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GUIDES
Simple Radar
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So you all care now, do you?
Where were you when Impact was kill? We were watching rain play for FaZe, although FaZe told us that wasn’t going to happen anymore… confusing…
If you’re on vacation in Stockholm, we have bad news for you - rain is coming.
Just hours before FaZe were supposed to kick off their ESL Pro League S22 campaign against G2, word started spreading that the team only had two out of the five players from their July VRS roster - the one used for the tournament invite - available to play.
And who was on that July lineup, you ask? karrigan, frozen, s1mple, rain, and EliGE.
In other words, FaZe didn’t have an eligible roster unless they told one of the others to drop whatever they were doing and catch the next flight to Sweden.
As a result of this clusterf-ck, they were forced to forfeit their opening match and call rain back. We’d pay good money just to hear that phone call.
Sure enough, the man made it to Stockholm and took jcobbb’s place in FaZe’s active lineup for one final run - just in time for their second round matchup against 3DMAX. In hindsight, they probably should’ve just forfeited that one too.
Now, this looks like a classic case of poor management. How does no one on FaZe’s camp notice that the team doesn’t have the required number of players for a tournament? Is it too much to expect that the staff of a CS team knows the rulebook for the events they participate in? Because clearly, FaZe’s doesn’t.
We’re also left wondering if ESL even knew about FaZe’s plan to use Twistzz in the first place - because if they did, why wouldn’t they give a heads-up sooner? Of course, it’s not the TO’s job to babysit every team, so this really isn’t their responsibility.
Just between you and us, here’s what we really think went down: FaZe missed rain way too much and orchestrated this whole thing just to have an excuse to call him back.
Nice try, karrigan. You can’t fool us.
Congratulations, VRS. You’ve made us care about a Fragadelphia event. Are you happy now?
If you’re confused as to why that is, it’s because SAW got themselves eliminated from the event in the quarter-finals. That meant that whichever of the final four teams (fnatic, 9INE, OG, ECSTATIC) ended up winning would also be booking themselves a spot at the Major.
And who said RMRs were dead?
We have mixed feelings about this. Of course, it’s nice to have a little bit of excitement surrounding this final spot, but we’re still not quite sure it replaces the excitement of an RMR.
It also means that the top four of Fragadelphia is entirely European. And in fact, of the top eight, only Wildcard was a North American team. Sharks are from the Americas region, fine, but considering this is meant to be NA’s big home LAN - is that not a bit of a shame? Especially when the NA teams are already low on events they can win VRS points from?
There’s not much we can do about that, though, but we can watch Counter-Strike, so we did.
The quarter-finals began with a close contest between fnatic and OG, with OG becoming the first of the four to fall as blameF and jambo dominated to put fnatic within touching distance of the Major.
ECSTATIC and 9INE then did battle, with 9INE bouncing back from a 13-11 opening map defeat on Ancient to win Nuke 13-2 and Inferno 13-11.
That means, after a rather pointless third place decider in which OG secured the bronze medal, it all came down to fnatic vs 9INE for the final European spot at the Major.
fnatic, eventually, won out in a marathon series that ended at 7AM EU time. We stayed up for it. You’re welcome.
CYPHER and blameF continued their reign of terror, and despite finding themselves close to elimination on map four after going 2-1 down, found a second wind and powered past 9INE on Train to win the… Fragadelphia Liberty Bell.
We don’t know, either.
fear stepped up on map 5 after essentially being karrigan for the rest of it, but so much credit has to go to CYPHER who dragged them kicking and screaming through the tough moments, and obviously blameF, who took MVP.
Found his level.
Of course, that’s what Fragadelphia is all about. Two EU teams playing for their lives. The biggest game of their season being casted by a man called Buckethead with some drunk Yanks screaming about the Major.
Actually… on second thoughts… that is kinda special.
Do you miss excitement? Or do you find yourself reaching for the box of tissues every time you see a VRS spreadsheet?
We’d quite like to know (maybe not about the tissues part) so respond below with your take and your gamertag for a chance to be featured in the next edition:
The big boys at ESL Pro League are like trolleys with broken wheels.
All over the bloody shop.
Perhaps the worst has been The MongolZ, who seem to be hitting a trough at the absolute worst time. They’re 0-2 after yesterday, having lost to HOTU and Inner Circle - which is, for those unaware, not good.
