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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
But Spirit are in deep trouble once again
We’re realising we might be a bit harsh on BLAST Bounty, this iteration of the tournament was honestly fantastic. We aren’t harsh enough on Spirit, though, so you can enjoy our little rant about them in this edition.
jL also seems to have a new team, too, so it’s not all doom and gloom.
According to jL, the Lithuanian has already signed a contract with a new team.
Who that new team is, though, is anyone’s guess.
The current suggestion from the community is FaZe, and with the fact they haven’t actually announced a permanent fifth player, it would make sense. However, Neityu has been solid in his time with the team, and for where they’re at right now, we’re not sure we’d disrupt that.
There are other options, of course. NIP are currently without a permanent fifth, too, and although n0te has been decent during his own stand-in period, there’s no debating the fact that NIP could benefit from jL’s experience over n0te’s.
An outside shout could also be G2. NertZ still hasn’t managed to recapture his pre-Liquid form on the team, and with his roles being incredibly important, it can’t be long before G2 are forced to look elsewhere so that they can finally escape the mediocre level they currently operate at.
Not that they helped themselves with r1nkle…
Our choice, though, would be Astralis.
It’s no secret that ryu is a little bit pants, and role-wise, jL would be a solid fit to come in and swap out 1:1 on most maps.
There’s also the intangible benefits of something like jL, the vibe boost you get from - and we mean this in the best way possible - his sheer aloofness.
When Astralis are a team with multiple clips of them arguing throughout games, a player like jL to bring them together in moments such as those could be worth his weight in gold. When you add in that he can also, unlike ryu, actually shoot back at people, the move becomes a no-brainer.
Of course, it’s very rare that a no-brainer actually happens in Counter-Strike, so jL, welcome to The MongolZ.
BLAST Bounty Season 2, we wanted to hate you, but you were actually really good fun.
All four quarter-finals were entertaining, with 3DMAX putting on a surprisingly good match with MOUZ, and paiN vs Astralis being far better than a game between those two teams has ever had a right to be. Add in the fact that we got to see Liquid on LAN and FaZe put The MongolZ in their place, and those first two days were a damn good time.
The semis were good fun, too. FaZe almost managed to take Spirit to overtime on map three, and had Twistzz and Neityu not utterly sh-t the bed in the closing moments of Anubis, they probably would have got there.
Astralis vs MOUZ was slightly less exciting, but the series was pretty back and forth, and MOUZ actually looked like they might choke their 10-point lead on Dust2. Good stuff.
What MOUZ never looked like choking, though, was the grand final. They absolutely walked all over Spirit, and given how much we’ve criticised them, it was really nice to see.
It could absolutely be a honeymoon period, and you’re probably never getting a 78-38 statline out of Spinx again, but what a way to win a first tier one trophy for both xelex and PR.
The two kids, although overshadowed by Spinx - insert joke here about him stealing glory - were both solid throughout the event, as were the rest of the MOUZ team, in all fairness to them, and had key parts to play as MOUZ lifted their unexpected first trophy of 2026.
All that remains to be seen is whether MOUZ can keep it up. We still have reservations about them, but those reservations are slowly starting to dwindle. xertioN might actually be a real IGL, and he seems to have gotten the best out of torzsi again, too. If PR can get accustomed to playing with Spinx - which still is the biggest concern - and xelex can find consistency, they could be a real force again.
Better than they were in 2025? Maybe not, but we’re not sure they have to be, either. Counter-Strike is much more open now than it was then, and if things go well for them as they did in Malta, don’t be surprised to see them win another trophy this year.
That’s not something we expected to say when Bounty began.
At some point in everyone’s life, they will learn an important lesson: Nothing can ever go back to the way it was before.
People learn this lesson due to a multitude of reasons, but for Spirit, it will undoubtedly be their coaching department.
With hally gone, Spirit played a much more free style. Their stars were allowed to make their own plays, and their supportive pieces helped them to do it. It was the best they’ve looked since coming into tier one, and a big reason why they looked like they could actually be the best team in the second half of the year.
Now that he’s returned, some of the freedom has remained, but it’s back to being limited by Sean Dychovich, and Spirit are paying the price for it.
Playing without a coach is never desirable, and of course, it’s understandable that Spirit would have thought that hally would’ve been able to add to their new level, but this is where one of life’s most valuable lessons comes in.
hally couldn’t add to that level, because if he could, he would’ve done it already.
By bringing him back, all that Spirit will do is get wires crossed. They’ll create some bastardised version of their old playstyle and hally-less playstyle, and it will prevent them from being the team we all know they can and probably should be.
That time without hally, even if it was forced by health issues, is a time that progressed Spirit. Whether they like it or not, it was the best thing for them, and going back to hally is a regression.
Let’s not forget they struggled to get a win over the line against FaZe, and Liquid could have made their game more competitive, too. The MOUZ result is especially embarrassing given how one-sided that matchup usually is, and Spirit should be taking a long look at themselves in the aftermath.
Learn life lessons as quickly as you can, or spend that life chasing a glory your own naivety constantly pushes further away from you.
