The Major is just weeks away, and let’s face it, Vitality have already won the damn thing.

apEX and the funky bunch are just simply too good at Counter-Strike, and although the other teams have been playing catch-up since the beginning of last year, they’re still running the race like they’re Oscar Pistorius without his legs versus prime Usain Bolt.

Well, they’re less deadly than a legless Pistorius, but I digress.

With that in mind, and with certain teams already making it abundantly clear they will be making some changes following Cologne, who will - or at least, should - be on those teams’ shopping lists?

A trip to the sauna

Jimpphat is set to be one of the most sought-after prospects of the off-season. Falcons, NAVI, FaZe, everyone will be pushing for the Finn to get a move to one of these teams, and all three will likely be interested.

But what if all of those people are missing out on an absolute slam dunk? I’m talking about Astralis.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. But just hear me out.

Astralis, genuinely, are not far away from being a top team. In fact, if you look at their results recently, you could argue they already are. But let’s not kid ourselves, we all know there’s a certain amount they’ve benefited from playing in events with weaker fields.

So, how do they actually make it to the big time? Well, with an IGL like HooXi, they do so by having four stars. And while Jimpphat stocks may have declined following Spinx’s arrival on MOUZ, his 2025 stats show there is a potential superstar in there.

Who would he replace? That’s simple: ryu.

Although ryu impressed in his 1.19-rated debut in IEM Krakow Stage 1 (and subsequent 1.09 rating in Stage 2), his performances have steadily declined since then, all the way to a bang-average average of 0.99 in the last three months - a period of time that also features a 0.86 rating at ESL Pro League Season 23 (where they finished third) and a 0.85 rating at BLAST Rivals Fort Worth.

Unfortunately for Astralis, this simply isn’t good enough if they wish to continue their upward trajectory, but they can guarantee doing so with one more change. They have the pieces everywhere else; they just need one more to complete the puzzle, and thanks to LuzRaposa’s excellent roster simulator, we can see that this move would be stellar.

Say no to puppetry

If you read last week’s Deep Dive, you’ll know that I’m not exactly a fan of teams utilising a puppet as an IGL. Or at least, I’m not a fan when MOUZ (and Spirit) do it.

There is, of course, a chance that xertioN’s captaincy works out for MOUZ, but I see it as being little more than a continuation of what we’re already used to from them, and frankly, that’s something I’m already tired of seeing.

To MOUZ’s credit, they are looking to address some of the issues with their current shape by bringing in jL. NER0 raised the point on the Come Here podcast that jL for Jimi isn’t exactly a like-for-like swap, and instead one to improve some of the intangibles, but as I said in the Deep Dive, I just don’t think it will be enough.

So, what will be enough? Well, maybe it’s a secret third thing. Maybe it’s a case of taking a look into xertioN’s individual deficiencies and his wasting of resources (which hopefully will be addressed by the IGL move anyway), banking on xelex and the permanent signing of jL as new stars, and bringing in a new IGL to lead them into the future.

In that instance, I have two suggestions for MOUZ. Two suggestions who, unlike Jimpphat, won’t be nuked into oblivion by Spinx’s inarguably egregious playstyle.

The first suggestion is a player incredibly familiar with the MOUZ organisation, Chr1zN. One of the best young IGLs in the game, Chr1zN took OG back to Major Counter-Strike and is now overachieving with a HEROIC team that doesn’t actually have an AWPer.

He’s also a traditional IGL and is willing to give space to his stars, but unlike most other IGLs, his 0.97 rating on LAN in 2026 suggests he doesn’t become a bot in doing so. A player that seems destined to one day play for MOUZ, why not get it done sooner rather than later?

My second suggestion, if MOUZ were to decide it’s too soon to bring their former academy prospect home, would be Monte’s Gizmy.

Another reasonably well-fragging IGL, he takes a few better positions than Chr1zN and does have less tier one experience under his belt, but given what he’s done with Monte this year, when very little was expected from them, and they lost his big star in ryu, there will surely be some eyes on him from the big teams.

As well as that, he’s also likely to be the cheaper option of the two, which could just be the deciding factor for a team like MOUZ.

Saving themselves from their own bullsh-t

FaZe were incredible at BLAST Rivals Fort Worth. The bullsh-t was back in full swing, and it was great to see. But given the fact that 20% of FaZe’s playoff rounds came as a result of clutches, it’s incredibly important FaZe don’t now get carried away as a result of their win in Texas.

For FaZe, there are plenty of options that could be a win. Bringing in kyxsan and woxic (if previous Aurora rumours do come to pass) could be great. In a previous deep dive, I suggested that purchasing a core from GamerLegion or M80 could also be great, and I still believe that, but what if FaZe decide to stick by Twistzz IGLing, and instead look to address players who have been problems for longer than tier one teams would typically allow?

Yeah, I’m talking about jcobbb and broky.

jcobbb and broky got plenty of plaudits for their performances in Fort Worth, and although they were both notably better, let’s just calm ourselves down and remember that they finished the event with 0.91 and 0.99 ratings, respectively.

It’s clear that these two will continue to be a problem for the foreseeable future, and may as well be exorcised now while FaZe have the opportunity to undergo a significant rebuild.

