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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
The talisman, the centrepiece, el Jefe is out.
Edition #405 | oct 6th, 2023
cadiaN isn't the only one who is out in a surprising twist, as zonic leaves Vitality and Liquid begin their newest drought.
Meanwhile, BLAST have a sneakily big event occurring.
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
C9
2
0
Movistar
G2
2
1
OG
BIG
Today
ENCE
COL
Today
EG
Zonic leaves Vitality
Remember the last roster shuffle when BOROS was linked to every team in CS and somehow he went to FALCONS? Well, that wasn’t the bird's last screech.
Falcons’ newest signing is even more impressive: zonic, arguably the greatest coach in CS history will be joining them in November. He’s not joining alone either, Robl, ex-Astralis (the good years) and now Vitality’s sports psychologist, will also be heading there.
You might say that sounds like a package deal, and we thought so too, but it’s actually far more embarrassing for Vitality.
Robl was originally the only one in contact with Falcons, the Saudi-backed org, until they caught wind of something. The #1 CS team in the world, guided to dominance by zonic, offered the Danish coach a pay cut… to stay. What?
You have to respect the balls of Vitality to make such an offer but suddenly it also makes sense as to why he’s moving on. Especially if zonic’s rumoured salary, pegging him at “more than 99,9% of Tier 1 player”, is correct. Falcons, hit us up if you need writers, we’ll take 1/10th of that.
Now, we’re at risk of sounding like an Apple keynote here but: wait, there’s more.
That rumour from KRL didn’t just include zonic and Robl, it also mentioned that Magisk and Dupreeh might follow them. Insane if true…
Regardless of whether that rumour is true, poaching zonic and Robl from Vitality is a great win for Falcons. Given time, they’ve both proven to create winning teams. Maybe CS2’s first breakthrough org is here? We’re sure the Saudi money will help too.
Falcon’s lineup:
🇫🇷 NBK- (IGL)
🇫🇷 bodyy
🇵🇱 mhL
🇯🇴 BOROS
🇷🇴 lauNX
🇩🇰 zonic (coach)
🇩🇰 Lars Robl (sports psychologist)
Liquid make some changes
The EU experiment has been cut short, and this one didn’t even need Nigel Farage to break it up.
We’re sure that joke hit for all of our non-European readers.
Team Liquid’s much-criticised move away from North America has had the desired outcome, at least for the irked Americans. They’ve… gone back to being a North American team before the end of the year.
Not quite as you might expect, though.
The YEKINDAR IGL arc is coming to a close after Showdown (who could have seen that coming), with, and we’re not joking here, daps joining the team. As a player. For real. This isn’t a prank, as far as we’re aware.
We assume this is a short-term thing, until Team Liquid can find another IGL who is willing to join the madhouse and try and keep Patsi and YEKINDAR on a leash.
stanislaw has marked himself as ‘Interested’ on Facebook.
For daps’ return, there had to be a sacrifice - and that sacrifice was rainwaker, perhaps unsurprisingly. The Bulgarian has looked like a player who has spent his career playing in the tier below, which is exactly what he is.
Sometimes players make the leap immediately, sometimes they need some time. Clearly, Liquid didn’t have time to give.
So they made the most logical choice possible. Bringing back daps.
Obviously.
BLAST SHOWDOWN
We’re not saying BLAST Showdown was an afterthought, it’s just that… in the original outline of the newsletter, we’d forgotten to include it.
For those of you who aren’t completely au fait with the BLAST ecosystem, Showdown is a last chance qualifier for the big teams who fail and a chance for teams outside of the partner system to make their way in.
We will say, there’s plenty of big names here. In Europe, G2, Cloud9, ENCE, BIG and OG are all in the mix with just one spot on offer, and in North America there’s… alright, you got us there. Liquid, FURIA and Complexity are there, at least.
All of the qualified teams from outside the partner system got smacked in round one, as Cloud9 2-0’d Movistar, ENCE took care of Alliance and BIG wiped out 9INE. OG, as they usually do, lost to G2 in the first round and left the tournament.
We’re in the semi-finals, though, and this is where it gets fun.
Cloud9 take on G2 tomorrow, facing the winner of BIG and ENCE. These are massive games, really, as only one spot in the biggest events left this year is up for grabs for some of the best teams in the world.
It’s also probably the lastest-last, final cut, finished for real this time CSGO event. Maybe.
We might have forgotten about it this morning, but we’ll be glued to our screens this weekend.
cadiaN leaves Heroic
Oh.
Of all the moves we thought we might see this season, this was not even close to the front of our minds.
Heroic’s period of relative disappointment did have an air of inevitability around it - a move was always going to happen, but the last person we expected to leave was cadiaN.
The talismanic AWPer has been at the centre of everything Heroic have done, both good and bad, for the last few years. A ferocious leader, a world class clutcher and by all accounts a pretty likeable guy (at least if he’s on your team) - cadiaN has been Mr Heroic.
Of course, Heroic’s rise hasn’t been without issue. Their constant choking (and it’s fair to call it that, in our opinion) in big playoff games is infuriating, not least for the players themselves, and has led to their trophy cabinet not reflecting their dominance over the CSGO scene.
Heroic and cadiaN both point to a difference in opinion over the future direction of the team, though to us it seems like they both agreed that Heroic needed to change something.
cadiaN has built a team with a defined system, obvious win conditions and a style of play much akin to the now-popular ‘Gegenpressing’ football. It’s aggressive, no time to breathe, in your face, heavy metal Counter-Strike, and when it works, it’s beautiful.
But much like Jurgen Klopp teams, Heroic’s system has broken down in the big moments.
Clearly, they’ve pointed the finger at the IGL. Even though, ironically, it felt at times like he was the one holding the team together in the biggest games.
What’s next? Nobody is quite sure. It’s a journey we’re excited to watch though. It might go to new heights, or it might crash and burn. Either way, it’s going to be fun.
Everything Else
✨ Shiny and new CS2 isn’t always so shiny
🔀 Call the scene an iPod, cuz it’s on shuffle
👍 Good news!