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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
No stand-in, no problem
The return of mezii has proved Vitality’s supposed demise was greatly exaggerated, though the same cannot be said for Astralis.
Katowice is not how I remember it.
I remember it as it was in January 2023 - cold, dark, and wet. Despite that, though, it had a unique charm to it, and in that sense, it reminded myself and aizyesque of our hometown of Birmingham. There was a clear history to the city, and for one weekend, it lived and breathed Counter-Strike.
It was a treat to be here.
Katowice is very different in October 2026. That subtle charm is gone, replaced by incredible nightlife and bars that never, ever seem to close. That, of course, leads to more white-girl-wasted people than I ever saw at university, but it’s always nice to have something to laugh at over a beer.
And then there’s the Spodek.
IEM Katowice, or Krakow as it now is, unavoidably outgrew the Spodek. It’s the fourth-biggest tournament of the year, and the arena simply isn’t big enough to reflect that, but that doesn’t stop there being some special about it.
As long as you avoid the incessantly over-the-top security guards.
It’s a fantastic arena, and the compact, intimate nature of it only adds to the amazing atmosphere it creates. We might not have been treated to amazing CS here, bar some maps here and there, and as I write this, Vitality are spanking MOUZ in the final -
But who cares?
Any CS will be good in this arena, and if this is the last time we’re here, it’s fitting that it bows out having witnessed the greatest team of all time once more, after they established the start of their era here last year.
But maybe it won’t be the end. Maybe we’ll keep finding our way back here, in one of Counter-Strike’s true homes.
Maybe next time there’ll be a new king crowned here, too.
We do doubt that, though. Vitality aren’t ever going away.
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.
Congratulations on winning Pro League, how are you feeling straight afterwards?
Feels good, lifting trophies is always fun, especially when we're beating MOUZ. It never gets old beating them, when you're playing ex-teammates it's always nice to beat them. I don't know if it's the confidence they try to build for themselves, but they seemed pretty confident after they beat the boys in Porto without me. They were like, "Yeah we've beaten Falcons, we've beaten Spirit, and the last one on the list was Vitality. Now we've beat them". But it was a stand-in.
We've come to this final super motivated to show them that they were the better team then, but this is the full power now. We had some close games and some close maps where we were building up through the tournament to show our best form. That's kind of what happens in the final when we play our best.
Do you feel like you guys are back to being prime Vitality?
I think this event has been the closest to it, it's hard to tell. One of the best things we were able to do throughout our era was the consistency. We've shown a really good level at some tournaments even when we weren't winning trophies this year. It's about keeping that consistency and being able to do it throughout the whole tournament like we did here. Hopefully we can continue that, though it will be a bit different next event because we'll be without apEX. Hopefully the ZywOo go kill strategy works for me and we'll see if we can lift a trophy in Bucharest. We're definitely very close to our best, but it wouldn't surprise me if we can get even better with this lineup.
Are you concerned about progress getting interrupted by a tournament without apEX?
Not really, I think we felt it before I even missed Porto. We'd feel like we were just a couple percentages away from to our very best. A lot of the games we lost in the previous tournaments, like Falcons at the Major, and Spirit at EWC, were teams we felt like we could definitely beat. I don't think we're really worried because we picked up instantly when I came back. Of course it's tough to say, but I think with the way this team works and the way apEX works, we'll be able to get straight back on it when he comes back. It helps that we've got Hong Kong before to be able to get back into it and not go straight into the Major with no warmup.
As you said, you'll be the IGL in Bucharest. How are you feeling about calling again?
Feeling good. It went okay last time, but even though I really like him, nicoodoz is not the same as ZywOo. It's a bit different, I also have ropz and flameZ. It's hard to say how it's going to go, I think it's definitely going to be tough. We've got some practice before with jL, which is going to help a lot for me. I'll be able to find what's working, what isn't working, and what space we can give each other.
It's going to be a big team effort I think, we'll rely a lot on individuals being able to make plays and chip in with the mid-round as well. It's going to be a fun event, I think the guys are looking forward to how it's going to be. I think it's going to be tough for apEX, it's never fun to miss a tournament even for me and it's weird watching from the side-lines. It's going to be so different, apEX has been playing for like fourteen years, missing his first tournament is going to be weird for the guys. We'll just try to have fun with it and see what we can do.
You mentioned jL, are you concerned about being able to reign in his character?
