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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
These roster moves make no sense.
We’re kicking off a weekend of daily coverage of the BLAST Open Porto playoffs with an interview with TeSeS and a playoff preview, so look out for that in this edition and keep your eyes peeled on the TLDR YouTube channel for more banger content throughout the weekend.
We’ve also got some potentially messy transfer business to sink our teeth into, with The MongolZ potentially about to suffer another loss and NIP making us all scratch our heads… again.
The MongolZ have announced that Cobrazera will be returning to the active roster for FISSURE Playground 3, with Techno set to skip the event… with no reason given.
Now, in any normal tournament, we wouldn’t consider this to be worthy news, but then we remembered something: BC.Game have two Mongolian players on their team, and are one away from the easiest Major qualification of all time.
And we hate that.
We had a good moan about Liquid signing malbsMd to switch themselves over to the NA region prior to Cologne, but with BC.Game, somehow, it just feels more gross.
Maybe it’s because they’re sh-t, or maybe it’s because we actually quite like The MongolZ, but there’s just something really off about BCG using the Asian region as an easy route to the Major and a way to skip ahead in the queue.
That said, there are two positives: The first being that this almost certainly means electroNic will be cut, and the second, and perhaps better thing: one less Aussie team will make the Major.
Lovely stuff.
Well, until they cut Magisk and make electroNic IGL and ruin the fun all over again, that is.
In all seriousness, though, this is a potential move that we don’t expect to work for either party.
In the case of The MongolZ, we already know Cobra isn’t up to snuff, and they’re going to take another competitive nosedive with him on the team. And as for BCG, well, they’re going to learn a nasty lesson very quickly about why importing players doesn’t always guarantee success, especially when the cultures don’t mix well.
Still, at least it means we’ll get to see them bomb out 0-3 on the grandest stage (1) of them all, and that will be good viewing.
Everyone loves opening cases, so Valve had to ruin them by making them those miserable terminals. Of course, you could still buy old cases and open those at extortionate prices, but why line the pockets of Valve if they can’t be f-cked to even make a working anti-cheat?
Fortunately, our friends at Razed have the solution for this, so get yourselves on razed.io by using our referral link and get three free cases upon sign-up!
The best teams in the world - and G2 - playing in the finest city Portugal has to offer. What more could you ask for?
And what better way to kick it all off than with some family business, as the Kovačs meet in the first quarterfinal of BLAST Open Porto’s Playoffs.
Admittedly, G2 got a bit unlucky landing on the Falcons-Spirit side of the bracket, but this is their second event in a row making the Playoffs - a welcome sign of growth since the questionable r1nkle move. To be fair, those questions seem to be getting positively answered. But don’t worry, fellow haters… good things come to those who wait.
If Falcons get past G2 - a moderately sized if - we’ll get a rematch of the Cologne Major semifinal. After lifting the EWC trophy and sweeping DENDELE, G2, and FURIA on their way to Porto, Spirit’s momentum is sky-high. This is their tournament to lose.
On the opposite side of the bracket, FURIA find themselves with their best chance at a grand final in a while (excluding Cologne, of course). They’ll be playing in familiar surroundings, with the majority of the crowd on their side, while facing a weakened Vitality.
Still, jL has shown us that he shouldn’t be underestimated, and you can’t really count the best team of all time out. Or at least four-fifths of it.
Awaiting the winner will be MOUZ, and we speak for everyone when we say we weren’t expecting to see this version of MOUZ. Everyone is looking incredibly sharp - to the point that they’re starting to sound delusional. If they keep it up, MOUZ are serious contenders to lift the trophy at the Super Bock Arena this weekend.
This week on Overtime on Inferno, Sam and Quacke cover all the latest news including the financial tomfoolery of 3DMAX and Monte.
With esports being the industry it is, neither case was really that shocking. Quacke did suggest HooXi was an underrated IGL this episode though, and we’re quite frankly much more offended about that…
TeSeS, welcome to Porto. How is the team feeling so far?
Good, overall I would say good. Kind of disappointed with the MOUZ loss because we kind of had no chance in that game, but we're here and ready for playoffs. We want to do really well.
I was going to bring up the MOUZ loss later, but since you've brought it up I'll get to it now. One of the losses you had recently was against MOUZ and it was a seeding game. What are your thoughts on seeding games?
I think it's okay, seeding games are something that have been part of tournaments for a long time and there's not much to say to it. It's silly to make excuses that it's not that important, I think we took it as an important game but they really outplayed us on the last two maps. Well played to them.
You've got a quarter-final against G2 who have been a bit inconsistent recently, but that doesn't mean it's going to be an easy game. They also have a new AWPer, is that going to impact the matchup or make you prepare differently?
No, preparing stays the same. Of course, it's a new team with a new AWPer filling one of the most important roles, and it seems like he's fitting in better by each game. It will be exciting to play against him.
Obviously, you won the Major in Cologne, and maybe everyone thought you would become the next dominant force in CS after that. You've had a few losses, do you think the pressure came away and you took your foot off the gas?
It's hard to say. I don't think we've taken our foot off the gas at all. We haven't been succeeding in these crucial moments in the games, it's something we're trying to work on. We had the honeymoon phase, now we're in the building stage trying to find ourselves, find our identity and different maps. Sometimes teams go through a little struggle period before they come out on the other side, that's what we're hoping for.
Do you think part of the reason for the losses is that you've picked Ancient in all of those series so far, then haven't won any. Are you just trying to get better at it, and it isn't falling your way?
It's something that has kind of surprised us that we've lost three games in a row, because practice has been going really well on the map. We were quite confident going into the tournament with this map pick. It's something we're trying to look at and fix.
📺 👉 Watch the interview on YouTube here.
Interview by Mull & Charlinho
If you haven’t been keeping up with CS since April of this year, we’re about to blow your mind.
Role-swapping stavn worked.
He’s actually a really competent AWPer. It might not say much, considering how NIP have been teetering on the edge of relevance, but since joining NIP, stavn has been a top-10-rated AWPer in Top 30 games worldwide.
Snappi did the impossible. A rifler role-swapped to the AWP role, and it worked.
His reward? Getting sacked. Well, “mutually deciding to step down”, but in esports, that’s about as mutual as the average breakup.
The IGL market is not the greatest, so what do you do? Role-swap stavn into AWP-IGL to finally surpass cadiaN in every way possible? Or do you go back to the well and pull the classic gambit - make the support player the IGL?
Apparently, the answer is to sign a young rifler, inactive for almost a year, who has never played the IGL role and has only ever been relevant under a single caller. Who wasn’t that great to begin with, if we’re honest.
Welcome to NIP - Krimbo.
How Krimbo will fare as a caller is anyone’s guess, as we really have nothing to go off of. But not only are they integrating a whole new captain’s vision into the team, but they only have him for four months.
Sure, if it works, they can buy him out at the end of the season, but it doesn’t seem like NIP have the kind of funding to guarantee that at the moment. IF it works, that is. Which it won’t.
If NIP manage to catch lightning in a jar twice, they deserve the world. Don’t bet the house.
Written by quacke
