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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
It’s all going to a good place.
Complexity. NAVI. Eternal Fire. FaZe. MOUZ. Spirit. They’re all starting stories of the crazy, joyful melee of Copenhagen.
From your 0-3 pick to making it big, TheMongolz is the big upset of the Major so far. Oh, and Imperial is looking good too.
TheMongolz looked out of it when they went down 0-2 on the opening day of CS2’s first Major. We already counted our Diamond Coins and got ready to move on to the Elimination stage. Unfortunately for us, TheMongolz had other plans. They fought Amkal to the bitter end to avoid a 0-3, and with that newfound confidence, they swept Lynn Vision and Legacy. Mzinho was the undisputed MVP of this TheMongolz run, playing like a man teen possessed.
Imperial on the other hand is not so much a story of coming back, as much as a story of inconsistency.
They beat ENCE, lost to Heroic, Beat Apeks, Lost to ECSTATIC, and then beat GamerLegion. Sending Keoz back to Dubai, and making his Girlfriend happy in the process. With Imperial and TheMongolz success, that also means both teams have won their region an extra spot for the Shanghai Major. Especially huge for China, who will be hoping to send a home team.
The Opening Stage standings were:
Made by u/thebrainypole
Reports of North America’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
It’s possible that we’ve used that joke before, but we’re 450 newsletters in. Cut us some slack.
After all the talk of NA’s untimely death, and the rise of Brazil as a genuine threat, you’d be forgiven for expecting Complexity to capitulate - especially given they just squeaked through in the Americas RMR.
Maybe the Americas RMR is actually tougher than the European one.
Complexity sit at 2-0, and ELiGE is the third highest-rated player at the event.
paiN were first up to try and halt the unstoppable tide of North America, and found their resistance to be futile before HEROIC were up to the plate.
Complexity found themselves with three map points on the T side of Vertigo following three consecutive explosions but fumbled the bag and failed to produce even a plant in the last three to let HEROIC back in.
But the American heroes held strong — through a full overtime, just long enough to let their superstar shine through with one of the filthiest triples you’ll see all year.
North America is back, baby. North America is one BO3 win from the playoffs. Complexity are making it happen.
Now all they have to do is win one of them. Their first chance comes today, against MOUZ, at 3pm European time.
If they win, we’ll tell you every game from here at Freedom Time (tm) instead of that poxy European time. Probably.
Or they’ll go 2-3, somehow.
Because North America is on top, we had to ditch our European host and bring in some extra American genius.
Maths nerd and all-around lovely fella Scoobster joins Logan to talk about the biggest event in Counter-Strike.
Better late than never, eh Valve? Suck is forever after all.
We don't blame you if you’ve not followed the drama surrounding the stickers, even if it has been extremely entertaining. To get everyone on the same page, stickers didn’t come out when we expected them to, which was already odd. No one entirely knew why, until ECSTATIC co-owner zipeL tweeted that Valve wanted everyone to re-do their signature at the Major. Wait what?
Why would Valve want that, you might ask. Well, apparently, players are a lot less creative than you’d think. And they don’t know what “non-commercial” means.
Turns out a bunch of players apparently used fonts that weren’t allowed to be used commercially, as well as brand logos and other designs they didn’t have the rights to. Take for example wicadia, who totally, definitely, drew this by hand. Or as a past example, dimasick, who just used Comic Sans as his sticker. Maybe it filled him with determination.
On a more serious note though, these stickers are also doing something great thanks to STYKO.
The veteran is trying to raise awareness for mental health in Esports. As young players chase the dream of playing pro, it can demand a lot of sacrifices socially and mentally. STYKO will be donating 20% of his sticker revenue to two good causes related to this topic, 10% will go to cyn1c’s family, and the other 10% to the Twisten Foundation.
No jokes here, just good guy STYKO.
The action never stops in Copenhagen.
Day one of the Major’s Elimination Stage has wrapped up, and we’ve already seen a fair share of upsets, ruined Pick’ems (we can’t take this anymore), and just straight-up mayhem.
Let’s dive right into the juicy highs (and a bunch of lows) from the first day.
2-0
Astonishing a grand total of 0 souls, the opening day concluded with donk obliterating the competition and putting up a casual 2.17 rating against Imperial in the second round, after an initial victory versus Cloud9. A prime example of laughing through the pain from the Brazilians.
On the flip side, much to the surprise of most fans, NAVI and MOUZ joined the Russian side in the 2-0 pool.
Following these results, only one BO3 win stands in the way of these squads and a spot in the playoffs of CS2’s first Major tournament.
1-1
Pick’em-killer upsets were back on the menu for the first day of the Elimination Stage, with Imperial, Eternal Fire, and Heroic taking down the favorites Virtus.Pro, Vitality, and Faze in the first round, respectively. However, the former quickly got back to their feet and found their way to the 1-1 pool.
G2 and Cloud9 closed out the group of teams that will still play one more BO1 on day two, aiming for that 2-1 score.
Regardless of what the seeding Gods dictate, we genuinely feel bad for Imperial, as they are now set to face one of these sharks. Best of luck to them.
0-2
No shockers in the 0-2 pool - 4 of the teams that qualified from the Opening Stage find themselves 0-2 in the last-16 phase. The Mongolz, Pain Gaming, and Furia have their backs against the wall, as they are just a single BO3 away from booking a ticket to de_airport.
The hometown ECSTATIC boys are also hanging on by a thread, after a couple of tough losses to MOUZ and Cloud9. Hey, zipeL, chin up! At least you now finally have the stickers to distract you from the harsh reality.
Anyways, the Silver Coin doesn’t look that bad, right? Right?
