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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
The new era begins
Is Major qualification important? Incredibly. So it would be nice if qualification matches were played on LAN, but they’re not. Oh, and Falcons are being Falcons again.
Isn’t it great that the most important tournament of the year is held in the trenches of online CS? And that it still kicks off with two BO1s that pretty much decide your entire fate? Oh, we just love it.
But we’ll save that rant for another time. Right now, we’ve got way more interesting things to talk about - like Astralis missing their fifth Major in a row!
Let’s start with the flawless runs - HEROIC and OG.
HEROIC came into the MRQ looking like one of the strongest teams, and they lived up to the hype. They didn’t drop a single map on their way to Austin, taking down PARIVISION, ENCE, and lastly Nemiga in the qualifying BO3.
Not exactly the toughest gauntlet, but this is online CS, so anything can happen… and usually does.
Just look at OG. They punched their ticket to the Major with an impressive run, led by a standout performance from IGL Chr1zN, who closed the tournament with a 1.17 rating.
And do you know who else is on that roster? Nicoodoz and Buzz. If Astralis come calling, please don’t pick up the phone.
Speaking of, the mad lads did it again.
Asstralis are officially missing the Austin Major after losses to OG and Metizport dropped them into the tiebreaker BO3 for the final spot, against B8.
Things were actually looking good on the decider map, with an 11-6 lead for the Danes… but it’s Astralis we’re talking about. Of course they threw it, losing in OT after botching a disgusting 3v1. Well, you know what they say: sixth time’s the charm!
In less exciting fashion, Nemiga, BetBoom, and Metizport all secured their spots at the Major with a 3-1 record. Honestly, we could’ve named three other teams we expected to make it instead. Shoutout to Metizport for showing NIP how it’s done.
Because the MRQ only handed out six slots this time, ENCE missed out despite going 3–2, falling to B8 in the sixth-place decider bracket.
Also falling short of a trip to Austin are 9Pandas, SAW, and BIG - with the last two being relative surprises, as many had them penciled in as strong contenders for a Major spot.
The biggest upset of the MRQ has to be 1-3 GamerLegion.
After losses to Nemiga and fnatic in the BO1 rounds, they put themselves in a terrible position, eventually getting eliminated by SAW in the 1-2 game. This was genuinely more surprising than Astralis missing the Major five times in a row.
It seems that, after strong performances on consecutive tier-1 LANs, the team just couldn’t adapt to the online environment. Tough times for the GL boys.
In the downright awful pool we’ve got Jame’s PARIVISION and 500, both going out without a win.
As for 500, the results speak for themselves. The team entered the MRQ off a strong second-place finish in CCT EU Series 20, where they convincingly beat the likes of ENCE, Monte, and 9Pandas. But in the MRQ? They could only manage 13 rounds in total. They’re not beating the allegations any time soon…
In the end, the teams that qualified for the Major from the EU MRQ are:
🇪🇺 HEROIC
🇪🇺 OG
🇷🇺 Nemiga
🇷🇺 BetBoom
🇸🇪 Metizport
🇺🇦 B8
You’ve heard of getting nawwk’d, but how about getting degster’d?
Seriously, how unlucky do you have to be to win your first trophy and an MVP award at PGL Bucharest and STILL get benched?
We don’t blame Falcons for doing it, how could we when they’ve signed m0NESY (not yet official, though almost certain)? But still, we just can’t help but feel sorry for degster. The guy keeps proving that he’s deserving of a spot on a top team, and it just keeps going wrong for him.
It sucks, but when m0NESY is available, Falcons have to live up to their name and snatch him up.
It does mean that the expectations for the Falcons have changed, though. Winning a studio event may have raised the bar a little bit, but signing m0NESY demands that the trophy-winning form translate to arenas and against bigger and better teams.
There might be some growing pains. We know that m0NESY isn’t Falcons’ only target, but a bigger trophy has to come soon. You can’t have NiKo, m0NESY, and eventually kyousuke and not deliver on the biggest stages of them all.
And honestly, we really feel like this is the lineup that will be able to do so.
It might not make CS fans happy, but that’s also a good thing. All stories need a villain, and Falcons might be the biggest villains of them all.
We haven’t experienced true evil in CS since Astralis’ reign of terror - unless you count the last however many years of NIP - and we’re excited for there to be a team that everyone wants to beat once again.
Let’s just hope it all works out and that becomes reality, otherwise we’re going to be stuck with Vitality winning everything for the foreseeable future.
Well, unless Spirit figure out how to beat them, that is.
