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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
AWPers are moving continentally, and Portugal is getting the band back together.
Portuguese CS is making a comeback… Or at least our Portuguese writer is hoping it will.
G2 and FUT might be on a downturn, though, if the gods don’t look down on them kindly, and Brazil is trading AWPers like they’re Pokémon cards. This rostermania is bloodly lovely.
You may have seen that we were handing out the second edition of the TLDR magazine during the Major.
We handed out around 7,500 of the f-ckers in boiling Cologne to rave reviews, but we’re very aware some of you who didn’t attend, would also like to be able to get your hands on a copy.
Therefore, if you sign up for our new Speed Reader Pass, you’ll be entered into a giveaway to win one of five physical copies that we’ll send straight to your (real) mailbox.
We’ve had an oddly large amount of positive feedback on the scent of the printed mag, but if you’re not that kinda gal / guy, you can read the online magazine instead.
“From the outside, it feels that if results don’t quickly follow, this [BC.Game] lineup could look very different in just a few months, making it all for nothing. That being said, it’s also clear that the sale of the trio - along with the transfers of story and Ag1l - marks a huge step forward for both the players and the entire national scene. With SAW alumni ewjerkz and arrozdoce already abroad, Portugal now has seven players competing internationally, something that would have been unthinkable six years ago.”
That’s what I wrote nearly seven months ago, when SAW announced the sale of its roster. I was cautiously optimistic - blinded by patriotism and the excitement of seeing so many players having the chance to compete abroad - as it didn’t take a CS genius to notice the warning signs.
There’s plenty to be said about the BC.Game saga, and if you’re feeling particularly masochistic, you can read my thoughts on that here. But that’s not the focus today.
The two players I had pinned most of my hopes on to establish themselves out there were story and Ag1l - but the outcome wasn’t much different, unfortunately.
Is Portuguese CS simply cursed to thrive only when it stays together?
To be fair, both ewjerkz and Ag1l were performing reasonably well before being shown the door by their respective teams, and it’s hard to pin FlyQuest’s struggles on story when the team barely played together. Still, there’s a recurring pattern: when things go wrong, the Portuguese piece is the easiest to sacrifice.
Is the issue with the players themselves, the roles their new teams are asking them to fill, or is there a fundamental stylistic mismatch between the MUTiRiS school of CS - from which every single one of them graduated - and the rest of the world’s? Honestly, it’s hard to say.
But not all is lost, fellow Portugeezers. From the turmoil, a new hope emerges. Like our ancestors who once ventured into the unknown in pursuit of fortune and glory, we too shall unite our strengths and… sorry, got a little carried away there.
Simply put, all this talent now available means a Portuguese dream team is a real possibility, and I have a pretty strong hunch (let’s call it that) that the Pastel de Nata Avengers will be assembled.
So what does Schrödinger’s team look like?
I’ve yet to open the box, so I’m not entirely sure - the possible combinations ultimately depend on contracts and all that boring stuff - but I would be very surprised if it didn’t include MUT, ewjerkz, and story as the core. From there, you’ve got a bunch of pieces you could slot in to complete the roster - names like krazy, aragornN, arrozdoce, Ag1l, or even Shr - but, in my opinion, no lineup comes close to the potential of prime SAW with Ag1l replacing roman. For now, we can only dream, but the pieces of the puzzle are all there. Someone just needs to put them together.
Get married, have a couple kids, own a nice house. Those were my big goals in life. Not anymore. Now, I just want to live long enough to watch our new team absolutely sh-t on s1mple’s BC.Game. After that, I’ll go in peace.
“Last year, they realised that as much as they’d like to, truly great AWPers are rarely made in Brazil. Taking in kl1m was a gamble, but he’s comfortably shown since signing on that he beats all the South America-based AWPers, bar molodoy.”
I was quite high on kl1m going into Cologne, and going by the cost of his signature, I hit the nail on the head. Frankly, one of my better pieces written for the TLDR newsletter-
“Calling for MIBR to make it out of Stage One should be a given, but we’ll go further - these kids will challenge for a playoff spot.”
