Ah, FISSURE Playground. The tournament we expect will soon go the way of YaLLa Compass.

Somehow, we’re actually excited to see you this time around.

Seriously, there’s a big gaping hole at this event when it comes to the three “elite” teams in CS, but of the teams attending, a whole bunch of them have a hell of a point to prove.

Starting with G2, they’ve just won BLAST London, so expectations for them are through the roof. Was it a fluke? Are they the fourth elite team we’ve been waiting for? Has HeavyGod had his 10,000 allotted calories for the day? So many questions.

Falcons will also be there. They haven’t been seen much since booting Magisk for kyousuke, and when they have been seen, it hasn’t exactly been great. donk 2.0 has looked phenomenal, but we knew that was going to happen. Now we want to see them actually win some games.

Then there’s the trio of Asian teams in attendance. TYLOO won the first FISSURE event, so hopes will be high for them to have a big event, whilst The MongolZ need to be looking to push on from their EWC win and pick up another trophy to also stand a chance at pushing themselves into that elite tier we mentioned earlier.

As for Lynn Vision, well, we don’t expect much, but we’re bloody happy to see them.

We’re also obviously happy to see FURIA at another event. They’re easily our favourite team to watch at the moment, and maybe this will be the time they manage to get over their playoff jitters.

And finally, there’s the FaZe and Liquid duo. Both are showing signs of improvement, but both still have so many chinks in their armour. Hitting the right form could see them fly at this event, but a bad day could easily see them fall 0-2 in the Swiss stage. Neither outcome would shock.

Overall, it’s hard not to be excited about this event. And considering it isn’t an ESL or BLAST event, we’re honestly really surprised (and quite happy) to be saying that.

An event that could fire a team into a new level of confidence as we approach the second Major of the year, it’s set to be a good week of CS.