Admittedly, the AWPer part won’t be easy. But you all know that already. Realistically, FaZe’s best hope here is to buy a core that involves an AWPer, or to hope the woxic benching rumours do turn out to be true.

If not, though, then the answer is kl1m. And I shan’t be elaborating on that.

As for a rifler, thanks to Neityu coming in and Twistzz’s role changes to better aid his IGLing, they need a more reliable spacetaker.

An eco-friendly option could be Brollan, who doesn’t take up much space on CT sides and would be happy to be traded by the now more pack-leaning frozen. Alternatives could include players such as REZX, xfl0ud, or even TeSeS should Falcons decide to move away from him, but I’d like to propose a different option.

Lake.

A player who should already be on a better team, given his performances internationally, Lake is a devastating opener who takes a massive 33.3% of opening duels on M80. He’s also American, which, given the fact FaZe is an American organisation, is just a nice touch.

How to close the gap

NAVI is the hardest one of all to suggest a change for. Right now, they’re an incredible team. In an event where Vitality isn’t in attendance, they’re without a doubt the favourites, when Vitality are there, however…

Well, we all saw Nuke.

With a team as good as NAVI, it’s hard to say what they should change. But, if this interview with Aleksib from BLAST.tv (yes, I am pretending I didn’t do this interview. F-ck off), is anything to go by, NAVI almost certainly will be making changes to avoid another 3-0 defeat at the hands of their rivals.

At one point in time, the rumour mill suggested it might be Aleksib himself who loses his spot. To be clear, I won’t be entertaining that idea, because I think it’s ridiculous. Why would you look to make other teams stronger so easily?

The other player often touted for benching, then, is iM, with frozen being the player expected to come into the squad to replace him. I’ll be honest, I like this shout a lot. frozen is an incredible player who deserves to be on a championship-calibre roster, and I don’t know when FaZe will be that again. Maybe loyalty to FaZe will blind him to that, though, so who could NAVI look to instead?

Welcome to the last chance saloon, blameF.

Think about it. We all know blameF is an incredible player. He’s a player with the ability to put a team on his back, and he should have been allowed to do that on a team worthy of him years ago

No longer tainted by the baitF moniker, he could easily slot into all of iM’s roles on both sides of a map. Not just that, but thanks to his IGL experience, he could also easily replace iM as a secondary voice, too.

The search for true consistency

PARIVISION are a funny old (young) team. Much like Jame’s old VP rosters (except infinitely more likeable) every now and again, they look unstoppable. They make deep runs, and you seriously believe they can perv their way to a trophy every time.

However, when they’re off, they’re horrible, and it becomes very clear how quickly their playbook becomes stale.

You know what can fix that, though? Headshots.

As time has gone on with PARIVISION at the highest level, it’s become quite apparent that nota is their bottleneck. A solid player on his day, on others, he’s pretty awful. BELCHONOKK and xiELO can both have off days, too, but they don’t have the roles that nota has, so he’s the obvious upgrade point.

And if you’re looking to upgrade on nota and bring in some genuine star power, look no further than Magnojez.

Against top 30 opponents on LAN in 2026, BetBoom’s star man has been monstrous. 1.20-rated (1.24 on T sides alone), he’s had multiple good games against top teams, including three separate strong series against G2.

If PARIVISION want to find consistency through more brute force ability, Magnojez is their man.

Grey skies ahead

By now, Falcons wanted to be flying high above every other team in CS. The reality, though, is that they’ve been grounded by Vitality and many others, and still find themselves with just one trophy to show for almost two and a half years of big spending.

Before recent events, the path was obvious. You kick kyxsan and TeSeS, sign a solid lurker and someone happy to do some grunt work, and shift NiKo to IGL.

But they had to go and sign karrigan, didn’t they?

Now that they’ve done that, I honestly can’t say what they should do. I don’t exactly think TeSeS is good enough for a team with their ambitions, but he’s honestly been decent on CT sides this year. Not only that, but he has a horrid job to do on T sides, and finding someone who will be happy to do that is hard.

karrigan’s system could shift things around to a point where there isn’t someone who has to do that, but the problem that NiKo and kyousuke probably shouldn’t be on a team together is likely to persist, and someone else is going to have to take the weight of making it work.

Is the answer frozen? Jimpphat? b1t? The latter feels most likely, but the real answer, as much as I hate to say it, could just be to not make a move at all. To give this roster time to see how it settles, and figure it out from there.

Besides, if it doesn’t work out in the long run, they’re Falcons, they can just buy someone whenever the f-ck they want.

Say no to FUT fetish

Some people like feet. Me? I love FUT.

Seriously, I love them. All five of them are true Counter-Strike entertainers, and as a result, they never have a dull game. They took a map off Vitality with their coach, ffs.

To be clear, FUT don’t need to make a change. In fact, they need to actively avoid being forced into making one. Which, when you’re an org like FUT, can be extremely difficult.

Hopefully, though, the players realise they have something pretty special where they are right now. All five of them fit into the system seamlessly, and all five of them are having their starring moments.

They’re a team who, without changing anything and just continuing to grind and improve, could become a legitimate contender at well-attended events, and for that reason, their shopping list is simple.

Find a bomb shelter to wait out the incoming rostermania, lads. Because it’s going to be explosive, and I speak for everyone when I say we don’t want to see you caught in the fallout.