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GUIDES
Simple Radar
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At least the real SINNERS profited
The race to Cologne is over, and FaZe Clan are OUT.
We won’t pretend we’re not happy about it, but we’re also pretty p-ssed off that this is the way it’s gone.
We’re also annoyed that Liquid have managed to pull off Major qualification,too, but at least a banger new CS update has dropped and FOKUS proved they can hang with the best against PARIVISION.
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We’re all back in Bucharest for some tier one action. Almost all of us anyway.
It all kicked off before it even kicked off, with FaZe opting to make a last-second dash for the Major in a Belgrade tier two-LAN. This meant that EYEBALLERS got handed a forfeit win in the first round of the Swiss stage.
Nice job, boys, you’re two for two!
Naturally this drew the ire of some parts of the community, who had prematurely celebrated when FaZe were given a 0% chance of making it to the Cologne Major. Even more sh-t got kicked up when Voca announced they’d need to field a sub due to visa issues for Infinite, and opted for notorious Canadian matchfixer retchy, fresh off his five year ESIC-ban.
A very popular move, as you can imagine.
The rest of the round one games would probably be described as business as usual, with the exception of newcomers FOKUS upsetting 3DMAX. If you can really call it an upset, considering how little hope there seems to be for the Frenchmen these days.
The second round saw FUT demolish NRG, Astralis and PARIVISION narrowly beat B8 and FOKUS, and The MongolZ move past EYEBALLERS in the winner’s games. In the loser’s games Wildcard were the lucky winners of another FaZe forfeit, while three map affairs sent Inner Circle and BC.Game to the 0-2 pool for day three.
3DMAX also got past Voca after a triple-overtime third map, despite the aforementioned stand-in situation for the North Americans. Need we remind you that retchy was banned for five years, and thus hasn’t played an official match since early 2021?
That’s how sh-t 3DMAX are right now. There’s just no hope.
Today’s games will see s1mple fight the aforementioned matchfixer to avoid elimination, while FaZe finally arrive - with their first game being an attempt to dodge last place elimination at the hands of Inner Circle.
After just losing the Major spot at the final hurdle… we can’t imagine they’re too keen to immediately start running another elimination game gauntlet.
With the usual suspects in the 2-0 pool, the 1-1 pool might be the most interesting series of games today. This event lacks top opposition to such a degree that one of these teams is guaranteed to make playoffs tomorrow. This writer is, of course, hoping for EYEBALLERS, but we think it’s going to be a very interesting run for the trophy no matter who makes it.
Unless 3DMAX somehow make it to playoffs. That would just be sad.
When you get a notification from the CS2 devs on April 1st, it’s usually wise to be skeptical. This time, though, it seems the joke’s not on us.
Valve has rolled out a new beta build that upgrade’s the game’s animation system to Animgraph 2. According to our overlords, this change “reduces CPU and networking costs associated with animation”. If you recall, this is the next step in a transition that began last July, when first-person animations were moved over to the new system.
The latest update shifts the focus to third-person animations.The most noticeable improvements comes in the movement department: smoother transitions on stairs, cleaner counter-strafing, and overall more fluid motion. You can now also see animations when other players pull out their knives, which is a nice touch.
Oh, and there’s the obligatory random addition in the brand-new C4 pullout sound. Because why the f-ck not?
We’re not going to pretend to be tech nerds obsessing over whether an update squeezes out an extra frame from our toasters or not. What matters is a smooth, consistent experience, one that simply feels good to play. And based on early feedback, it looks like Valve has taken a (much-needed) step in that direction.
If you happen to fall into that category, there are benchmarks out there to dive into, but the general consensus points to performance improvements in the 10-15% range. That’s a win in our books.
Of course, these changes aren’t live just yet, as they’re currently being tested in the beta branch before the full rollout. For now, we’ll have to wait for them to be finalized and make their way onto the live servers.
If you’re too curious to wait, you can always check how to access the beta branch and try it out for yourself.
Alliance didn’t make it… but at least we got something.
The Major race wrapped up last night, with a key few LAN games deciding the final spots in the Cologne Major. It was a flurry of exciting tier two action, so here’s the rundown for you.
