get us wrong. We loved seeing that the classic s1mple magic was still there, but having to play a 1v5 every single round against 3DMAXand Virtus.Pro probably didn’t help.

Sure, we’re not talking about just any player, but it says a lot about the team’s state when your standout performer is someone who hasn’t played competitively in nearly a year.

But enough with the Falcons slander; we’ve got to save some heat for the RMR.

Now, onto the teams that played proper CS – if you’re here for NiP, we apologize. The MongolZ, HEROIC, and BIG dominated Group B, C, and D, respectively, with relative ease.

Sorry, we lied. We just can’t resist talking about NiP –

After getting trashed by the JANO retirement home back in Espoo, the Ninjas are in dire need of a win. Securing a spot in the main event could be a (small) step on their (long) road to redemption.

Four spots in the Thunderpick LAN Finals in Berlin are up for grabs, with the following Play-In qualifying matches being played today:

Virtus.Pro vs. OG

Cloud9 vs. fnatic

Imperial vs. NiP

M80 vs. BESTIA