Edition #394 | AUG 28th, 2023

We’ve been living off of qualifiers, PARI Dunav Parties and Pinnacle Cups all week. We need some device drama and Vitality dominance again.

MATCH HIGHLIGHTS

Astralis

1

2

00NATION

VP

1

2

Spirit

FURIA

2 Days

Movistar

Astralis

2 Days

NIP

• The Tier 2 Classico: We’re seeing a lot of Virtus.pro vs Spirit it feels like, and both teams go blow for blow constantly. Most recently, though, Spirit got the upper hand with a third map double OT win - exactly what you’d expect from a game between these two.

00NATION vs Astralis

A crazy ride

What’s the biggest rollercoaster you’ve ever been on?

We guarantee it’s not as crazy as the emotional rollercoaster that 00NATION went on in the Pinnacle Cup.

Having toppled Astralis in an impressive first map, 00NATION took to Astralis’ Overpass pick on the CT side, and flew into a massive lead. 6-0 became 9-1, became 13-2. syrsoN was absolutely frying, and was - in a server with device in it - not just the best AWPer, but the best player in the server.

Mind you, if it was that simple, we wouldn’t have intro’d the story like that.

They even won the pistol, and the following round. 00NATION were up 15-2, until the wheels came well and truly flying off.

Their T side - albeit understandably, given they’re a new team - was disjointed beyond belief, and they couldn’t find an opening pick to save their lives. Even when they finally did, it was to no end.

syrsoN couldn’t really do much more, in fairness. He ended regulation with 31 kills, and basically single handedly won the first round of OT with a frankly ridiculous 4k sprinting out of Monster.

In the first round of OT, they immediately won a T round. Hilarious.

00NATION would go onto, somehow, lose the map in fourth OT, collecting at least one T round in each OT. Astralis would be allowed to live, against all odds.

But if you’ve ever seen Final Destination, you know what happens to those who escape death.

After an exhausting second map that saw 00NATION choke from 15-2 to lose in quad OT, they picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and cut one of the best teams in the world down to size with a bizarrely comfortable Nuke.

They even won nine T rounds.

TWEET OF THE WEEKEND

RpK might unretire again

"Hello guys, I'm looking for an international team, main goal would be to win the Copenhagen Cs2 Major. I want to beat the best which is Vitality! Serious offers only! 😈🙊"

- RpKTANKK

Smaller events

Counter-Strike is happening!

In the downtime between Gamers8 and ESL Pro League, which isn’t a long time but certainly feels like it, we’ve got a couple of smaller things to really keep us ticking over.

nafany will be at IEM Sydney to take aim at the teammates who kicked him out, as his new team BetBoom pushed past the ever-resilient 9INE to qualify along with Apeks.

BetBoom are an interesting team; while being a ragtag bunch of misfits, they’re from Russia, so even the misfits are better than most players from anywhere else in the world. zorte joined after missing out on his EG move, s1ren after leaving Spirit and KaiR0N- after VP.

All excellent players - but it was danistzz who came up clutch in the deciding series and deciding map, dropping 25 on Anubis.

Over in the America qualifier, we’re getting the most expected outcome possible. Complexity 2-0’d M80 to ensure they can go out 13-16th in yet another big event, instead of letting someone else… go out last. Still, very inconsiderate!

For the Asian qualifier, the winners were actually Lynn Vision, who smacked TheMongolz and 5yclone (ex-Rare Atom), before beating 5yclone again in the final, to ensure a deserved berth in Sydney.

We also had the… squints PARI Dunav Party 2023, where Team Spirit won out over Virtus.pro, which is becoming a very common series in these types of events. donk continued his reign of terror, perhaps unsurprisingly.

STUFF WE LIKE

Tunes to carry you through the week

• Head honcho and ideas man Crash_ is in love with the ‘lyrical greatness’ that comes with 🎵 Mick Jenkins’ new album. “Laced with his jazz inspired sound throughout”, apparently. We nodded along as though we really understood what we’re listening to.
• Trust the American side of TLDR to come up with some country music. 🤠 Colter Wall ‘boasts one of the most distinctive voices in not just country music, but music full stop’, was sxmba’s recommendation. He actually said ‘period’, but it’s a full stop. Full stop.
• Lot of musical recommendations this week; beefkeeper suggests 🎶 ‘mfn Mord Fustang’, which is ‘heavy hitting like a stadium performing EDM artist’. It’s music to get hype to, but we don’t recommend trying to, for example, write a newsletter to it.
• Hip-hop head napz wants to ‘bring that Beastie Boys vibe back’ with 📻 Joey Valance and Brae’s tunes. It’s very old-school sounding. We feel like we’re playing JetSet Radio.
• aizyesque has been watching a ton of battle rap this week, and this 📺 one minute clip from the new Irish champion Vizual encapsulates everything cool about the art form. We won’t bore you with the whole battle, it’s a little bit too Irish. And pretentious.

Pro League 18 preview

Autumn come early

Thank the lord.

The one week drought is over, and Pro League is almost upon us. This is not only great for our daily Counter-Strike-watching routine, but excellent for the newsletter. No longer will we have to know what a PARI Dunav Party is.

While there’s four groups to get through before the playoffs, we’ll only get into the first group this week so that we don’t explode.

We’ve got Vitality, Astralis, NIP, FURIA, Grayhound, GamerLegion, ORKS and Movistar Riders entering the Malta cauldron (or indeed, cupboard) this week. You might be wondering who ORKS are, and that would be entirely reasonable.

They’re a strange Polish mix team, with mwlky, olimp, Vegi, sNx (no, not Snax sadly) and the sole non-Pole, HS, who apparently still plays professionally. Good on you.

They do kick it off against Vitality, though, so they might be in trouble. They play in the later slot, along with Astralis vs NIP (or the device derby, as you may know it), with the winners playing each other.

The other half of the bracket sees FURIA vs Movistar Riders and Grayhound vs GamerLegion. Neither game sounds that appealing on paper, but…

Erm. We’re sure there’s something.

Movistar Riders have picked up adamS and JUST of recent, from Romania and Portugal respectively, which just about keeps them Spanish, but also keeps them largely… underwhelming. We’re not really all that excited to watch them.

They might beat FURIA, though, who have been all kinds of naff recently.

GamerLegion will probably smack Grayhound as well - they’ve been superb recently, and should probably make it to the upper final from this side of the bracket.

It’s the start of five weeks of Counter-Strike between the best teams in the world.

Want a look at all the brackets? Check liquipedia.

Everything Else

Couldn’t be clearer

😮 Amazeballs

• We never knew we needed an orchestra playing the CS:GO theme in our lives. In fact, we need so bad, we think they should be hired for the next CS:GO Majo- ah, that’s gonna be a problem.
• Not only is Potter making history by defeating Voldemort lifting this trophy; she’s doing it together with fellow former CS players Ethan and c0m. You’re welcome VALORANT.
• Who needs Apple’s history in photo’s in a $199 book when you can get flusha’s history in photo’s for free?

💰 A big bag of dollarinhos

• Half a million: that’s what’s at stake this November’s CS:GO Asia Championship.
• As if having the world’s best player wasn’t already enough, Arsenal’s Zinchenko is now dropping wads of cash into the Ukrainian scene as well. Maybe he wants to finally be part of a winning team?

🙏 Preach

• Finally, someone who put our positive mindset towards CS2 into words. Be critical, but stop nagging!