[laughs] I didn't play with him in Porto so it's hard for me to know exactly how he is. I know he's been with us this event just in case he had to play. Outside the game he's going to be super easy to get on with. All the guys already know that and get on with him really well. It's going to be interesting and I'm here for all the fun, it's stand-in time and it's going to be a bit crazy. I'll do my best to sort things out within the game, but you don't want to have things be too set and controlled when you have a stand-in. That's when things become too much of a mess because you aren't a full team. We'll try to do our best and see what we can do.
We've previously discussed how you feel about becoming an IGL in the future. Are you going to use this next event as a way to evaluate the possibility of becoming a caller in the distant future?
Of course. I'm at a stage in my career where you never know what's going to happen. It's a role I've done before and it's a great chance to see how it feels. I know it wont be anytime soon that I jump into this role, so I don't want to take too much from it. It doesn't have to be what I do now and what I'm going to do. I just want to enjoy the experience. I've learned so much just in this time with apEX and his abilities as a captain inside and outside the game. I'll try to take something from it and if that's the role I jump into in the future then that's fine. Bucharest won't just be a free-for-all event we do for fun, it's an event we want to do well at. I want to make sure I gain experience from it.
Leave it to Danish businessmen to run esports ventures into the ground. Just ask anyone from Parken Challenger Championship.
There is the odd success story here and there, such as one of the most successful esports dynasties of all time, but the sport is not letting us forget a certain Mr Gundersen.
News broke this week of Astralis shuffling to make two surprise moves on short notice. With their contracts ending during or shortly after the Major, and negotiations between the players and the team having hit a brick wall, Astralis opted to bench the two players early.
A bewildering move to some, but it actually makes perfect sense when you consider a more important player, Staehr, also has a contract ending at the end of the year. As it seems the trio isn’t interested in re-signing their contracts, the alternative is that all three leave for free immediately after the Major, leaving Astralis with two players and zero VRS.
In a desperate bid to save some points, they’ve therefore looked to two absolute titans of the game, who we’re sure they have genuine belief in for the future.
Welcome siuhy and cmtry.
The former, recently a free agent out of Liquid, and the latter, coming in on loan to rifle, is one of the most desperate scrambles to form a team we’ve seen in a long time, and it’s not looking good.
It begs the question: how did contract negotiations between Denmark’s most prestigious organisation and the three players of that same nationality break down so dramatically?
The answer is that this isn’t Jonas Gundersen’s first rodeo.
To be fair to the guy, when he bought the team, he inherited an organisation already several million in the red, and his subsequent restructuring wasn’t going to make that any better on short notice. Add to it the fallout of the IEM Cologne stickers (a sentence we’re likely to use a lot in the coming months), and it hasn’t exactly been a favourable hand to play.
On the other hand… we used to be NIP fans.
It’s a right old shame as well, given that Astralis just took their first LAN trophy since going international, and were looking pretty good for potentially challenging for a somewhat deeper run at the Major. Now, we’ll instead see Staehr stumble through a Major on a squad that might be worse than his Rio 2022 Sprout team, only to then leave for a better team after the Major.
SPUNJ apparently even said Staehr already has a “well-known” team lined up. Here’s hoping he’s replacing iM once and for all.
You prayed for it to be over, and you thought you got your wish, but the CS gods shine much brighter on Vitality.
If those gods aren’t Vitality themselves.
Some teams may have gotten to enjoy a brief blip in the Vitality monster, but MOUZ got to feel the full brunt of it in the grand final.
apEX called a masterclass on the T side of Cache. It was 7-5, but every round win made xertioN look like he didn’t have a clue, and Vitality wouldn’t even let MOUZ save as they scrambled to keep hold of their guns.
It ended 13-8 after MOUZ took their T pistol, but they couldn’t push it any further when the rifles came out.
Inferno, MOUZ’ one hope for success in the first three maps, went even worse.
It ended 13-7, with a CT side blockade cancelling MOUZ out before they even got started. The second half went just as it did on Cache - a mild fight back leading into small hope - but a Tec-9 round win from Vitality sealed MOUZ’ fate.
And then there was Dust2. A 4-0 start for MOUZ that swiftly turned into a 7-5 lead for Vitality after another strong T side. MOUZ even fought back. They evenmade it 12-9. It didn’t matter - Vitality won 16-12.
We still stand by what we said yesterday: This MOUZ is a different team to the one that came before, but that just doesn’t matter one bit when you come against the might of Vitality.
It doesn’t matter who you are, or how good you’re playing. Prime Vitality will sit you down.
Peak Spirit, Cologne Falcons, 2021 NAVI - had they faced this Vitality team they would have all been eaten alive.
And that’s why we love them.
