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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
Ain’t no squeaking in the Spodek
Spirit, your time at number one was… well, short. MOUZ are here to stay, and Vitality are back with a bang. The final is set to be wicked.
Ever since this Aurora lineup was formed, we’ve been saying on the podcast that it will be top five by the end of the year. They’ve already made it, with two months to spare.
There is a problem with that, though. It isn’t enough to just be a top five team, and there’s a big gap between those who find themselves in the top five and the titans that are Vitality and Spirit.
Of course, that doesn’t make those teams infallible - woxic showed that you can put the hurt to Vitality as he rolled back the years to dominate Anubis - but you need more than just one player popping off on a single map to take them down across a series.
Aurora’s loss against Vitality, which ultimately does look better on paper as Vitality let them claw back some rounds on Mirage, did show that there is still a big gap between themselves and the teams they’re looking to catch in the race for glory, but it also showed that Aurora will be the next team to close that gap.
How they close it, though, is another question. Whether it’s woxic, XANTARES, or both that ultimately lose their spot in the quest for gold is yet to be seen, although it seems a certainty that it will be necessary to cut at least one to get there.
It’s not going to be a popular move either way, but Vitality didn’t get to their era by making the popular decision, either. We remember the outrage when they cut dupreeh for flameZ.
And, at the end of the day, who cares anymore? No one, right?
With good reason, too - no one can say sh-t when you don’t stop winning trophies.
In the second game of the day, we were treated to a MOUZ masterclass.
Yeah, we know.
It turns out, though, that MOUZ are donk’s kryptonite, just look at this tweet to see their insane records against him. They showed resilience, too. Letting a big lead slip to an 11-10 deficit would have killed the old MOUZ, but the new one picked themselves up and took the series with a 13-11 on Nuke.
So, while we might not be getting that dream final of Vitality vs Spirit, we don’t mind, because this is a MOUZ with a roar, not a squeak.
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!
How are you feeling after that loss, what are your immediate thoughts
Disappointed mostly. I feel like the game was maybe there for the taking. The last map was not so competitive but I feel like the Cache game was. We had so many opportunities where it felt like, okay the round is won, hands off the keyboards. Then we didn't win any of those. After that it was disappointing that we had a bit of a mental collapse for a while. Overall it was okay, but in the moment when you lose obviously you feel disappointed. It's competitive, right?
Are you still taking away a lot of positives for making it this far?
Yeah for sure, there's definitely more positives than there are negatives. When you play a team like Vitality obviously they're going to exploit you really well. They're fantastic at this, it's why they're the best team ever. They find a gap and they just feel like they can keep going, and going, and going. We kind of know this will happen, especially on stage as well. It felt like ZywOo was bringing his best form unfortunately. I think there were lots of positives from the event. We just need to keep looking at the positives going into the next event.
You've got a lot of events in a row right now, how are you planning on implementing things when you don't have much rest time?
That's the difficult part. Right now we're looking more for consistency rather than massive improvements since there isn't time for any practice. We've just come from playing many events in a row. It's been like ten days of practice. I think it's going to be like forty days non-stop, people are tired then getting sick and things. There's been lots of talks and analysis, we'll look for small improvements but mostly we're just looking for consistency.
You mentioned ZywOo was doing well, but woxic was also doing pretty good. How does it feel to have your AWPer dominate the best team in the world?
Yeah that Anubis game was special, it felt like he had a lot of good rounds. He just needs to believe more in himself, I felt like on Cache his confidence fell really hard in the middle of the game. You can see when he's feeling the game he looks as good as any other AWPer out there. He needs to find that bit more of belief in himself, but he's enjoying the new direction and trying to be a little bit more impactful. It's been a while since he played this kind of style. But yeah, fantastic stuff from him especially on the first map, and there's a lot more to come from him.
You and Mezii have played with each other all the way back in 2017 on dog gaming at insomnia 60, how does it feel to play against a friend like that where you have history?
I mean what kind of friend is he? He has all these trophies and he won't let me have any of them [laughs]. It's great to see him do so well, it's kind of become normal for him. He's established himself as easily the best player the UK has ever had, and he's even going way beyond that now. It got to the point where I don't message him anymore when he wins tournaments, because the chat history is just me saying well done mate and congratulations. I'm very proud of him, I remember picking him up when he was about to quit the game and he's come a long way since then. I'm happy for him as long as Vitality win, if they lose the final I'll delete him from my steam friends.
I remember you tweeted when Mezii first won the Major. Does that kind of success from a UK player also inspire you to do more?
I wouldn't say so. When you're playing Counter-Strike all your life you want to compete and prove yourself anyway. But what he's done has inspired a lot of young players in the UK. I'm a lot older, I'm thirty-six so I don't feel like I need a role model who is half my age [laughs]. Though the UK badly needed to see what he did can be done, I hope it inspires a new generation.
From what I've seen so far it's a little bit disappointing, I've heard a lot of bad rumours about some potential match-fixing in the UK for CS, which is very worrying for me. I just want to see people get their head screwed on and try to work at it. Mezii didn't get to where he is without a lot of dedication and hard work, that's the main thing to take away from his career.
Interview by Charlinho & GrimyRanarr
We’ve said it many times before, but resilience is the first word that comes to mind when we think about the Vitality era.
Everyone said they were done, that babies had derailed them, that you can;t be this good for that long. Everyone, as usual, was wrong. Vitality are that good, and their performances at EPL and in StarLadder prove that.
The expectation is then, that they will of course win in the grand final against MOUZ.
But this isn’t the MOUZ they gave repeated spankings to in 2025.
This is a MOUZ with an IGL who is actually a captain, and who gets crowds to actually cheer for them. This is a MOUZ with a future superstar in xelex, and an anchor who will actually force Spinx to help him.
This is a MOUZ with killer instinct.
It was the one thing that was always lacking from previous lineups. The one thing that kept Vitality so far ahead of them.
However, with that killer instinct now firmly in their playbook, we don’t think this final will be as easy as Vitality have found many of their meetings with MOUZ.
In fact, it might just be their toughest grand final yet.
