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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
Let's take you through who is going to win every quarter-final.
The Major quarter-finals begin today and they actually ended up being quite stacked.
We’ve got s1mple, the latest edition of the MOUZ vs. Spirit rivalry, a Brazilian derby that isn’t in a losers game at an IEM, and Vitality looking like they will finally get to call all of their shenanigans an era.
We’re eating good this weekend.
We hope you enjoy this special preview of each quarter-final.
Illustration by: NovaH Source: Michal Konkol / Stephanie Lindgren / Adela Sznajder - BLAST.tv
MOUZ are #2 in the world, and yet for some reason, they are massive underdogs against Team Spirit.
If you believe HLTV, at least, MOUZ are only worse than Vitality right now. They’re not playing Vitality, and yet the bookies have them at something like a 30% shot to win.
Which is… crazy?
This is not betting advice, obviously, but it’s interesting to see where the perception lies in this one. Spirit flew through the group stage while MOUZ obviously stumbled over the finish line, but MOUZ didn’t lose any BO3s.
They’re probably still fine, guys. No need to panic.
Spirit are the exciting one though. They’re the current holders of the tournament, smashed NAVI in the group stage and have the best rifler in the world (and probably the best player, truthfully). It’s hard not to be bullish on them.
MOUZ, on the other hand, haven’t been quite at their best so far, but they’ve shown enough to suggest they ain’t done yet. Since Brollan has taken over the IGL reins – a sentence that still remains odd to write out – they’ve not really had issues on stage, either.
On paper, this one is both really close and quite one-sided, which obviously makes no sense.
Whatever happens, we’ll be sat there kicking ourselves for not predicting it. MOUZ could make this a grindy game and quite easily beat Spirit – they have previously, after all – and it’ll be obvious in retrospect.
If nothing else, we get to see donk in a high-stakes game against a team full of top players in the arena. At the Major. It’s great. Really is. We love the Major.
Oh, and the winner goes on to play either Vitality or NAVI. There is no bad outcome. Just sit back and watch donk go to town.
Pure bliss.
The Major playoffs are finally here and somehow the boys’ predictions weren’t actually that bad.
They’ve picked an underdog to win the whole thing, though, because even with aizyesque absent, it wouldn’t be Overtime on Inferno without someone being needlessly contrarian.
Illustration by: NovaH Source: Michal Konkol / Stephanie Lindgren / Adela Sznajder - BLAST.tv
The BLAST.tv Austin Major is heating up as the Playoffs get underway, and perhaps no quarter-final is more electrifying than the first-ever Major Playoffs clash between two Brazilian teams.
But before the battle begins, we’ve got to set the stage.
FURIA have been one of the biggest surprises of the Major, not just because of their near-flawless runs through Stages 2 and 3 - only dropping a BO1 to paiN, curiously - but due to the dominant style they’ve shown throughout.
YEKINDAR has returned to his VP/Outsiders form, and it’s great to see that he managed to escape the Liquid hell in one piece. molodoy also looks like a winning bet, silencing doubters with impressive numbers against top-tier opposition this Major. Oh, and having KSCERATO back in his demon form also helps.
Huge respect is also due to FalleN, a CS legend who put the team’s best interests first by picking up the rifle and trusting the AWP to an inexperienced, unproven kid - and doing quite well in the process, if we might add.
Overall, this FURIA squad is fun to watch - something that couldn’t be said about them in a long time - and their run in Austin suggests they’re finally moving in the right direction.
On the other side, we have paiN, who haven’t quite matched FURIA’s dominance. They stumbled out of the gate in Stage 3, starting 0-2 after losses to Spirit and G2. However, they’ve shown resilience, bouncing back with three straight BO3 victories, powered by standout performances from nqz.
After a turbulent few months marked by changes, it seems paiN have finally found their balance amid the chaos. biguzera continues to prove himself a crafty IGL and the heart and soul of the team – even if his individual performance has dipped somewhat – so much so that he recently renewed his contract.
The new additions, dav1deuS and dgt, started off a bit slow compared to what we know they’re capable of, but the pair have been heating up as they get more reps in Austin, clearly elevating paiN’s overall game.
In the end, one thing is certain: we will have a Brazilian team in the Major semis - something no one in their right mind could have predicted - and that alone is a huge win for a region that hasn’t seen many of those lately.
Vamo caralho.
