New season. New rosters. Same online bullsh-t.

BLAST Bounty Season 2 has officially kicked off the second half of the year (no, XSE is NOT canon), giving us our first look at the aftermath of rostermania. Sure, you can’t draw many conclusions from a single online BO3… but overreacting is kind of our thing. What’s the fun otherwise?

Let’s start with the good. MOUZ, FaZe, NIP, and paiN all swept past Nuclear TigeRES, EYEBALLERS, M80, and Gentle Mates without much trouble. PR looked right at home on his return, jcobbb actually contributed for once, and for the love of God, someone get yxngstxr on a proper team. You’d think the guy’s earned it by now.

Now for the bad. Despite ultimately beating Nemiga, OG, and Nemesis, G2, Spirit, and Astralis all looked far shakier than they’d have liked to in their season openers. The biggest takeaway is that we can put the r1nkle signing firmly in the flop category. Who could’ve seen that coming?

Spirit, meanwhile, came dangerously close to the ugly territory. Somehow, donk and friends needed double overtime on the Ancient decider to scrape past cadiaN and pr1metapz in the big 2026. Seriously, what the f-ck is a pr1metapz?

Speaking of the ugly… oh, Falcons. Fresh off their well-earned post-Major vacation, the Cologne champions stumbled at the very first hurdle. 100 Thieves lived up to their name, stealing the series after a sick comeback from 3-9 down on Anubis. Want to know why Gizmy is the truth? Keep reading.

After surviving the absolute hell of online Russian opposition in the StarLadder Closed Qualifier relatively unscathed, new-look Aurora slipped where we least expected them to. Fresh off an offseason with two roster changes of their own, FOKUS managed to pull off the 2-1 upset. For a team with Aurora’s ambitions, that’s a match you have to win. Then again, we’re pretty sure this doesn’t happen on LAN.

Two days and twelve matches in, the opening round is still going strong. Stage 1’s final four series wrap up today, with HEROIC versus The MongolZ the one we’ll keep the closest eye on.