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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
You don’t have to be good to be privileged.
paiN are, as always, painful.
Just when you think they might finally be good, they spend months reminding you exactly what they are.
So, get ready to hear us moan - and be thankful that we’re bloody good at it.
They couldn’t have picked a more overblown name for such a forgettable tournament, could they?
The Thunderpick World Championship sounds like a once-every-four-years spectacle with the best teams on the planet. Turns out it’s just another tier 1.5 event that rolls around every year, with a team lineup that’s… modest. We’re feeling generous.
But hey, it beats waking up at 4am to watch FaZe lose to a bunch of (admittedly very talented) kids!
Group A - featuring FURIA, The MongolZ, OG, and 9z - saw the only spark in the winners’ match, where FURIA battled for the first Playoff spot. Both teams had cruised past OG and 9z in their openers, setting up what felt more like a grand final than a group stage game. The series was a tightly contested fight that ultimately saw FURIA come out on top, powered by stellar performances from molodoy and yuurih.
Meanwhile, OG collapsed versus 9z in the lower bracket, setting the stage for a MongolZ vs 9z rematch.
Group B managed to be even more predictable than Group A. In the opening round, NAVI made quick work of Imperial, while Aurora swept Venom - a team we’re still not sure who they are or how they ended up here. The winner’s match turned out to be a scrappy affair, much like Group A’s, with questionable rounds from both sides before NAVI eventually closed it out 2-1.
Venom’s victory over Imperial in the lower bracket set up an absolute banger of a decider match, with the Poles taking on Aurora for the final Playoff spot in Malta.
Can’t you tell how excited we are?
Considering TYLOO won FISSURE Playground 1 and Lynn Vision captured hearts at the BLAST.tv Austin Major, it’s been a pretty good year for Chinese CS.
However, the same can’t be said about the first of two home events for Chinese teams - both of them crashed out of the CS Asia Championships. Big losses to MIBR (seriously?) and 3DMAX sent Lynn Vision packing, whilst TYLOO lost in BO3s to fnatic and FaZe.
The JamYoung hive is suffering.
Speaking of FaZe, this was meant to be the incredible debut of their full five after a solid showing at EPL, but it didn’t quite pan out that way.
Actually, they were awful. Neither win over B8 or TYLOO was as clean as one would expect for a team with ambitions as high as FaZe, and considering they lost twice to FUT, it’s really not a good look. Maybe, just maybe, jcobbb isn’t ready for a FaZe stint just yet.
And no Twistzz, this excuse doesn’t fly after the EPL run.
Honestly, CAC hasn’t been a great time at all really. Not for the haters anyway.
Liquid and fnatic both made playoffs, so for fans of CYPHER and good CS, it’s not looking good.
Rounding out the playoffs are FUT, Legacy, HEROIC, and 3DMAX, so whilst we are going to be getting a new winner of a tier one (it’s generous) event this year, we’re glad that it’s this event that is taking place in a timezone no one can be f-cked to pay attention to.
Oh, and don’t even get us started on paiN. You’ll have to read on for that one.
m0NESY won the MVP award for ESL Pro League Season 22 despite not actually winning the event.
But should that ever happen, or should the MVP always go to someone on the winning team?
Respond below or 📨 reply to this email and let us know how you really feel.
In the last edition, we asked you whether the EWC format is better than the Major. Here’s what you thought:
🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes (40%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜️⬜️ No (60%)
Good to know you are nostalgic grandpas like us.
This week one everybody’s favourite podcast the boys discuss the playoffs at EPL, FNATIC’s untimely benching of CYPHER and wether or not FaZe should’ve signed jcobbb in the first place. Also including some hard-hitting questions like:
Who was benched by their team first?
Find the answer at the end.
Genuine question - at what point is VRS meant to represent the best teams of the season? Is that just a European thing? Or is that meant to extend the reason of the world, too? Because if it is, that’s not what we’re seeing.
Or at least, it’s not what we’re seeing with paiN.
paiN impressed everyone when they made the semi-finals at the Austin Major, and given that they’d recently made changes, there was hope that they’d be able to turn that strong showing into consistent results.
But it hasn’t quite panned out that way.
Instead, paiN were given a Stage 3 invite for the StarLadder Budapest Major, and they’ve done precisely nothing to earn it.
Ignoring their shameful performance at CAC in which they were eliminated with just one win over Fluxo and losses to both fnatic and glorified academy team FUT, their form even before the Major invite cut off has been dreadful.
A stat presented by Professeur on the most recent episode of HLTV Confirmed highlighted this the best - paiN have played just 14 games since Austin, winning six. And those wins came against Rare Atom, Astralis, NIP, BIG, HEROIC, and Virtus bloody pro.
Not exactly the form of a team that has been granted one of only eight invites to Stage 3 of the Major.
Of course, there’s something to be said about the strength of the rest of the Americas region - and it is pretty poor - but is this really something that should happen in a system that was designed to get the best teams over the course of the season to the biggest tournament of that season?
Just something to think about.
Trivia answer: TaZ by seven days. He was benched on Feb 6th 2018, Xizt was benched Feb 13th