Until m0NESY gets announced (likely this coming week), Falcons are:
🇩🇰 TeSeS
🇩🇰 Magisk
🇧🇦 NiKo
🇲🇰 kyxsan
Elliott’s got to go and be a real person for a while. But don’t worry, he’ll return.
Until then, our longtime resident designer, Jack aka NovaH, joins Overtime on Inferno to share his Top-8-at-a-Major analysis.
Like many of you, we weren’t very excited about these games.
Seriously, when the qualifiers for the most important event of the season are online, it really kills the interest. That being said, we still got you and will fulfill our duty to keep you up-to-speed so you know which teams are going into the Major.
We started this edition off with the EU recap, now we’re setting our sights on the remaining five MRQs:
We’ll begin on the home continent of the upcoming Major, North America.
Complexity nearly fell to ex-teammate FaNg on Getting Info in their opening BO3. The game featured a 13-11 nail-biter and a double OT win on Anubis. CoL qualified for the major by handily beating snav and dare’s BLUEJAYS team, who recently replaced Wolffe in a jarring move.
The other team you care about is Wildcard, who also went 2-0 to qualify, beating NRG in another somewhat close series. NRG with br0 battled Getting Info and BLUEJAYS in the lower bracket, making their first major since Berlin 2019.
Going down to South America, Imperial have qualified without dropping a map, thrashing ODDIK and Sharks in their path to Austin. Fluxo started hot, beating BESTIA and Legacy to punch their ticket, but time will tell if they have a repeat of their last Major run where they went 0-3 in the Opening Stage.
BESTIA recovered and beat RED Canids, Sharks, and Imperial to make SA’s last spot.
If we go even more south and a bit east to Oceania & SEA, FlyQuest breezed past aliStair’s SemperFi team 4-0, beating them once in the upper final, then immediately again in the grand final.
Liazz propelled FlyQuest to Austin with a 1.50 rating, with the help of Nettik dropping a 1.65 on Mirage. If they can translate this to international events, FlyQuest may finally be entertaining to have in Tier 1 events as the token OCE team.
Probably not, though.
Lastly, we have two more Asian MRQs: Asia, and China. Eruption, who you may know for sk0R, started strong in Asia but fumbled the grand final, sending underdogs Chinggis Warriors to their first Major after a rematch of the upper final between the two went the other way.
China’s MRQ saw DogEvil forfeit their games, with the reason being BZA’s cheating ban on a third party platform being extended to Valve majors, and being unable to field a substitute after he tried to play the MRQ with a smurf account. Very smart.
Those forfeits handed TYLOO an opening win and Rare Atom a life raft from elimination. TYLOO went on to fight Lynn Vision in a chaotic upper final BO3 that saw Lynn Vision and the famed C4LLM3SU3 qualify for his first-ever Major.
Don’t fret JamYoung fans, TYLOO will still be making an appearance in Austin. They qualified at the second time of asking after taking down Rare Atom in the consolidation final.
Congratulations are in order to all who qualified, and condolences to those who didn’t, the next step of the Major is in the Lone Star State in June.
🏁 You can find all of the MRQ winners here.
How do you replace one of the greatest AWPers in Counter-Strike history? You sign a god.
It’s easy to think that G2 without m0NESY would be like a goalkeeper without arms, but they’ve found a genuinely good replacement in hades.
We know you’re busy simultaneously cursing out peca and laughing at us to really listen right now, but we’re being serious, hades to G2 is a good move.
He might not be spectacular, he might not be anywhere near the level of m0NESY, but we really don’t think that matters. And here’s why:
Back in 2023, everyone was pissing themselves at the thought of NAVI replacing s1mple with w0nderful. Look at what happened in the year that followed: they won a Major, played in every final ever, put themselves within touching distance of a Grand Slam, and all while w0nderful proved himself to be a valuable member of the team.
hades can do the exact same thing for G2. A more selfless player that requires far fewer resources than m0NESY. The existence of hades on G2 can be used to further activate malbs and HeavyGod – and when those two are firing, there are very few teams that can keep up with them.
All this is without mentioning the fact that hades is a pretty capable AWPer himself. He might not be a superstar, but he’s a very stable player, and that really is all G2 need.
Of course, they still have to contend with the hell that is Snax and TaZ, but m0NESY couldn’t save them from that.
Maybe hades will fare better.
With this move, G2 are:
🇵🇱 hades
🇮🇱 HeavyGod
🇬🇹 malbsMd
🇧🇦 huNter-
🇵🇱 Snax
