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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
Maybe not the player though...
BLAST Bounty continues, and the upsets have just kept coming. Spirit are the only favourite left in the competition, and given they’ve looked shaky so far, we aren’t confident they’ll be celebrating a trophy win in a week.
One team that might, though, amazingly, is Team Liquid. Who look absolutely stellar with their new duo. Go figure.
If you showed BLAST Bounty S2’s Finals lineup to someone back in 2019, they’d be thrilled. A final stage featuring the likes of Liquid, Astralis, FaZe, and MOUZ? That was about as stacked as it got.
Fast forward seven years (damn, we’re getting old), and those four - joined by Spirit, The MongolZ, paiN, and 3DMAX - make up an underwhelming list.
Still, it’s what we’ve got, and we’re not complaining… much.
The ruthless single-elimination online stage claimed two heavyweights right off the bat. FURIA fell to domestic opposition in Shar… sorry, DENDELE (let the record show it’s a much worse name), while Vitality suffered an even bigger upset at the hands of a rejuvenated Liquid, who followed it up with another convincing sweep over G2.
Is this just the usual honeymoon period, or are we witnessing the Js effect? That’s a question for another story - which, conveniently, comes right after this one.
MOUZ, Astralis, and The MongolZ all enjoyed relatively straightforward routes to Malta. MOUZ dispatched Nuclear TigeRES and FOKUS, Astralis got pat Nemesis and HOTU, while The MongolZ pushed through HEROIC and Wildcard. Even so, Astralis - despite a red-hot jabbi - left plenty to be desired, struggling in both series.
By contrast, the new kids on the block for both MOUZ and The MongolZ made great first impressions, and it’ll be interesting to see how they fare on LAN.
Missing out on a trip to the jewel of the Mediterranean are FUT, whose qualification hopes were crushed by 3DMAX. Unfortunately for them, new signing xfl0ud couldn’t carry over the form he showed in his debut series against SINNERS.
With the first stage behind us, Spirit emerge as the favourites to lift the trophy, despite looking surprisingly vulnerable against both OG and 100 Thieves. Of course, Spirit can afford to look shaky and still make Playoffs because... donk. Enough said.
As always, every impression we take away should come with a healthy grain of salt. A handful of online matches at the start of the season can only tell us so much. Thankfully, the real test is just around the corner.
Liquid hadn’t beaten a team inside the top 15 since December. That was, until BLAST Bounty, where they took down both Vitality and G2, and neither one even gave them a hard time.
No, seriously, we can’t really believe it either.
Well, except for the fact we can, and for one reason: JT.
JT had spent far too long rotting with Complexity and Passion UA. We knew it, thorin knew it, everyone knew it. Having finally got his chance on Liquid, it was time to prove us all right, and so far, he’s passing with flying colours.
For the first time in a long time, Liquid don’t look like five blokes being forced to play CS together. They look like a team. A team with a purpose at that.
That purpose, of course, is to win trophies, and although they may still be some way off that, making it to the playoffs of BLAST Bounty with the hardest run of any of the teams there is definitely commendable.
It’s honestly hard not to put that down to JT. Sure, Jorko had some really solid games, but would he have done that with siuhy? We’re really not sure.
Everyone is trying to say siuhy’s time on Liquid didn’t count, but remember, MOUZ got better without him, too. We’re noticing.
We won’t get too excited just yet - BLAST Bounty isn’t exactly a real event - but there’s a lot of promise in this team now, and we don’t think they’re going to struggle at actual events either.
Get excited, NA fans. Your boys are back.
What do you think you’d do for a job if your job wasn’t Counter-Strike?
I would not work. I would just film TikToks, YouTube, whatever. But I wouldn’t go outside and work.
What’s the most dangerous animal you think you could beat in a fight?
Dangerous… a mosquito.
Yeah, fair enough. But what if the mosquito was beating you up, which one of your teammates would you turn to for help?
Danny [zonic], because the mosquito will target him.
And you’d just run away?
Yeah.
Fantastic. If the world was going to end, unless one of your teammates won a 1v1, which teammate would you pick?
I would pick Ilya [m0NESY]. I think he’s really smart in clutches, how he plays. If he gets into a 1v1 I’m almost sure he will win it.
If you were trapped on a deserted island with one of your teammates, who would have the best chance of surviving with, and why?
I think NiKo. I think he’s the smartest one when it comes to outside life, not CS.
Which teammate do you have the worst chance of surviving with?
Me and Ilya.
Why? Would you just not be able to find food?
Yeah, we would just lose, bratan.
If the team is listening to music, who do you want to pick the music?
I would be the DJ, for sure.
What kind of music are you into?
What kind of music do I listen to… It’s like rap, hip-hop. Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Peep, Juice WRLD, 21 Savage, A$AP Rocky, some Russian artists.
How much does a Red Bull cost in Euros?
In Euros… I think 2.50€.
If you could live on any map in Counter-Strike - doesn’t have to be in the active pool - which one would it be, and why?
I would pick Italy. It’s pretty good looking.
Now the most important question of them all - are you a dog person or a cat person?
I would be a dog.
You would be a dog, or do you prefer dogs to cats?
I prefer dogs to cats. They walk a lot; they’re very fun.
If you were going to get turned into a dog or a cat, which one would you pick to get turned into?
Just a small dog, always laughing.
