First Complexity, then EG, and now ENCE. The bodies are really starting to pile up as the esports finances tighten.

We’ve also got a pretty big roster move ahead of the Major, and Vitality are storming in Romania despite the absence of their captain.

Spirit

1·2

MOUZ

Spirit

1·2

NAVI

FUT

0·2

Nemiga

Vitality

2·1

NAVI

Aurora

0·2

MOUZ

BetBoom

0·2

FURIA

• What’s going on with Spirit? Spirit looked like the best team in the world, and had an incredible record in Swiss stages. They’ve then taken a month off, lost plenty of Swiss games, and now exited PGL Masters Bucharest with a 2-3 record. It ain’t looking good…
• The highs and the lows: Beating Spirit was obviously great for NAVI, but losing to Vitality with a stand-in in the quarter-finals isn’t exactly a good look. Also, well done to Nemiga for not just making their first big event playoffs, but also for winning against FUT in the quarters, too… It’s just a shame for cmtry that it means FUT will now not have enough matches played with SunPayus for the Major, so the AWPer-turned-rifler will have to sit it out for Astralis.

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Running out of Spirit

There’s lots to talk about in Bucharest right now. Nemiga have made their first big event playoffs, and even beat FUT In the quarters, which might have some serious ramifications for them and Astralis.

Vitality are also through to the semis despite playing with jL and having mezii act as their IGL, which is a wonderful look ahead at a post-apEX future that suggest Vitality aren’t going away anytime soon.

But we don’t want to talk about any of that. No, we want to talk about Spirit.

Spirit, prior to taking a month off after BLAST Open Lisbon, looked like the best team in the world. Not just that, but they also looked like a version of Spirit that would be capable of taking the fight to prime Vitality.

Since they’ve returned, though, Spirit have placedf fourth at ESL Pro League Season 24, and have now failed to even make it to the playoffs in Bucharest. To make matters worse, they did so having lost to BETBOOM in their opener, MOUZ (again), and a NAVI team we still refuse to call anything other than dead in the 2-2 game.

The NAVI match was particularly rough. Spirit looked like they just gave up on their two map losses, and the dejected faces were clear to see. They won just five rounds on Cache and Anubis, and the result was donk and sh1ro sat firmly at the bottom of the scoreboard by the end of the series.

That alone makes it clear that this isn’t just an off day, or a rough patch. There’s something very wrong with this team, and it’s hard to tell what it is.

Do they have motivational issues? Are they not getting on as well as they used to? Are their conflicting ideas coming from S0tF1k and hally? Anything is possible, and any one of those three make it virtually impossible for them to actually close out this season the way they started it.

But maybe that isn’t a bad thing when you consider the talent that’s floating around.

Maybe Spirit need a disaster so they address issues within their squad, and sign a seasoned IGL like Boombl4, who is working miracles with BETBOOM, or another player with real firepower like Nemiga’s syph0, who even began this year playing in Spirit’s Academy squad.

Maybe it’s just time for Spirit to undergo a total roster refresh, and maybe that’s okay.

Skins = wins

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 financial analysis episode

This week on Overtime on Inferno, we have a three-way on our hands. Sam and Quacke are joined by Freddie, our special guest and the newest member of TL;DR.

Most of the tournaments going on lately have been pretty irrelevant, so the lads get into the business side of Counter-Strike. Is ENCE’s financial calamity a sign of things to come for other orgs? We bloody hope not.

• ENCE go bankrupt
• G2 should leave CS2
• BetBoom will make Major playoffs

A new name to pronounce incorrectly

It's pronounced “Kah-Assy-Locks”, and we have no idea what it means.

If you're Brazilian or familiar with tier two CS, you probably know this guy. If you're a normal person, we’ve got you covered on the new face of Legacy.

Right after the Cologne Major, n1ssim caught everyone by surprise by benching himself on Legacy. From what he told journalists, he had some plans to play elsewhere, but in the end, those plans didn’t work out, and he had to go back with his tail between his legs.

