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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
Spirit’s top spot is already looking dicey
Just when donk could have put his feet up and smiled knowing he’s on the best team in the world, mezii has come back, and Vitality have lifted another trophy.
Also, NAVI still suck and MOUZ suck again, and FUT are trying to address their sniper issue before they start to suck.
Remember when FUT were defending cmtry a couple of months ago after he turned into Stockholm MSL for one tournament?
Well, they’re benching him.
That’s what the pracc-room-leakers will have you believe, anyway, as according to them, FUT have been praccing with anyone from SunPayus, to sl3nd, to that random Russian bloke who really p-ssed you off on FACEIT yesterday.
Unfortunately, it seems they’ve settled on SunPayus. We’d have much preferred sl3nd to get another crack at the big time, or even if 9INE had actually let flayy go, but no, we can’t have nice things now, can we?
SunPayus is a move that just doesn’t really make sense to us. He’s a known commodity with a lot of tier one experience, sure, but what we also know about him is that he f-cking sucks at CS2.
Sorry, LuzRaposa, but any AWPer getting benched for r1nkle can’t actually be a serious player.
FUT could have gone for a young talent, one who would be better suited to their unit and hungry to prove themselves.
Instead, they’ve gone for a washed-up Spaniard who is hungry for nothing more than a siesta and a paycheque.
How miserable.
That said, anyone will be an upgrade on cmtry, and we do like that part of it all. cmtry could maybe be great if he had a little kursy arc, but FUT don’t need a kursy, they need an AWPer.
SunPayus might not be the answer that we have in mind, but he’s at least a start, even if we don’t think he lasts longer than six months.
A few weeks ago, Sam said some outrageous stuff - even for him - on the pod about what he thinks should be done to NAVI. It almost hit the cutting room floor, but we’re glad it didn’t, as it turns out he was just ahead of his time.
The fact that this Natus Vincere has heavily stagnated in recent months is obviously no secret, and even back then it was pretty obvious, but by god we didn’t know just how sh-t you could be.
It really has been the headline story of this weekend’s StarSeries, as NAVI handily lost their opening match against Aurora, before being taken down by MOUZ in the lower bracket. You might call going up against the eventual grand finalists and what some were calling the #2 team in the world a tough draw, but at an eight-team event you really need to be able to win at least one of those games if you want to compete.
Glue factory.
You might be asking yourself why MOUZ found themselves in the lower bracket so early, being that they were the highest-ranked team at the event, but we think this event was a bit of a regression to what this team really is. They got upset in their opener by NRG - only the third tier one series NRG have won this year - before losing to FURIA after knocking out NAVI.
Something isn’t right about this MOUZ team, and we’ve been saying it all season. The roles and personalities don’t match, and in a not-too-distant future we expect to see a steeper decline. As far as we know, this might have been the start.
FURIA themselves went on to knock MIBR out, ending the campaign of the clear winners in the lower half of the ranking at this event, before eventually being smashed by Vitality. Wait, why are Vitality in the lower bracket?
Turns out, building a good team takes some time, and Aurora’s investments are slowly starting to pay off more and more. Jimpphat continued to shine as the clear star of this squad as Aurora beat Vitality in the upper final to secure their first grand finalist appearance with their new international look.
Setting up a grand final rematch with the team Aurora just beat actually gave us some hope in this final. An out-of-practice Vitality, up against Jimpphat playing out of his mind, in a game they’d basically already won once?
Yeah, bring it on. And then, bring iM to justice for his crimes against Counter-Strike.
You know what pro players do? Play a lot of CS. You know where they do it? Community servers.
At least we think they do. They don’t really talk to us.
Either way, we play on them a lot over at Wideswing, and we’re all A) cracked at the game and B) so incredibly knowledgeable at the game that you spend your time reading our opinions on it. So, if you’d like to at least be like us, get on Wideswing for Deathmatch, Retakes, 1v1s, and stop playing on whatever sh-t you currently use.
You trust us for everything else, so trust us with this, too.
mezii comes back, Vitality start winning tournaments again. Coincidence? We think not.
Despite what their previous meeting might suggest, the StarLadder StarSeries Fall 2026 grand final between Aurora and Vitality wasn’t much of a contest.
Anubis and Mirage were two 13-4 walks in the park for the Bees, so this very well could’ve been a clean sweep. Aurora managed to avoid that on Inferno, where they were up 12-6 before Vitality started mounting the comeback, only to see it denied by a 3v5 in the final round of regulation.
A BO5 against a full-strength Vitality was always going to be a very tough task for an Aurora team that hasn’t had enough time to build the kind of map pool needed to make it a fair fight. It also would’ve helped if XANTARES hadn’t tilted his brains out.
Of course, there’s not much you can do when you’re up against peak ZywOo. Another 1.51 rating MVP performance from the Frenchman, who was delivering highlight after highlight.
Still, Aurora should come out of this event with a smile on their faces. This turned out to be the breakout performance they were looking for to build some confidence. The potential is there - the question now is whether they can fulfil it with this lineup, or if they’re one or even two moves away from becoming a real contender.
On a side note, it does feel a bit unfair for Aurora to beat Vitality in the upper final, only to end up losing the trophy to them anyway. But hey, love it or hate it, that’s double elimination for you.
For Vitality, this is the confirmation that they’ve still got it. Not that we ever doubted it, but after a slow start to the season, this is the return to form they’ve been waiting for, in what is their first trophy since the BLAST Rivals S1 win back in May.
With the baby rotation soon making its way to apEX - who will miss PGL Masters Bucharest - Vitality has a stacked EPL S24 to prove the era isn’t over just yet.
