Welcome to a new segment here in the tl;dr newsletter, which we’re going to be affectionately titling: “Sending X to the glue factory.”

But let’s make something clear: There’s going to be nothing affectionate about this segment. This segment will exist for when we’re simply just a bit tired of something*.* We might be jokers, but we’re also haters, and sometimes we just need to rant. It’s good for our health.

First up is NAVI. It pains us to say it, but this all needs to be said. So here’s why we’re sending NAVI to the glue factory.

Deep down we all knew that NAVI over-achieved in 2024, but we didn’t think it was to this degree.

Their Major was obviously a fluke, but the rest of the event wins and finals reached had us all convinced that this was a truly elite team. How wrong we were.

To their credit, they looked far better in the group stage of PGL Astana than they have for most of the year, but they were poor again when it actually mattered.

A team that looks completely out of sorts, b1t has vanished, jL is begging to just go and make bank streaming and screaming with ohnePixel, and w0nderful and iM are quaking at the thought of s1mple returning to the team. That last one is kinda fair, though. We dread to think what he’d do to them if they keep performing like this.

It was admirable last year. In an era of superstar-driven international teams, here was an international team powered by vibes and teamplay, by sunshine, rainbows, and love for one another. But that’s all gone now, and now it’s just increasingly more difficult to watch every time they fail.

They lost to Astralis at this event, for God’s sake,.

And look, we know we were positive about Astralis in the previous story, but that doesn’t change the point we made there. This. Team. Should. Never. Be. Losing. To. Astralis.

That is, unless the level of their 2024 over-achievement is still criminally undervalued, and that actually it was the greatest purple patch of all time. Maybe they are on the same level individually as Astralis’ players, and maybe that’s just something we have to come to terms with.

We wouldn’t like that, though, so we hope they can go and rediscover themselves elsewhere, because it really feels like this team needs to undergo some sweeping changes now. Poor Aleksib was practically crying out for it in a post-game interview following their loss to the Danes.

A slow, sad death for one of our favourite teams in CS history, we just hope they can go out with a bang in the Austin Major, because we’re sure we won’t be seeing in the same five players wearing the famous yellow and black come July.