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GUIDES
Simple Radar
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Liquid are not allowed in London… yet.
BLAST comes to a close with some crazy games, an old friend (or foe) rejoins the fold and Pro League has its battlelines drawn.
It’s a short while off - there’s a whole Major to do first, for example - but the teams are set for the newest season of ESL Pro League.
If December is the player break, April is sort of a viewer break in some ways. Pro League is fun, but… it’s hard to care about every single game. It’s like the FA Cup, or a Steam sale.
We’re sure the qualifying teams are going to change that, though. We can’t wait to watch Bad News Kangaroos and PERA play.
Alright, we’ve got all of our sass out. We can’t wait to watch the best teams in the world play almost constantly for a month in Malta.
No, really.
The qualifiers were this week, hence the story, and we’ve now got a finalised list. Alongside all of your favourite partner teams, and NIP, we’ve now got Bad News Kangaroos (no prizes for guessing which part of the world they came from), PERA, BOSS, Sharks, Imperial, Grayhound, TYLOO and a few others.
3DMAX, TheMongolz, M80, FORZE and Monte have qualified too via other qualifiers.
PERA, a Hungarian team who you probably know very little about but have been doing pretty well in the lower tiers of the game, beat out Guild Eagles to qualify - a team you’ll probably know more about.
Still, there’s time for their biannual Major run, even without the Pro League money.
Bad News Kangaroos banged out Rooster to claim their spot in the Maltese sun, as Sharks and Imperial came out of the Brazilian bloodbath with heads held high, beating out 9z, paiN, Fluxo, MIBR (who lost to adalYamigos in the Ro16) and BESTIA.
In North America, M80 and BOSS moved ahead of Party Astronauts, Nouns, Evil Geniuses (the removed team using the old name) and… Mythic and Bad News Bears, we guess.
M80 have really stepped up to be the best team in the region. It would be a real shame if they were to cut their IGL with no explanation.
Katowice has long been one of the premier showings of Counter-Strike, so naturally it needs the broadcast talent to match.
The usual suspects are at play with Maniac, YNk, Mauisnake and Pimp all there. Bubzkji also makes an appearance after being a lovely addition to the BLAST desk, but he isn't the headliner.
The marquee name is steel, yes Joshua Nissan of iBuyPower and 100T Valorant fame is joining the desk at IEM Katowice. Sorry Valorant scene, can’t help that ours is the better game.
Even former CS caster Lauren “Pansy” Scott can't help but be a bit jealous. You're always welcome back Pansy.
As for the rest of the talent, it's more familiar faces.
Harry x Hugo, launders x Scrawny, and SPUNJ x Machine all headline the casters.
And naturally the hosts have a star-studded line up too. From Freya and sjokz to the great OJ Borg and friend of the newsletter DarfMike.
That's not even everyone but we couldn't possibly cover the whole stacked lineup. This Katowice might be the best talent lineup we've ever seen.
We don't realise how lucky we are.
After a week of action BLAST’s low-stake (but higher than last year’s) curtain raiser is complete.
And, with the double brackets of each groups complete, it acutally ended roughly as we expected.
Virtus.pro and NAVI — after beating G2 twice, taking Aleksib’s international record against former teams to 18-3 — won their groups with relative ease to secure Spring Final spots, while world No. 1 and 2, Vitality and FaZe, completed lower bracket runs.
FaZe earned the spot over Twistzz’s Liquid to put that embarrassing loss to GamerLegion behind them, even overcoming a classic cadiaN clutch to do so.
Vitality had it harder. apEX and company, after Astralis shocked them in the upper bracket final, dropped down low to cut Magisk’s Falcons down to size to set up a rematch against the Danes in the group final.
Astralis are more of a firepower team than a tactical one these days, and are finally contenders again, but in a brawl we’d always choose to be on ZywOo’s team.
And, so it proved, as 2023’s best player dropped a 1.50 rating while Vitality withstood two Astralis comebacks (from 4-9 to a win on map one, and from 4-11 to overtime on map two) to book mezii a ticket to a home event in London’s Spring Final.
With the groups completed, we then went to the play-in stage, two shootouts for two final spots at London.
Astralis, after coming so close vs Vitality, expected a quick win vs Major-less BIG but the Germans turned up with an ally for OT in map three: jabbi’s mouse.
Yet, somehow, that absolute tilter of a round had little impact as Astralis survived a scare for a 2-1 win.
One spot was left, with a heayweight clash between G2 and Liquid.
NiKo, after a 1-11 K-D and 0.03 T side against NAVI yesterday, was in the crosshairs but turned up to spank Liquid around on Anubis.
G2 have an uphill battle against the endless mob of jks stans, but outperforming the highly-rated Liquid lineup is a good start. Get NiKo into aim_botz, and who knows what TaZ, HooXi and nexa can cook?
We hate to bring some sadness to your Monday morning, but we think we have to cover this story.
Late on Friday night, the public were informed of the passing of Nouns player cynic at just 23 years old, with the details of his passing kept - understandably - close to the team and his family.
The American was a staple in the NA scene, and had played every role at some point in time. A talented player and by all accounts a lovely, if shy, guy to be around, he will be a big miss not just to his team, and his family, but to the Counter-Strike scene as a whole.
Rest in peace, David. Our thoughts are with his family and his friends this week.
