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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
Those Vitality stocks are about to drop.
ATTENTION: Vitality have lost a game. It wasn’t an elimination game, but it was to BetBoom, so it could have some serious ramifications for the rest of IEM Atlanta. The action is also heating up in Astana, with karrigan and FalleN soon set to do battle.
We heard a lot of news about people in yellow and purple jerseys being eliminated from playoffs this week, but we’re confused. We literally just saw magic make playoffs in Astana?
Must be an American thing.
Anyway, an exciting Swiss group has wrapped up in Kazakhstan and the stage is set for eight non-Vitality teams to battle it out for eternal glory. Here’s how it went down.
First to grab a spot in the arena were 9z, continuing their unexpectedly strong form to take down MOUZ in a 2-1 affair. Alongside them in the undefeated pool are Spirit, finally getting a bit of a break in 2026 after a season with very few highs.
Falcons were next to break through The MongolZ in a thrilling three-mapper - despite having the first Falcons radar moment with karrigan at the helm - alongside MOUZ and FURIA getting past Aurora and Gentle Mates.
The Spaniards had their best ever chance at a big event playoff spot after beating HEROIC, but after a close first two maps against FURIA they got demolished on the third map. To add insult to injury - they couldn’t even get past magic in the final game.
In fact, the Russian squad managed the comeback from being down 0-2 after two rounds, sending the orgless squad into their first ever big event playoffs - in their first big event ever. That’s actually impressive.
Their countrymen weren’t so lucky - and we’re not talking about K27.
We’ll admit that there are easier draws than facing Aurora and G2, but PARIVISION going out way too early is starting to get tiring.
The haters will say that this slump was well overdue, and it seems Jame is one of the haters. He says they’ve been expecting the team to dip eventually and isn’t surprised it happens now.
Seems Jame is as much a hater of his own team as dastan is.
But really, if even you were expecting the slump to come, were you ever even the real deal? We’re not sure, but BLAST Bounty and that event is starting to look more and more fluke-shaped when we look back.
Challengers to the throne of PARIVISION are 9z, of course, but we’re not convinced. All three teams they took down on the way to playoffs are strong, yes, but they all have asterisks of roster changes or supposedly expected slumps.
It smells like max will be expecting a slump some time in September, if he’s anything like Jame.
Ugh.
Who would’ve thought it would take a group of Russians flying to America to finally slay the French?
In an otherwise fairly uneventful Group A at IEM Atlanta 2026, that was the headline. If you’d told anyone before the tournament that Vitality would lose a series, BetBoom would’ve been near the bottom of the list of likely candidates - and yet, here we are.
Seriously, someone get FL4MUS and Magnojez on a proper tier one roster already. Anything but VP, please.
BC.Game and FaZe were also teams to keep an eye on in this group, and while FaZe showed some signs of life, BC.Game was just… BC.Game. Not even Senzu could save that team from looking completely hopeless. Someone should probably tell s1mple that immediately torching your teammates on social media doesn’t really help either.
On the other side of things, alongside BetBoom, paiN were one of the pleasant surprises of the stage. With saffee standing in, they still managed to take down FaZe and FUT on their way to the Playoffs, largely thanks to big step-ups from snow and piriajr.
Over in the significantly less stacked Group B, outside of the almost guaranteed Playoffs berth for NAVI, the remaining two spots were up for grabs - and Legacy had no intention of letting it slip away. After comfortable wins over M80 and Astralis, Legacy even upset NAVI in the seeding match to secure a semis berth. What can we say… unc’s still got it.
In the final match of the group stage, Astralis faced GamerLegion for the last spot in the arena. Pretty balanced matchup, right? Well, GamerLegion simply steamrolled them in a very painful watch for any Astralis fan. Hell, even we were embarrassed.
Speaking of disappointment, we expected a lot more from M80. They couldn’t even get past Liquid in the lower bracket, with the Lake-JBa duo looking completely lost throughout. Not even Liquid…
With the group stage wrapped up, the teams heading to the Georgia World Congress Center this weekend are BetBoom, paiN, Vitality, Legacy, NAVI, and GamerLegion.
The playoffs for IEM Atlanta are upon us, and to absolutely no one's surprise, Vitality are once again tournament favourites.
But with that being said, if there was a time for their Grand Final streak to be broken. It would be now.
