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GUIDES
Simple Radar
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Someone was getting rich off of ITB - and it wasn’t smooya.
It wouldn’t be a week of esports without drama, and in the meantime FlyQuest are still rubbish, Eternal Fire are still good and SAW are extremely disappointing.
In the world of esports, there’s no such thing as a chill week.
So, here’s what’s on the menu this time: Hot and fresh, straight from the 3-Michelin-star kitchen that is UK CS.
In a shocking turn of events, Into the Breach – famously known for their underdog Playoff run at the Paris Major – has announced they’re shutting down operations, after discovering that “an individual entrusted with all financial and monetary decisions was embezzling funds for personal use”, leaving the organization “in an unsustainable position”. So, who might be this mysterious individual, you ask?
Well, before the Reddit detectives had a chance to get digging, Sam Cook, the org’s CEO, came forward and admitted to everything. A bit anticlimactic, really.
He revealed that he “took around £600k in director’s loans” and “blew it all on benders and self-harm action”, describing himself as a “destructive, alcoholic narcissist hellbent on self-immolation” - a relatively tame description, as we’re pretty sure the staff and players he owes upwards of £500,000 would have much worse words for him.
All in all, this is one of those classic situations we see in esports far too often. The greedy CEO of an org who makes a deep miracle run in a tier 1 tournament gets starstruck by the money flooding in and thinks it’s no big deal to pocket some of it for his own pleasures.
He wasn’t the first, and he certainly won’t be the last…
REZ, we owe you an apology. We really weren’t familiar with your game.
Seriously, we’d given up on you, you were stuck in the NIP vortex for so long that no matter how good you may have looked at IEM Oakland in 2017, we’d already stopped caring five years ago.
But brother, we wish that we’d held onto your stock now because it seems like when you have teammates with hands, you can actually shoot too. Top fragger in both games so far for GamerLegion; enjoy playing in the next stage. You’ve earned it.
If you hadn’t have guessed, the REZ glazing means IEM Katowice (or at least the entirely mediocre Play-in) has begun, and GamerLegion aren’t the only team we’re impressed by.
French team 3DMAX are continuing to establish themselves at the top level. They advanced to the next stage with easy consecutive 2-0 wins over both FlyQuest and MIBR.
HEROIC have also looked strong. They picked up a win over Liquid despite their main man SunPayus not being at his best, another sign that this roster may have some serious legs.
They were then beaten by Eternal Fire (who are now through), but in fairness, the Turks are by far the best team in the Play-in and coming in hot after last weekend’s BLAST Bounty.
Given how much we love XANTARES, we can’t tell you how good that feels to say.
Team advancement means we’ve also had to bid farewell to some teams already, and of course, one of them is FlyQuest.
Another flat performance from The Boys. They may have won a map against Astralis, but this current Astralis team is rubbish, so we’re not sure that counts for much.
Imperial have also bowed out, they almost pulled off an incredible comeback against FURIA on Mirage, but the rest of the maps they’ve played haven’t been close. It’s unfortunate for them though, they’ve been without their IGL tory for the event, and who knows what might’ve been had they had their full lineup.
At least they’re not SAW, who had their full team but still got absolutely spanked by this awful-looking VP team.
Later today, we’ll know which other teams will win the last five spots in the main event that begins tomorrow.
What if you were in charge of MOUZ, and having lost siuhy once before, you had the golden opportunity to re-sign him. Would you:
Find out what we would do on this week’s podcast.
2025’s first true barometer starts on Saturday. Oh, Kato, how we’ve missed you.
As cool as BLAST Bounty was, it’s not Katowice. This event and the legendary Spodek Arena bring the most out of teams. We’ll see some of the freshly minted rosters truly push their limits for the first time. And some of the teams already qualified for groups are real doozies.
G2, Vitality, Falcons, FaZe, and most importantly, The MongolZ, are all waiting to find out who they’re playing.
This event will tell us a lot about where these teams stand. You’re never 100% right about every team, and we can’t wait to find out who the disappointments are going to be. Our money is on Falcons. We’re assuming that org is cursed until proven otherwise.
You also wonder if the winner of this event is going to come from one of these teams.
We didn’t mention Spirit earlier, who seem like the bang-on favourites. These days you really have to assume any event is theirs by default. After showing some weaker spells last year, BLAST Bounty was a real statement of intent for them. donk is just too stronk.
At least there’s good news for the optimists among us. If any team was going to beat Spirit, it’s probably this Vitality team. Out of all the teams, they’re the best suited to match Spirit’s firepower. It’s hard to argue against ropz and ZywOo…
As good as Spirit and Vitality seem, and as hopeful as teams like G2 and FaZe undoubtedly are. Having The MongolZ face Eternal Fire in the finals would be far funnier. Wouldn’t you agree?
