BLAST Bounty Season 2, we wanted to hate you, but you were actually really good fun.

All four quarter-finals were entertaining, with 3DMAX putting on a surprisingly good match with MOUZ, and paiN vs Astralis being far better than a game between those two teams has ever had a right to be. Add in the fact that we got to see Liquid on LAN and FaZe put The MongolZ in their place, and those first two days were a damn good time.

The semis were good fun, too. FaZe almost managed to take Spirit to overtime on map three, and had Twistzz and Neityu not utterly sh-t the bed in the closing moments of Anubis, they probably would have got there.

Astralis vs MOUZ was slightly less exciting, but the series was pretty back and forth, and MOUZ actually looked like they might choke their 10-point lead on Dust2. Good stuff.

What MOUZ never looked like choking, though, was the grand final. They absolutely walked all over Spirit, and given how much we’ve criticised them, it was really nice to see.

It could absolutely be a honeymoon period, and you’re probably never getting a 78-38 statline out of Spinx again, but what a way to win a first tier one trophy for both xelex and PR.

The two kids, although overshadowed by Spinx - insert joke here about him stealing glory - were both solid throughout the event, as were the rest of the MOUZ team, in all fairness to them, and had key parts to play as MOUZ lifted their unexpected first trophy of 2026.

All that remains to be seen is whether MOUZ can keep it up. We still have reservations about them, but those reservations are slowly starting to dwindle. xertioN might actually be a real IGL, and he seems to have gotten the best out of torzsi again, too. If PR can get accustomed to playing with Spinx - which still is the biggest concern - and xelex can find consistency, they could be a real force again.

Better than they were in 2025? Maybe not, but we’re not sure they have to be, either. Counter-Strike is much more open now than it was then, and if things go well for them as they did in Malta, don’t be surprised to see them win another trophy this year.

That’s not something we expected to say when Bounty began.