Illustration by: NovaH Source: Michal Konkol / Stephanie Lindgren / Adela Sznajder - BLAST.tv
After a blunder in their opening game versus Legacy, Vitality are in the quarter-finals of the Major.
We say that like you should be surprised, and you really shouldn’t be, but we think we’d all be lying if we say we weren’t even mildly worried of a repeat of NAVI in Shanghai after Vitality lost that opener by such a large margin.
Coincidentally, NAVI will be Vitality’s first opponents in the arena, and we say first because we don’t think that NAVI have a chance in hell of getting out of this one alive.
2024’s team of the year have looked far better in Austin, that is true, but they’re still a far cry from the team that made it to almost every final over a six-month period last year. They’re still not capable of beating a Vitality team that had all the chemistry that made NAVI so strong and the firepower to negate whatever NAVI can hope to hit them with.
As for Vitality, despite that blip against Legacy, they’ve looked exactly as they have done for the rest of the year: unbeatable.
This is their Major to lose. It doesn’t matter how good Spirit are looking, nor does it matter the resilience that MOUZ has shown in the face of elimination. It doesn’t even matter that s1mple is getting closer to playing like his old self with every game he plays. All that matters is that this Vitality team is the best team in the world, and they’re now just three wins away from writing that into history for the rest of time.
In fact, given the win-streak that they held before that loss to Legacy, losing that game may have just been the kick up the arse Vitality needed to actually live up to expectations and win this event.
A loss that would have reminded them that, although they may seem it, they aren’t actually invincible, that reminder may have just been the exact thing they needed to put their minds in order and cement the first season of 2025 as their era.
Honestly, it’s why we think this game won’t be much of a contest. NAVI might look a little better, sure, but NAVI at their best couldn’t beat Vitality pre-ropz, who knows what it would take to do so now.
Vitality will know that this tournament, even after everything they’ve done this year, is the only one that truly matters. Talk about Liquid in 2019, and all of the conversations end with “Yeah, but they didn’t win a Major, though, did they?”
That exact line of thinking is why Vitality can’t and won’t let failure become reality in Austin. And these are big game players we’re talking about too – they’re not MOUZ.
Illustration by: NovaH Source: Michal Konkol / Stephanie Lindgren / Adela Sznajder - BLAST.tv
Many of you probably expected The MongolZ to get here, as they’ve been a playoff contender and an ever-improving team since the last major.
Many of you also probably expected FaZe to get here, though probably through some dark ritual karrigan did to revive s1mple and general FaZe bullshit. We don’t judge human transmutation.
Regardless of how they got here, FaZe vs The MongolZ is a match we’ve already seen play out this Major, with FaZe actually qualifying to the playoffs off their 2-0 win over the Mongolian team in Stage 3. So why should you care about this rematch at all, if FaZe already proved they can handily beat The MongolZ?
First: There are two recently recorded BO3 matches between these teams, one the aforementioned 2-0 FaZe victory and the other a 2-0 victory for The MongolZ. This match may be closer than the recent one leads on. Not only that, but this is a major quarterfinal: You’re not going to leave anything on the table.
Second: We’re on the stage at the Major. How many times have you seen FaZe get onto a stage and become a different, better, confident team that you thought they had no chance of being? In fact, we saw it at the last two majors in Shanghai and Copenhagen. * insert karrigan clapping here *
Additionally, they’ve brought s1mple in for the Major, and we’re not talking about Falcons-stand-in s1mple. NAVI s1mple is back in the seat, and that's a scary proposition.
Third: At one point, The MongolZ will figure out how to play on a stage. It’s not that they can’t, but they are a very young team with comparatively not much experience going up against the most experienced team at the Major. Senzu is definitely the player to watch on stage, maybe Friday will be the day he’s able to transfer incredible group stage performances into showing up when it matters most.
With all of that said, you may think that FaZe should probably beat The MongolZ without much fanfare, and that’s exactly what we said in the podcast, even going so far as to say that FaZe will win the Major (off that same dark magic that was performed earlier).
But.
Somewhere, deep in my own heart of hearts and against the thoughts of all of my colleagues, I personally cannot overlook the plucky team from Mongolia, who has grown so much in the last two years.
I believe this team will go further than any Asia-Pacific region team has ever gone, beating the prior record set by the semi-final reaching Renegades at the StarLadder Berlin major.
All this to say, I’ve now caster-cursed an entire country, sorry Mongolia.