Ah, shove it. Who do you think I am - Nostradamus?
In the fallout of the Major, MIBR retaining the services of kl1m was impossible. It probably happened at the right time, though, as two players well-positioned to replace him were on the market.
As reported by Dust2 Brasil, try and nqz were both of interest to the team, and in the end they managed to land the latter. The former is instead set to land in Legacy, replacing saadzin to make that squad even more dangerous heading into the fall season.
The thing is - this is a huge upgrade.
The Brazilian really can’t stack up to kl1m aim-wise, but that’s about the only thing the young Russian has going for him. I wasn’t super impressed by his Major performance - modern AWPers need to throw a lot of utility and communicate a lot, kid - and it seems from the outside looking in that he’s somewhat difficult to work with.
nqz, on the other hand, comes in well rested with extensive tier one experience, and wisdom to spare for his younger teammates. He’s no slouch on the big green either, and I’m keen to see how he plays under LNZ.
You might think I’m way out of line saying kl1m isn’t all that, but it’s an indictment when a team who can have him for free, and are vacating his spot anyway, don’t even take him.
Take a guess who it is - the name rhymes with “pee poo”.
In the last edition of this fine newsletter, we said to come back today for our thoughts on G2 swapping SunPayus for r1nkle, and honestly?
We’re still absolutely baffled.
It’s not that we think SunPayus is wicked, or even that he should have 100% stayed on the team; we would’ve kicked him months ago. But for r1nkle?
The guy wasn’t even good enough for NIP.
r1nkle once showed a whole lot of potential, so he absolutely could surprise us, but let’s look at his problems: he lacks composure, he has a high ceiling and a low floor, and really struggles in big moments.
Now, what are G2’s problems? They lack composure, have a high ceiling and a low floor, and really struggle in big moments.
The thing that confuses us the most about this change is that it seems they’re just contributing to that problem, when actually - contrary to what we said earlier - sticking by their team could have seen these problems wash away by the end of the year. We all saw how close they were to beating Spirit in Cologne, after all.
sAw could, of course, help r1nkle fix these problems; he’s a great coach and undoubtedly stands a much better chance of helping r1nkle than Xizt did… but this seems like a massive gamble from us.
And we’re just not sure it’s going to pay off.
We were surprised when reports came out that lauNX was looking for a way out of FUT after their failure to make the playoffs in Cologne, but we were even more surprised to find out they’re apparently targeting SunPayus as an upgrade on cmtry.
Starting with lauNX, this one just feels mental to us. FUT are the best team he’s ever been a part of, and he’s a key part of that team. An upgrade doesn’t feel obvious for him, so unless there are background issues or he’s just looking for a pay rise, we don’t get it.
Fortunately for FUT, though. We think they’ve found a solid replacement in xfl0ud. The Turk may have had his struggles in the pretty dire state HEROIC find himself in, but he has a very high ceiling, and coolio can absolutely help him find that ceiling more often.
As for the SunPayus rumour… we think this might be where problems lie.
If it works, this will be incredible. But if it doesn’t… it could be very, very bad for FUT.
What you have to remember about FUT is that outside of lauNX, this is a team who have been together for a long time. Disrupting that balance more than they need to could see them take an unnecessary dip.
PENIS And given what we’ve heard about SunPayus at various points (vagueposting very intended)
That said, cmtry isn’t a fantastic player, but he does a solid job for the team and, compared to other AWPers, isn’t put in many positions to do much better. In that sense, SunPayus, who has been put in a similar position by G2, is a better player.
At least when he actually gets to AWP. He’s probably less impressive than cmtry when he doesn’t.
Maybe that leads to a system change, and if it does, then great, SunPayus is a great move. HLTV rating will tell you it’s mostly a sideways move, but that’s probably not true. If he clicks with the rest of the team, playoffs in Singapore should be considered the minimum expectation.