Now - despite not having an official statement for the second benching, and leaving fans completely flabbergasted again - it looks like the decision is definitive, as Legacy already had someone waiting on the sidelines.

ksloks is a solid 21-year-old rifler. He won a few local LANs in Brazil while playing in ODDIK and was one of the best players in every single tournament - which wasn't that hard, to be honest. Averaging a 1.13 rating in his career, he is a constant name on HLTV's Prospects list and is known in the Brazilian scene for being a jack of all trades and a good CT rotator.

Now, we know he has played mostly against tier two teams, and it's kind of a big challenge to step in with just two events left before the Singapore Major. But ain't that the moment young guns wait their whole life for?

From winning in China just a month ago, to three consecutive early exits, Legacy has been off-balance. Their fans are looking at this move with a lot of question marks. But we believe Legacy is doing the best they can with the tools they have. And maybe new blood, with his first chance to prove he deserves a seat in tier one, is exactly what they need.

Good luck, ksloks, we'll be watching.

A fond farewell

I’ve always liked ENCE. I always wanted them to do well back when they were a plucky Finnish team led by a promising IGL I knew was destined for greatness, and the fact they did gave me one of my favourite memories in esports. Two of them, actually.

The first was in the moment: the IEM Katowice 2019 final. You know, that final they reached after xseveN - of all people - embarrassed s1mple in the semis.

I wasn’t rooting for ENCE then, I was, and please forgive me for this, a massive Astralis fan, so the subsequent booking out of a lecture room at university, and watching the final alongside a bunch of esports society friends who were all cheering for ENCE was bloody brilliant.

The second moment originates in 2019, but the reason why I love it happened years later.

As you may remember, Finnish ENCE’s crowning moment was then getting revenge on Astralis at BLAST Pro Series Madrid, a trophy that almost certainly did not matter.

But to Finnish fans, it of course did, so when drunk me and aizyesque realised we could wind up the more drunk ENCE videographer about this pointless trophy at the Paris Major, the debate that followed was priceless.

Sadly for ENCE, they did then make a string of questionable decisions that pushed them into irrelevancy, but they would later reemerge as a team led by Snappi, and everyone loved that team.

They’d win another trophy, IEM Dallas 2023, a consequence of another incredible semi-final showdown that featured the greatest map of Ancient ever played. But the crowning moment of that ENCE wasn’t winning gold, it was the talent that was developed there: NertZ, Spinx, SunPayus - all players who became exceptional under the iconic logo.

It’s a history that allows me to look past the existence of that god awful song, as well as all the terrible people who use it as their music kit, and actually just be grateful I got to experience it.

Of course, that’s all in the past now, though. And it looks like there won’t be a future for ENCE at all, as years of irrelevancy and missing out on Majors has pushed for them to file for bankruptcy. That makes them the third org to fold in what feels like as many weeks, and honestly, it doesn’t feel like that’s a trend that’s going to stop anytime soon.

The finances of esports are brutal, and the changes that Valve made to stickers is likely crippling for many. This is a wave that is likely going to flood CS, and more orgs we have fond memories of will likely join ENCE in shutting up shop.

So, while we’re grateful that it’s taken teams like EG, we’re also sad that it means teams like ENCE have to fall, and we hope something will happen soon that might stop the rot.

But God knows what that will be.

🥳 Congratulations on not cheating

• On one hand, FUT did the right thing by not trolling. On the other… maybe you shouldn’t be able to make changes this close to the Major for a reason?
• OMG CLIP OF THE YEAR (for the blind)

📰 Major news (literally)

• Weird times in CS, where FaZe making the Major is actual news.
• For every big team who makes it, a small team is in tears.

🤪 Silly things occurring

• Reminder: Don’t play VALORANT.
• Now everyone can be Sam Allardyce.