Before the day had even started for us in Europe - the center of the world, naturally - Brazilian Gaimin Gladiators secured their spot by making the grand final of BetBoom Circuit X Mayhem in São Paulo. On the other side of the planet, TYLOO won the XSE GangKui Cup Season 2 Finals by beating Chinggis Warriors and FlyQuest and snagged a spot of their own in Cologne.
This left five European and three “American” teams (VRS thinks Liquid and Passion UA count) yet to confirm their Major qualification. With only two spots in Europe, and one in the Americas, on the line, it became a real dash to the finish line.
K27 were the first team to knock themselves out of contention by losing to BET-M in the semi-final of MPKBK CIS LAN Season 4. Next BESTIA fell, losing their own semi-final against Passion UA in Urban Riga Open Season 4.
BIG secured a spot in the HLC Belgrade PRO grand final, meaning they also were guaranteed to make the Major, putting Alliance out of contention. We’ll note that BIG haven’t beaten a single team higher ranked than SINNERS in 2026, while Alliance beat Aurora, GamerLegion, and Passion UA just in the past two weeks…
…but we have no bias, of course.
The final spots in either region would come down to two concurrent grand finals. FaZe would do battle with BIG, needing a win to book a spot in Cologne. If not, it would be SINNERS to get a Major invite. At the same time Passion UA went up against Sangal - reinforced by smooya, no less - with a win being just enough to inch past Liquid to the 10th and final Americas invite.
The two teams traded wins on each other’s map picks, but in the end the British stand-in went 26-18 on the final map of Nuke to send JT and co. home empty handed. This means Liquid just barely make the Major despite their roster shenanigans.
Meanwhile, BIG looked to have completely taken their foot off the gas in Belgrade as FaZe led comfortably in the first half of the series, but BIG came to their senses and made sure we all got at least one happy ending. They narrowly came back on map two before slaughtering FaZe on the final map to win the event.
FaZe miss the Major, SINNERS stay in.
A glimmer of hope for hatewatchers everywhere.
Is this the final nail in the coffin for this roster? Only time will tell, but maybe. On the bright side, we think they’ll make a pretty penny selling frozen to NAVI in the off-season.
But we’ll let AN1MO take you through that.
The magic has run out, the bulls-t is no more, and FaZe - it’s time to blow it up and start all over again.
Seriously, if you can’t even qualify for the Major after attending a DraculaN - where you lost to fnatic - and some random LAN in Belgrade - where you lost to BIG - what is the point in this team anymore?
I say this like I didn’t know it was going to happen. Go back to December, when everyone was high on FaZe copium as they pulled off their miracle Major run, and look what I said on Snake & Banter. Now look at the comments, where every dribbler and mouthbreather in existence told me broky was back and jcobbb was good now.
Well, how does my milk taste today, d-ckheads?
The fact is, this team was never good. Now, Twistzz has been particularly bad this year, but he was never going to keep up the form he was displaying towards the end of last year, because no one magically just becomes one of the best players in the world at 26 years old.
That’s not me saying he was never good btw, he just wasn’t a superstar, just to be clear.
As for broky and jcobbb, well, their continued existence on this roster is the real example of the poison that festered in FaZe as a result of making the final in Budapest. jcobbb was never good enough, and broky was so bad they had already benched him once. To pretend they were going to have turned it around from a few decent maps at a Major in which they should have gone out in Stage 1 was both arrogant and naive.
So where does that leave you, FaZe? Where does your lack of proactivity leave you, now that you have failed to qualify for the Cologne Major this summer?
I’ll tell you - deep in the sh-tter.
Think about what will happen now: frozen, who is actually one of the best players in the world in his role, will be begging to leave. NAVI have supposedly been after him for a while, and at this point, you’re better off cashing in than allowing yet another star to leave for nothing.
As a result of that, you can then only remove one of broky or jcobbb. So which do you pick? The AWPer who would have bad ratings even if he were an IGL? Or the player you have decided is so bad that he can only be used as bait, and who even then gets far fewer kills than he should get?
Keeping either of them is a poisoned chalice, and this is also whilst pretending karrigan isn’t out of his depth in modern CS out of some form of nostaliga that even I can’t escape.
And so that will leave you with a team lacking a superstar, and with at least one player on it that has no business playing in tier one competition. A truly hopeless endeavour.
So, FaZe, enjoy tier two, because you’ll be there for a while. And I can’t say you don’t deserve it, either.
