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GUIDES
Simple Radar
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When is winning a Major bad for a team?
At this point it’d be easier to write a story when HEROIC weren’t rebuilding.
Everyone knew SunPayus was on his way out, but news filtered through this week that xfl0ud was being benched too, which came as a surprise to quite a lot of people.
Largely because he’s been really quite good. He was rubbish on Eternal Fire in the past, and we expected nothing, but he’s kinda been… excellent?
Maybe a return to Turkey is on the cards.
You might recall them signing nilo last time around before he was immediately cast into the shadow realm for some reason, and it seems quite likely that xfl0ud will make way for him.
You might also remember that tN1R was nilo’s replacement the first time around, meaning there’s been a shift in ideas around nilo’s role, it would appear.
Poor guy lost his spots without even playing them.
The rumour is that gr1ks will replace SunPayus. We, like most of you, have never seen him play and only know him because he seems to get linked to every available AWP spot. Apparently, he is more than just a mirage.
We thought he was Counter-Strike’s equivalent to Leandro Damiao or Hulk - players who are only seen in transfer rumours and never in person.
He still might be, until it’s announced.
TOBIZ will also be joining, supposedly, as sAw is joining SunPayus at G2. That is merely a footnote in this story because it’s a coach, but it might be the hardest one for HEROIC to replace.
sAw is legit, man.
ESL Pro League, the tournament that happens twice a year and somehow always manages to be a bit dull.
It’s gotten better over the years. It no longer takes up a full month of the calendar each time, and the poor triple-elimination format is gone, but it is still less than ideal.
Either way, this is a newsletter, and there’s news about Pro League, so we need to interrupt the Major hype to keep you informed.
In short, the change is that EU and NA will both have BYOC qualifiers for Pro League, one taking place at Dreamhack Atlanta and the other at Dreamhack Stockholm. The events will have a $10k prizepool, and 32 teams will be able to enter the competition in Atlanta, while 128 will be permitted for Stockholm.
We told you, it’s really not that exciting. Although, we do like the return of BYOC’s at a reasonable level.
Reactions to this news were mixed, but we did like this one from Dust2.us’ editor, Mnmzzz:
Now, Jeff, we appreciate your love for your domestic scene, but come on, mate, there really aren’t 32 teams in NA worth being involved in this event. Judging by the Major, there’s barely even four.
In other news, BLAST have also announced that the finals for BLAST Bounty will take place in Malta, while BLAST Rivals will take place in Hong Kong.
Neither of these things excite us too much – especially after the experiences of the Malta Pro Leagues – but they did also slip one little footnote into the bottom of their announcement regarding Bounty:
BLAST Open’s group stage will now take place online. Right…
Why they’d ever make this change given how people view online CS, we don’t really know, but as always, messioso is on hand to tell us all why it’s especially bad.
What an odd decision.
In most tales around the world, the dragon is the big, bad, menacing beast feared by all.
But over in Texas, the rules are a little different.
Inside the Moody Center, we watched as the humble mouse devoured the mighty dragon. But it wouldn’t be much of a story if the dragon had gone down without a fight.
Spirit started Mirage strong, giving early signs that this one might be a walk in the park. However, MOUZ proved they had more in the playbook than just Mid-to-Connector hits, stabilizing the half at a respectable 5-7.
In the second half, MOUZ kept up the momentum they’ve built up and mounted the comeback all the way to a 12-8, but Spirit answered back and managed to send it to OT.
It took four grueling OTs before Spirit finally broke through. Fueled by zont1x’s and magixx’s heroics, they edged out the win by dominating in the clutch department, converting six 1vX scenarios to MOUZ’s two.
An absolute banger of a map to properly kick off the BLAST.tv Austin Major Playoffs.
After a tightly contested Mirage, Dust2 flipped the script. This time, it was MOUZ who came out swinging, taking early control of the map while Spirit struggled to find their footing. Shoutout to sh1ro for this nasty scout no-scope, though.
Spirit found a spark on their CT side, with donk delivering the first ace of the Playoffs. Unfortunately for them, if donk doesn’t get 15 kills per round the team tends to look lost, and that’s exactly what happened in the second half. If they ever figure out a way for him to hold A, B, and Mid at once, they might just threaten NIP’s streak.
Until then, Spirit’s out of luck. MOUZ kept their cool and closed out Dust2 13-9 to level the series, setting up the Nuke decider.
In the final map, Brollan looked completely out of sorts on the T-side, finishing the half with zero kills as Spirit read MOUZ like a book. Almost every play was shut down, and donk’s 14-5 scoreline at the 8-4 half told the story. To be fair, there’s not much you can do against this but pray he whiffs.
But in the second half, Spinx stepped up and reminded Spirit that he, too, knows what it takes to win a Major. He was everywhere, dragging MOUZ back into the game and powering them to a 13-10 comeback win to book their spot in the semis.
Overall, the MOUZ we saw in this series was a different beast than the team we saw back in Stage 3. They needed a significant step up to challenge Spirit head-on, and it looks like they’ve taken it. That’s a promising sign for MOUZ’s Major dreams, but (most likely) standing in their way will be the unmovable wall.
The question now is: can the mouse also eat the bee?
Unlike the MOUZ v Spirit game above, the Brazilian derby did not start in a quadruple overtime banger. Instead of that, we got a molodoy masterclass on paiN’s map pick of Nuke.
To quote Moses on the desk after map one: “I am no longer worried about Molodoy.” And after watching the first map, specifically the CT side, neither are we. He posted 13 kills, while helping FURIA hold paiN to a combined 19 kills on the whole side, with no player getting more then five kills.
Even after moving to the T side, the fire kept going, with every member sitting above a 1.15 rating for the map and no one from paiN breaking 0.93.
Unfortunately, we think that Moses may have caster-cursed the FURIA side in between the games.
After the debut of this new international FURIA lineup, they’ve played in Astana, Dallas, and here in Austin. Of those tournaments, they’ve played seven Anubis maps, trying to get it in the veto every single game and boasting a 71% win record on the map, beating out teams like Aurora and The MongolZ on it in Astana.
Tonight, though, they looked lost. As soon as paiN won the pistol, you knew that the South American mix had shaken off whatever happened in map one.
paiN, led by the two new Spanish-speaking imports in dav1deuS and dgt turned on the jets, sprinting to a 8-3 T side. dav1deuS especially was on a tear, he got not 1, not 2, but 3 different 1vX clutches in just six rounds.
They slowed down just a little bit on the CT side, as it took them nine more rounds to close out, but paiN showed on map two that they were still here to play as it seemed like everyone in the arena counted them out.
That brings us to Inferno, a map famous for being good at majors. And a great name for a podcast.
It started quickly, with six rounds in favor of FURIA on their CT side, both FalleN and YEKINDAR starting on seven kills. Even after paiN finally won their first round, it felt like it was still the FURIA show; paiN felt so still and inflexible on their T side.
Then just like that, paiN got some yoga training. Between the end of their T side, and the start of their CT side, paiN went 10-1. They forced YEKINDAR, who was so good during the first stretch to go kill-less through the rest of the game.
paiN secured match point on round 20. FURIA matched them four rounds later. And then just like the first map of the day, we moved to overtime (on Inferno).
The South American mix wasted none of our time there. They crushed FURIA, not giving up a single round in overtime as they blitzed their way to a 16-12 victory, confirming their spot in the semi-finals up against the winner of FaZe vs The MongolZ.
