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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
Team Spirit have finally taken back their crown
MOUZ, we backed you, and you f-cked us. It’s not all bad, though, we’ve had a stellar weekend in Porto, and even zont1x seems to be cheery after it.
I'm back, having larped my way to another event.
BLAST Open Porto has been a blast, and now, having slightly more knowledge of the game I'm technically working on, despite only playing three maps of it since Cologne, my appreciation has grown more for it.
The city itself is fantastic, apart from that one f-cking hill we had to walk every day, but that won't take away from the experience too much. The people have been lovely, a lot of people telling us to enjoy Porto and actually sounding sincere, unlike the efficiency freaks over in Germany who seem irritated at your mere presence in their country.
The food was also incredible; if you've been reading throughout the week, you'll have heard us talking about francesinhas. Heaps of meats under some kind of bread, drenched in their special sauce, sorted us out most days, topped up by actual press room food and a fridge that wasn't locked at 8 pm.
Shoutout to RyRy one time.
On an actual work front I've had my first experience of a mixed zone - which was f-cking terrifying - but actually managing to get some interviews with players I had heard of (NiKo and flameZ) was a sense of surrealness, which I think I sort of did okay with - although I did accidentally ask NiKo how it was with karrigan being new to IGLing instead of being new to the team IGLing, which was a bit painful to hear when listening to it back. But no one notices that sh-t anyway.
Despite that, it was great. I only had a mild panic when trying to figure out if the FURIA player was yuurih or KSCERATO before I interviewed him, but we got it right in the end, thank God.
Overall, a great time was had, and many Super Bocks were drunk; but as a first real intro into any form of media work, I’m hoping I’ll get the chance to go back to it one day.
Words by Mull>
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!
Cast yourself back to IEM Katowice 2024. A new challenger had just emerged in donk, and he had set a new record for overall rating at a tier one event. What did you think at the time?
We remember what we thought:
These guys will never lose a game ever.
As it happened, they did lose. Quite a lot, in fact. They may have won Cologne and a Major after that, but trophies were few and far between, and it was instead Vitality who became the team we thought would never lose.
That’s changed today, though, because this now feels like the final form of Spirit. Or at least close to it, anyway.
They were dominant against MOUZ - as long as we ignore the Mirage comeback - tearing them apart on Dust2, Ancient, and Nuke as they lifted their second trophy in a row.
What makes it even scarier is that sh1ro performed in playoffs, and tN1R is also seriously stepping up, too. Spirit now look like the team we were promised they would be over two years ago, and we’re not even sure prime Vitality could stop them.
Spirit are a team who, right now, look indomitable. donk is donk, and if he doesn’t show up, the supporting cast are finally starting to do so. And that is a truly terrifying prospect.
It’s yet to be seen if MOUZ continue to improve, Falcons can build a map pool, Vitality make a comeback, or FURIA get one last surge of motivation to send FalleN out with a bang, but with this win, something changed in the CS scene.
Spirit are now the favourites. For everything. And that isn’t going to change for a while.
Final standings at BLAST Open Porto:
1st 🇷🇺 Spirit – $150.000
2nd 🇪🇺 MOUZ – $60.000
3-4th 🇪🇺 Vitaltiy – $40.000
3-4th 🇪🇺 Falcons – $40.000
5-6th 🇧🇷 FURIA – $20.000
5-6th 🇪🇺 G2 – $20.000
7-8th 🇪🇺 FUT – $10.000
7-8th 🇹🇷 Aurora - $10.000
