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GUIDES
Simple Radar
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hades sent Vitality to the brink of elimination.
Things have gone from worse to… worser for FURIA, great to greater for Spirit and from best in the world to a bit worrying for Vitality.
FURIA are in trouble. Again.
The squad finally – and we mean finally – won their most notable trophy to date at Elisa Espoo in late 2023. They also fought off interest from Liquid in KSCERATO, stepping into 2024 with a settled roster at full strength.
That was the theory, anyway.
What has happened in practice is more alike a car crash.
FURIA took a longer winter break than most, and created space for FalleN’s high production live-streamed wedding. However, neither of those excuse a last-placed exit from Katowice’s play-in (not even the real event) after losses to TheMongolz and Apeks.
One silver lining of their early exit was that they had time to try qualifying for BLAST Showdown, but even there they were bounced out by ‘Phantom Troupe’ in the open qualifier.
A fitting name, since nobody has seen FURIA since they cut HEN1 in the online era.
At Katowice, KSCERATO told Dust 2 that “he wasn’t making the right decisions” in-game.
But that seems true out of game too.
As much as we love skullz, that should be KSCERATO in Liquid right now. He’s got a Percy Jackson level “I love my friends” fatal flaw at this point.
A jail with all your mates, gold windows, and Guga making you steaks every day, is still a jail.
Enough with the Stockholm syndrome — get our boy out of this marketing project!
donk.
We could just end the story there, really. The kid is the talk of the town, and for very good reason.
Team Spirit were the first team qualified to the Spodek, in large parts because their progression game finished so absurdly quickly. donk absolutely fried NAVI twice on maps one and three to give them a 2-1 win, then blitzed Complexity en route to his first Spodek appearance.
And it was remarkably… easy?
We had to double-check to make sure that Spirit had actually qualified, because it was so easy. donk was rarely even challenged - even if Grim said that ELiGE was better - and the rest of the team backed him up.
Over five maps, donk has a rating of 1.55. That’s a one, and then two fives! Admittedly, m0NESY and acoR have a higher rating, but they’ve only played one series so far. donk picked up seven multi-kills in the first half against Complexity. He multi-killed more than he didn’t.
He’s freakishly good - and now he has a chance to prove it in front of a crowd.
In fact, with some of the other results at this event, Spirit kind of look like they might be the best team here. Keep it under your hat, but Vitality are wobbling and FaZe are fallible.
sh1ro and donk have a chance to completely take over.
We don’t really know who is going to finally stop donk. Every potential speed bump seems to be more like a boost pad, and he gets even stronger every time it seems like he might be stopped.
He’s like the Gremlin Nob from Slay the Spire. Every time you try and stop him, he just gets more powerful. We’re sure that reference will hit for 90% of you.
Spirit face FaZe tomorrow for a semi-finals berth - but more importantly, the title of best team in the world for the next… two days, or something.
FURIA aren’t very good.
Roll the camera.
Alright, alright, we’ll give you a little bit more. FURIA really aren’t very good, and they’re under the microscope this week.
We also find some time to laugh at Astralis, which is something we can never get enough of.
Tune in to hear aizyesque and Logan give you some depth to those stories and more:
It’s not every day the god of death personally sends you down the underworld Lower Bracket.
Despite coming into IEM Katowice with BDE, Vitality has started their run in Group B by being knocked down a bracket thanks to ENCE and hades. Fantasy players with ZywOo might be cheering as their crutch player gets to farm more points, but for Vitality, this is mildly concerning.
The team is now facing Heroic, who have something to prove after being m0NESY’d straight into the LB. Sure, we still fancy Vitality in this matchup, but they have very little room for error.
Even after beating Heroic, the next game won’t be a pushover either.
Either MOUZ or GamerLegion will stand to prove their mettle against the reigning CS2 kings, and we’re sure they’ll be eager to send Vitality down to the count.
MOUZ started off hot beating C9, a good result despite the obvious issues on C9. Please sign an AWPer guys. As for GamerLegion, they’ve honestly been incredibly impressive with Snax at the helm. We had our questions about the old-timer’s return, but it seems to be paying off.
As for Group A we’ve already covered Spirit’s run to the Upper Final where they’ll meet FaZe tomorrow in a match to see who qualifies directly to the semis.
But the stories of Rebels and Falcons deserve some attention too. Each team arrived with their own set of expectations. The Rebels managed to meet some of them by making it through the play-in stage but then stood to face the real test.
Both teams were 2-0’d in near identical score-lines, and played each other in the LB, where Falcons came out on top. It’s a little sad to not have the plucky Polish underdogs make it to the Spodek arena, or even a run past day 2, but such is life.
See all the results from Group A and B here.
The bloodbath continues.
Every game today has a survivor, and a victim. Six games, and six teams out of contention.
That’s just how we like it.
We kick off today with action in Group B: Vitality vs. Heroic and Monte vs. Cloud9. Not only will two teams exit, but the winners will continue to fight for their life as they only advance to the lower semi-finals. If you’re shocked by that, you should’ve read the bit above about Vitality losing.
We weren’t joking.
We feel a bit sorry for Heroic, honestly. They lost to a searing-hot m0NESY and now have to topple ZywOo just to stay alive. Perhaps it’s just karma for HUNDEN.
Monte came in very cold yesterday, and need to be a bit sharper to beat Cloud9. Or simply hope that Boombl4 keeps missing his AWP shots.
Meanwhile in the first upper semi-final, ENCE and G2 have a chance to find themselves in the Spodek. It obviously means a lot for both of them, with ENCE being a Polish team and it being where m0NESY’s top-tier career began.
After bumbling their way past Cloud9, MOUZ have to try and sneak past Snax’ GamerLegion in the other semi-final. And he’s quite big.
GamerLegion have been superb in Katowice so far, and while on one hand this game might look like a simple one for MOUZ, we wouldn’t be surprised if GamerLegion blew them away. Genuinely. Snax has called rings round Monte and FaZe already this event.
Over in Group A we’re a bit further ahead:
Falcons and Complexity both have a chance to be the team who inevitably loses to the winner of either NAVI or Eternal Fire.
NAVI are generally quite reliable, while Eternal Fire smashed Falcons and took FaZe to the wire. XANTARES and Wicadia are a demonic duo, and this won’t be easy for NAVI.
Oh, and then there’s another whole day of BO3s before we even get to playoffs that begin on Friday. It’s like Christmas, again!
See an overview of all upcoming matches here.