HOTU and Inner Circle have been revelations at this event so far, but they’re also both 1-1 having lost their other games, albeit both to Spirit. That’s what a big team is supposed to do.
None of them have really covered themselves in glory, with only mzinho going above a 1.00 and only 910 having a positive K/D. Just before the Major, they’re capitulating.
The Asian Major dream might be dead.
They weren’t the only team to suffer a pretty ignominious loss either - Vitality lost the opening round 0-2 to Gentle Mates, and despite all evidence to the contrary we refuse to accept that they’re any good.
They did hit back with a simple win over GamerLegion, who have four of the five lowest rated players at the event after playing MOUZ and then Vitality. Seeding has really screwed them over, there.
The 2-0 teams are all pretty reasonable - the aforementioned MOUZ beat Gentle Mates, Spirit (obviously), Falcons and G2. m0NESY seems like he might be back in a small sample size, and Falcons got a pretty legit win over NAVI.
Of course, nobody knows how good NAVI are any more.
In the 0-2 bracket, you obviously have FaZe (who lost to 3DMAX), The MongolZ, GamerLegion as you all know, but Astralis which you didn’t know. But probably could have guessed.
They lost to Falcons and Aurora, who we’ve largely forgotten existed, and now have to play FaZe to stay in the competition.
The full list of today’s games is here, but there’s some absolute bangers to talk about first. Don’t worry if you wake up late, because the less interesting and consequential games are up first.
At 15:30 CEST you get to watch Astralis v FaZe or MongolZ vs GamerLegion, both for elimination, and after that MOUZ v Falcons or Spirit v G2. We’ll be picking Astralis v FaZe for a generational hate-watch (no matter what happens, the haters win) and after that, it honestly just doesn’t matter. They’re both great games.
What a fantastic era of CS to live in.
Here’s what you said when we recently asked you whether you would pay to watch CS from home:
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes (28%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 No (72%)
Some of your takes:
💰 willt12: “If it was a one time payment to watch the whole season I would be more likely to pay.”
🔄 Taken: “I would probably just stop watching it and watch reruns. Major events would be way too expensive for a few days entertainment.”
Just days after getting themselves into hot water over the pricing of the Cologne 26 tickets, ESL once again put themselves in the firing line when they announced that the ESL Impact circuit would be suspended after Season 8 comes to a close at the end of October.
In other words, as with every other controversy surrounding Impact, people suddenly started to pretend they cared about a product they didn’t watch to score some social credit.
And seriously, if you’re one of those people, go f-ck yourself. It’s undeniable that plenty of you exist. Even the players are aware of it, and we couldn’t feel more sorry for them for that. How frustrating it must be.
As for why it’s being shut down, ESL have said that it’s due to the economic model being “not sustainable”. And given the fact that Impact largely had terrible viewership and never grew across its eight seasons, it’s not hard to see why.
Truthfully, we don’t know who should be blamed for this. We know it shouldn’t be solely on ESL, like people have been trying to do, but could they have done more? Possibly.
What about organisations that kept dropping out despite being offered incentives by ESL? If there’s people willing to call the entire circuit “performative activism” after its cancellation, is there not something to be said about the teams who didn’t stick by their rosters?
Or how about Valve themselves? We know we often criticise Valve for getting involved here, but when you look at what Riot have done for the women’s scene over in that other game, could Valve have not done more to legitimise the women’s game by giving them their own Major?
Whoever you want to blame for it, it ultimately doesn’t matter. Not to us, anyway. All that really matters is that we establish the fact that it’s just a bit sad that this happened.
Although people love to sh-t on the players in women’s teams for struggling when they play against all-male teams, Imperial Valkryies did show at points that they might eventually be able to become competitive.
And even if they didn’t, Impact was a melting pot in which players who one day could be competitive were formed. Where coaches could get their first crack at forming a team. Where talent could get some solid experience at high-intensity matches.
Whichever way you look at it, it’s a shame all of that is gone. We’re sure, of course, that the women’s scene won’t die out, but how far will the loss of its dedicated circuit set it back?
Not too long, we hope.
Question: Which organisation won the first ever CS:GO Major and who were the five players on the team?
Scroll down for the answer.
Trivia answer: fnatic won Dreamhack Winter 2013, the five players on the team were: pronax, flusha, JW, znajder and Devilwalk
