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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
*He’s back, and he’s not saving (as much)
Just like death, taxes, and leakers getting everything wrong, Jame is inevitable, isn’t he?
If you saw Vitality - the best team in the world - taking on a kyousuke-less Falcons, and FURIA - the kings of the second half of 2025 - facing an inexperienced PARIVISION in the semifinals of a tier one tournament, you could safely predict the picks of all rational, sound-minded CS fans.
Well, at the BLAST Bounty 2026 Season 1 Playoffs, the schizos took home the metaphorical cake.
In the first semi-final, Vitality took on a Falcons squad that everyone thought should be grateful they even made it this far. And yet, they pushed past apEX and the boys in what turned out to be a rather entertaining series.
NiKo was at the centre of it all, delivering two aces to drag Falcons into the grand final. He looked very confident throughout, taking duels left and right, and reminding everyone just how fun NiKo is to watch when he’s feeling it.
The same cannot be said about ZywOo, though.
He pulled his best ultimate impression and dropped an all-time stinker of a performance, finishing the series with a 0.85 rating. This match alone earned him two new entries in his top-10 worst map ratings ever: a 0.54 on Inferno and a 0.56 on Mirage.
Shoutout to stand-in NucleonZ, who got thrown straight into the lions’ den and still managed to contribute solidly against the best team in the world. So, the solution was one less superstar?!
And then came what might be the most surprising result of the Playoffs. Well, the most surprising result so far…
Jame’s PARIVISION dismantled FURIA in a clean 2-0 sweep to earn the last grand final spot. Just like in the previous semi, the AWPer of the favored side completely sh-t the bed, with molodoy’s 0.76 rating shying away from the impact we’ve come to expect from the sixth best player of 2025.
Behind Jame’s pristine calling, nearly everyone on PARI showed up, with zweih and BELCHONOKK leading the charge.
You know what we’d pay top dollar for? To be a fly on the wall in VP’s front office right about now.
If you ever need a reminder not to jump the gun, this is it.
This past week, another sh-t-tier leaker decided to tell the world that Liquid would be cutting someone ahead of IEM Krakow, and that Krimbo would be replacing them.
Now, at this point, we’ll admit, we were kinda excited. Krimbo is a great player, and Liquid need a change - but not just that, a move for Krimbo also raised some question marks.
Role-wise, the German is very similar to NAF. However, as we all know by this point, ultimate is absolutely pants, and Liquid genuinely would be better off with five riflers than sticking with him. He’s honestly one of the worst snipers in tier one, so there’s just no way that Liquid make a change without it being him, right?
Wrong. The next tweets told us all that NAF was the one losing his spot.
… except, they were wrong, too. NAF isn’t losing his spot. It’s a stand-in situation due to family matters.
Well, thanks again, leakers. You keep looking at those practice rosters, and maybe one day you’ll actually get something right.
Remember that time Cloud9 had the Russian superteam? Remember all the trophies they won because of it? No? Us neither.
But how did it go so wrong? What made this exceptional lineup of talent fall so flat on their faces, and why does it rhyme with smellectroNic?
Our man Fuffy takes you through it in his new YouTube series on our channel!
Watch Now
Listen, BLAST, we’ve had fun these past two weeks, but step aside now. It’s time to get serious.
BC.Game, you should probably read that last sentence, too. Your debut was frankly terrible, but you can turn it all around in Poland, and it’s only Legacy in your opening game.
Only Legacy? They’re going to lose, aren’t they?
Honestly, it feels likely. Especially given what we saw versus the titans of “Ursa” and “Nemesis”. Actually, considering how bad they were there, they’ll probably not win a map here either. FUT or 3DMAX in a loser’s game doesn’t exactly spell success for s1mple and co. Oh well.
Elsewhere in Stage 1, PARIVISION look to continue their strong start to 2026 against another team hot out of the gates, HEROIC. The Europeans looked solid even with yxngstxr in Bounty, but we have a feeling they won’t fare so well here.
We’re also getting two Bounty rematches in the opening games, with both Aurora vs GamerLegion and Liquid vs NIP to look forward to. We anticipate the former of those will go the same way, but Liquid vs NIP should see the result flipped, and we’re pretty confident we’d be saying that with or without NAF, given that it took a rare EliGE 30-bomb to get Liquid over the line the first time.
Other games include Astralis vs paiN, which could go either way based on their Bounty showings, NRG vs B8, which will mostly be interesting due to the debut of B8’s regen AWPer, and Passion UA vs G2, which should be a good marker as to whether G2 used their time efficiently after passing up on Bounty.
All in all, it’s a decent first round of matches. Every game has a little bit of intrigue, and BCG’s horrible roster looks set to make a fool of themselves once more. Better yet, it’s online, so there won’t even be any excuses this time.
Time to work on those agendas, everyone. You’re going to need them.
We might need to have a conversation about Jame’s legacy.
He’s been written off, disregarded, hated for his style, told his style was out of date and never put among the best AWPers in the world.
And every time he makes you look stupid. Yes, you. You wrote him off as well. Don’t lie.
He’s never been given a super team, or even a superstar, but he has once again brought a group of unknowns to the peak of Counter-Strike and planted his big, long, awkward flag atop it.
If you hadn’t guessed, PARIVISION completed the dream run to the trophy in style, beating Falcons 3-0 (!) with Jame teaching m0NESY and kyxsan a lesson simultaneously.
xiELO has proven to be a very handy player, and his final performance was another mark in his column. He’s not donk, or even FL1T or fame yet, but he’s as close to a superstar as they’ve got.
And yet it was nota, who’d had a quiet tournament, who somehow had an absolute life game in probably his biggest series yet, dropping 60 kills for just 36 deaths. Out of absolutely nowhere.
We have no choice but to stan.
HLTV gave the MVP to NiKo, presumably as some sort of inside joke, but he continues his weird knack of being absolutely brilliant and finishing second.
He’s going to make a lady very happy someday.
Final standings:
1st 🇷🇺 PARIVISION – $254.688
2nd 🇪🇺 Falcons – $71.563
3-4th 🇪🇺 Vitality – $31.875
3-4th 🇧🇷 FURIA – $25.625
5-8th 🇪🇺 GamerLegion – $33.750
5-8th 🇸🇪 HEROIC – $13.750
5-8th 🏳️ Liquid – $11.250
5-8th 🇷🇺 Spirit – $10.000
