Loading…
GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
... and ends EPL group play. Take that, Gary from Pokemon Red.
Edition #402 | sep 25tH, 2023
If it wasn't for all the CS2 updates over the past month, we feel like it's been a bit like groundhog day going through one EPL group after the other.
But that all ends this week - playoffs are here baby! And so is CS2, maybe.
Here's what we got for you on this glorious Monday:
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
L. Vision
0
2
Liquid
CoL
1
2
G2
E. Fire
2
0
Liquid
Astralis
1 Day
E. Fire
MOUZ
1 Day
FURIA
MSL retires
It’s a sad, sad week for Counter-Strike. And we’re not talking about Complexity winning a game, yet.
Old favourite of the newsletter MSL - not least for our various links/obsessions with North five years ago - has announced his retirement from Counter-Strike with CS2’s release coming imminently.
His post doesn’t mention CS2 being a catalyst, but one has to assume that having fallen from grace already, the climb back to the top from scratch in a new game seems incredibly daunting. At least, for us boomers it does.
While MSL’s career post-North has largely been a footnote in history (if we’re being generous), it’s important to not reframe history. MSL was a respected, if sometimes abrasive, leader, who improved and refined many great players in the Danish scene and collected two huge trophies and a couple of smaller ones.
This was while his best players were often being stolen. Dignitas lost their stars regularly, and MSL found the newest piece of shiny straw to turn into solid gold. While he wasn’t the most glamorous leader, he should be respected.
He wasn’t always well-liked, but he achieved more than plenty of other IGLs who are rated well above him for some reason. Naming no names, of course (Aleksib).
MSL’s instagram post suggests that the ‘obvious route’ would be to become a coach, but that ‘something else is calling’. We just hope it’s not Riot Games. Or Evil Geniuses.
While some of you will joke at MSL’s expense - he made himself an easy target, at times - it’s always a shame to lose a piece of Counter-Strike history. Goodbye, fearless leader.
We hope you come back to CS some day, stronger.
TWEET OF THE WEEK
"What are you doing next Wednesday?"
ROSTER MOVES
If you’re from the UK or US, you might’ve heard of the phrase: “Adopt, don’t shop.” It’s supposed to spread awareness for adoption of dogs instead of going to breeders.
Well, here at tl;dr we’ve taken it upon ourselves to spread the word to Counter-Strike. Instead of organisations buying out a load of players and making a team like that, why not adopt an already existing 5 man-roster?
Look at this recent success story:
Or, as a team, adopt yourself, like these guys did:
But please don’t follow this example:
Recommendations
EPL GROUP D PLAYOFFS
International rebuild this. CIS superteam that.
How about you pluck a bloke out of your mediocre academy and just teach him to multi-kill 5 T-side gun rounds in a row?
That’s what Eternal Fire did this summer, picking up woxic for the upteenth time and pairing him with a secret weapon, the 18-year-old Wicadia.
First, Eternal Fire 2-0d Cloud9, just a few days after the same team gave them a spanking not once but twice: In the BLAST Showdown qualifier on the 17th, and then the EPL opener on the 20th.
It’s not like it was that close, either. They 16-6d them on Vertigo (after beating ‘best vertigo team in the world’ 9INE on it too) before a tighter affair on map two.
Next was Liquid, who are yet to make a dent with their fancy international lineup.
In fairness to our traitors to the American scene friends from Rotterdam, Liquid did play Lynn Vision at 12:30 on Sunday, only having a few hours to prep for Eternal Fire.
But 9z and FURIA managed to qualify after playing twice on the Sunday, so we’re not having it as an excuse.
Though neither of them faced something as terrifying as the XANTARES-Wicadia duo on Vertigo.
XANTARES had FIVE HUNDRED utility damage by round 10 of Vertigo. He and YEKINDAR were having a duel of the fates on the Ramp, before Wicadia emerged out of nowhere to subvert expectations harder than one of Rian Johnson’s student films.
Wicadia was the xfl0ud replacement, and he’s banging 30 kills against Liquid? And a 1.54 on the same map against Cloud9? This is art.
RyanAtDust2 is burning his Liquid jersey as we speak. nafany has opened five caskets of Smirnoff. mauisnake has found a new scapegoat: groove in a tracksuit.
We all know that group stage Pro League results only matter when they’re funny, and let’s just say that these ones are very very funny.
And that wraps up the EPL Groups. Complexity, G2, Virtus.pro and Eternal Fire move on to the playoffs that begin this Tuesday:
😡 Rage inducing
🔨 Ban or no ban?
🔮 What the future holds…