Hear us out - as strong as they still are, Vitality do admittedly look a little weaker after not practicing for two weeks, which is evidenced by a surprise BO3 loss against BetBoom. They’re literally saving strats for the Major.
Of course, we wouldn’t back just any team to beat Vitality. But with NAVI’s odds of winning in the Atlanta quarters sitting at 3.60, we just can’t help ourselves from believing B1ad3 and his boys will get it done.
Fancy backing Vitality’s temporary downfall? Use our code to sign up with Razed.
Note: Odds at time of writing.
If you’re a karrigan super fan you might want to cover your ears for parts of this episode. Sam wonders why this move was ever made, and Jack raises an even more important question. Why is a man pushing 40 making ambulance noises?
Astana playoffs kick off today (Aurora and MOUZ are probably playing right now if you’re reading this close to the send time), and there’s some pretty good-looking games to look forward to.
The aforementioned Aurora vs MOUZ game should be a highlight (which makes it a shame that it’s on at the crack of dawn), and we’re feeling the result could be very different to the last time they played.
2-0 in favour of MOUZ that time, they were in their typical state of f-cking up teams in a group stage then, but we all know what happens to them when they have to play in front of people. Not just that, but xertioN will almost certainly struggle to maintain his crazy CT ratings, which could see the game flip in the direction of XANTARES and co.
That game will be followed by Spirit vs G2, which also looks to be a bit of a barn burner.
Given that G2 struggle to hold their composure, it should be Spirit’s all day, but we’re never convinced by Spirit, and they’re prone to disappointing in playoffs. A messy 2-1 feels like, and honestly, we don’t know which way to call it.
Next up is the p-ss break match - 9z vs magic. Both of these teams should consider themselves very lucky to be in the playoffs - 9z especially will now be horrid for the rest of the year - and to be completely frank, we just don’t care about this game.
Sorry.
Finally we come to FURIA vs Falcons, which you’ll be glad to know we absolutely do care about.
FalleN versus karrigan for one of the final times ever, it’s another match-up that’s straight down the middle.
FURIA have some out-of-form stars, while Falcons have to deal with inconsistent NiKo, kyousuke’s stage fright, and the Danish disasterclass duo. That makes it sound horrible, but when you consider that karrigan might carry over his arena-induced ADHD and turn kyousuke into the second coming of makazze… it’s a recipe for absolute cinema.
Who wins? Not a f-cking clue. Do we care? No, not really. Are we going to watch it with our c-cks out and a box of tissues at the ready? Abso-f-cking-lutely.
Listen, we just like granny p-rn. Sue us.
The first half of last year was defined by a rivalry between MOUZ and Vitality. This year, though, NAVI has taken MOUZ’s spot in that rivalry.
Different team, but same outcome: Vitality wins every time.
Until now.
NAVI have to beat Vitality at some point, and this is the perfect time for them to do it. apEX and the lads all took a break before Atlanta, and it’s shown as they (somehow) managed to lose to BetBoom.
The funny part about it is that it almost certainly lowers NAVI’s chance to beat Vitality at the Major. A win for them here, combined with that win for BetBoom, will almost certainly be a wake-up call for Vitality, setting them up for their most dominant Major run yet.
So NAVI, win while you can, because that opportunity is about to evaporate come Monday.
We’ve also got paiN vs GamerLegion to look forward to, and that’s a game we certainly won’t be sleeping on.
It’s not 9z vs magic, for f-ck’s sake.
Across Atlanta and BLAST Rivals, GamerLegion have become our new favourite team to watch. hypex is good now he’s been freed from the ztr penitentiary, and the REZnaissance always brings us joy. Not as much joy as Snax’s IGLing does, though, because it really is something special to see the big man causing mayhem once again.
In our humble opinion, this one is going the way of GamerLegion without a doubt. They’ve already proven they can take scalps far bigger than paiN, and their match at Rivals versus Astralis proved their resiliency.
And when you add in the fact that they’ll play Legacy in the next round, you can almost guarantee they’ll be in the grand final, too.
Which means you can also guarantee you’ll be asking, “How the f-ck are one of these teams in a tier one final right before the Major?” but that’s besides the point.
The other team looking to make it to the final - but who unfortunately have no chance thanks to Vitality and NAVI - is BetBoom. They’ve had an incredible run, but just like The Boys, the final is likely to be very disappointing.
