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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
Tonight, Matthew, I’m going to be donk.
The best player in the world begins his assault on the Katowice trophy - and ZywOo went out last. The game is fixed (ish) and Falcons are flying.
Plus our very own aizyesque just turned 28. Show some love with a happy birthday reply to this email.
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If you had to give up 60 FPS, but in return get peekers advantage fixed, would you take the offer? Well, you already have.
CS2’s newest “A Call to Arms” update brings a whole host of changes with the highlights being: a new Arms Race (duh), changes to the way smokes work, and like we mentioned earlier, a fix for the peekers advantage problem.
The best part? This fix actually seems to work and it’s not just Valve claiming to have solved the problem. Just see what our own crew had to say:
But what else is new? Besides being able to hold angles again.
Well, we’ve got everyone’s favourite thing, a new case called Kilowatt. And this case is extra special: it includes a new knife AND a zeus skin, which our overlords instantly realised would be entirely useless, so they made the zeus rechargeable. Don't worry though, it takes so long that it won’t make a difference.
That’s not the only skin-related change either. Stickers can now be placed anywhere on a gun. Yes anywhere, and you can imagine that’s had predictable results.
As for the new smokes, the two most important things are how they now hide player shadows plus a fix to the bug that allowed you to see enemies on the radar through smokes.
Some silent drops have also been patched, noteably, the ones where you had to slide down walls.
Last, and certainly least, Valve added an “XP Overlord” icon that changes depending on how many times you’ve hit the XP bonus limit. This has been met with a resounding “why” and “this clutters up the kill feed” so it’s already been removed from said kill feed and is now only visible in the scoreboard.
That’s about it, but if you’re a massive nerd and want to see the details, just click here. Don’t worry, we’re nerds too.
Maybe Snappi and zonic do know what they’re doing, after all.
From the ashes rose not a phoenix, this time, but five Falcons. The new superteam looked dead in the water in Katowice, but with their backs against the wall in Group A they stood taller than anyone expected.
Well, anyone who watched them in their other games, anyway.
Falcons looked incredibly shaky against Rebels in their first elimination game - having been dicked by Eternal Fire - and stumbled past Complexity into a showdown with NAVI.
NAVI had beaten Apeks and Eternal Fire in much more convincing fashion, and when NAVI raced into a 10-3 lead on Ancient, it looked done and dusted; but you don’t put Magisk away that easily.
Falcons won 10 of the next 11 rounds, including a forcebuy that seemed to break NAVI’s spirit, concentration and minds entirely in the next round, and romped to a dominant victory on Mirage.
Their 13-4 victory was their first recorded game on the map, by the way.
We’ll refrain from calling Aleksib a massive chok- ah, too late.
Elsewhere, donk absolutely eviscerated FaZe almost single handedly to top that group, having torn Complexity and NAVI to shreds already. We mentioned Complexity’s loss to Falcons, but it’s important to note because just a month ago we all thought they might be okay.
Dear reader, they are not okay.
Group B was pretty wild, really. ENCE 2-0’d G2 to become the first Polish team in the Spodek since VP, but found themselves on the end of a beating by MOUZ, who quietly look like a top three team in the world right now.
Despite an impressive win over Monte, GamerLegion couldn’t finish off Heroic in the lower bracket. They actually looked very good at this event, though - Heroic, too, surprisingly solid.
Speaking of which…
Do you remember on Monday when we talked about Vitality being on the brink of elimination? They lost a rip-roaring series to Heroic to go out in last place alongside Rebels, Apeks and… Cloud9.
The less said about Cloud9, the better. They got spanked by a Monte team who didn’t look at their best.
G2 eventually cleaned up Heroic in the deciding game to join ENCE and MOUZ, and have a chance to retain their crown.
It’s my birthday (edit: aizyesque), and I’ll be unhinged if I want to.
The best way to warm up to this playoff weekend is with a high-energy episode full of raving about donk, xertioN glazing and Aleksib mocking.
We went a bit crazy with Kato fever this week. How can you not?
Also, Counter-Strike is so back, baby!
Katowice’s group stage has blown the scene wide open.
We thought Vitality would be here. We thought donk might have a 1.20 rating on his big event debut, not 1.62 (!) We thought gla1ve and ENCE would have made their short trip home during the play-in.
But it would be boring if everything went to plan. Even if it means ZywOo and donk’s meeting will have to wait until the Major.
For now, we have NEO vs TaZ as coaches of G2 vs FaZe, two international heavyweights ready to duke it out for the spoils of the win and the applause of Spodek.
Then dycha and hometown heroes ENCE face the ‘snakes’: his former teammates maden, Snappi, and SunPayus who made the switch to Falcons.
Awaiting them in semis are CS2’s most nailed on talents. siuhy is too obvious with his potential, leading a MOUZ that is even younger than the ultra-young 2023 roster after reigniting Brollan’s career.
And you know who we’ve left out: donk has survived every test he had thrown at him.
First LAN? MVP. First Big Event: 1.62 rating, cautioned for trash talk, and Valve nerfing his exact style of play.
You fear that the only thing that can stop donk is something he is yet to face: A hostile crowd.
But there’s no evidence that anything has ever fazed this lil Siberian 17-year-old. Can Spodek really break him?
It’s not all about him either. We haven’t even mentioned sh1ro’s supreme consistency, zont1x’s Magisk cosplay, magixx’s nack for impact, and the system of chopper and hally.
Spirit have gone from challengers to favourites. A whopping 55% of pick’em players think they will win the event.
But if history is anything to go off, the script exists to be re-written. Could Spirit, after a meteoric rise to the top, be next to be knocked off their perch?
Tune in this weekend to find out.
