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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
It’s really really bad. Shamone.
Edition #407 | oct 13th, 2023
Hopefully those Michael Jackson puns haven’t completely put you off - because they won’t be the last.
In today's edition we get into game updates, IEM Sydney preview and speculation into who might replace cadiaN in Heroic.
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
NAVI
2 Days
Apeks
Vitality
2 Days
BetBoom
fnatic
2 Days
C9
G2
2 Days
Grayh.
CS:GO STILL PLAYABLE
Counter-Strike 2 is here, but some people are more resistant to the future than others.
Negative nancies are pointing to subtick, MMR bugs, lower performance, MR12, and obscure Michael Jackson references as they decry the state of CS2. CS:GO was perfect on launch, of course.
But if you are one of our nostalgia goggle wearing readers, you should be pleased to hear that CS:GO will remain available in the ‘Betas’ tab of Counter-Strike 2 in Steam properties.
It will keep all of its features (except official matchmaking) which should keep community servers alive for a while yet.
So you can keep surfing, climbing, retaking, executing, or 10-manning in the best game of all time. Panic over!
Support for the game will be lifted on January 1, but by and large it will be left in the state it is in now — which is, to say, bloody brilliant.
It’ll take a while for CS2 to get up to that level, so if you want to take s1mple’s advice and avoid it for a few months, know that you can easily go back to the warm embrace of Global Offensive.
Go on, we won’t judge you.
Replacing cadiaN
Our favourite Billy Beane-wannabe Harry, professionally known by his stage name NER0, did all of our work for us and wrote a long piece about just how Heroic can go about replacing their talismanic AWPer.
All we have to do is make it shorter. So here goes: they can’t.
It boils down to having to replace some parts of what cadiaN does but not all of it, or try and turn stavn into cadiaN.
If you want an AWPer, Harry recommends regali - a Danish-speaking, cheaper-than-device sniper who has impressed on an otherwise lacklustre OG team.
But that would mean stavn would be an IGL, so maybe instead it’d be worth signing gla1ve, or maybe Patti, maNkz or TMB if you want to take more of a risk. gla1ve is a proven winner - or at least was, and was also a very capable rifler who might be able to replace stavn’s rifle prowess.
Of course, that might not cut it - we need firepower. We need… dupreeh or k0nfig, apparently. We’re very on-board for dupreeh, but that might be nostalgia talking.
You can always put Jabbi back to more aggressive roles and pick up a new ‘closer’, otherwise known as a [expletive] clutcher in our matchmaking games. Harry recommends Altekz, as he always does, or Zyphon which…
Well, is a little underwhelming. In fact, that’s a running theme.
Every option comes with a problem, and all of them lead to stavn either AWPing or IGLing unless one of the other player decides to take up the mantle. Altekz, Zyphon, dupreeh, gla1ve… none of them can match stavn’s output as a rifler. Well, at least in group stages.
cadiaN wasn’t just the face of Heroic, he WAS Heroic.
A player who created and led the well-oiled Heroic machine, and who dragged them through tough moments. No replacement will ever be the same, so you have to go another direction.
Maybe regali is the guy. Or maybe it’s worth asking MSL to come out of retirement.
IEM Sydney
Ready to flip the Counter-Strike world upside down?
You’ll have to start with your sleep schedule - IEM Sydney starts on Monday, and you might be wondering why we’re not waiting ‘til the Monday edition for the preview.
And the answer is, that we were going to until we remembered that ‘Monday’ actually means Sunday night demon hours.
This is the first big event on the new game, and we’re sure it’s going to go smoothly. At least, slide back smoothly.
Uh, that joke was meant for the next story. It’ll make sense in a bit.
If you’re willing to pull an all-nighter, wake up stupid early or live east of Europe, you’ll be treated to a plethora of tasty MR12 morsels. Blink, and you’ll miss NAVI vs Apeks and MOUZ vs VERTEX; especially the latter, which will be over in about 15 minutes.
nafany begins his revenge tour as BetBoom face Vitality, FaZe meet GamerLegion, ENCE take on Lynn Vision, fnatic square off with Cloud9, and now we’re out of ways to say that one team is playing another.
Monte vs Complexity and… G2 start their campaign against Grayhound. There we go. It’s a bloody lovely list of games, but they’re all BO1, so will take about four hours to go through. By the time we wake, the BO3s will have started (7:30AM EU), with the final games beginning at 10:30AM.
Thankfully, we’ve got the rest of the event to enjoy, as it runs ‘til Sunday. Truthfully, we’ve got absolutely no idea who is going to win it. If we had to put money on it, ENCE seem like the easiest choice.
The Counter-Strike world has been turned upside-down, though, so who knows. Perhaps it truly is Grayhound’s time.
Podcast
Sorry we missed you all last week; turns out Logan has a ‘real job’, whatever one of those is. We made up for it with a fast-paced bumper episode this time around.
LISTEN NOW
Michael Jackson peeks take over CS2
Regardless of what you think about CS2, we can all admit it’s had some issues so far. But this most recent one is probably the funniest/most bizarre of the lot.
Introducing The Michael Jackson Peek.
This clip quickly went all over CS Twitter with quite a few users, including our own aizyesque, coming out of the woodwork to report that this has happened to them. At this point though, it wasn’t Black or White whether this physics-defying swing was recreatable.
That was until someone on Reddit figured it out.
User u/T1ckbase created a config so that anyone, even you, can swing like the king. Because if you can’t Beat It, join it.
Terrifically original jokes aside though, this issue seemed to have cropped up right after Valve fixed the hitboxes. Since the original clip was made with the build version, it’s hard to tell if it was already in the game before that patch. But regardless, CS2 seems to be the world's biggest game of bug whack-a-mole right now.
You have to wonder, Valve are you okay? Are you okay Valve?
Editors note: If you want to avoid the wrath of the moonwalker, good news! Right when this piece was wrapped Valve released a patch fixing the bug. “Thanks” for making us re-write but kudos on the fix.
Oh and no, we’re not sorry for any of the jokes in this piece.
Everything Else
🔫 Counting two strikes
🐶 New opportunities, old dogs
🧳 Any other business?