Not even just a map, which they did lose to G2, but a real life series. And it was to the apparently dead Team Falcons.

Teams in the rear view mirror may be less dead than they appear.

In fact Falcons have been on a tear, with m0NESY looking like he was back at his peak. He’s far and away the highest rated player at the tournament and for bloody good reason. He smashed Spirit and dominated Vitality basically on his own.

They’re straight into the semis, while Vitality had to settle for a quarter-finals spot after their loss; as did MOUZ, who were beaten by a FURIA team who also seem resurgent. The theme of this tournament has largely been that the good teams are good again.

Which is nice. We were starting to worry that Aurora might be third in the HLTV rankings, which is the equivalent of seeing Benfica in the Champions League quarter-finals. It’s not a good sign for the health of the scene.

Spirit ran the lower bracket gauntlet, somehow dropping a map to RED Canids before 2-0ing G2, which is quite frankly hilarious. Without hally, tN1R looks quite a lot better. Go figure. donk did have his worst ever map against Falcons, and is still one of the highest rated players at the event.

NAVI cruised past HOTU and clapped Aurora’s collective cheeks in the deciding map to secure a spot in the quarter-finals, which was exciting for them until you realise they’re playing Vitality. Oops.

On the negative side, Passion UA (albeit without Senzu) looked appalling, Legacy back to their base level (which means they’ll probably be world-beaters next event) and Team Liquid need to just pack it in.

We’re sick of ‘em.