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The youngest team in the top 10 close out CSGO with a win.

Edition #404 | oct 2nd, 2023
torzsi outclassing s1mple, siuhy outcalling Aleksib, Jimpphat making the leap - MOUZ fans couldn’t have dreamt for a better outcome of this last CS:GO grand final.
We also go over how you might get more FPS in CS2, plus a preview of BLAST Premier Fall Showdown which seems to be kicking off -rainwaker + daps
Let's get into it.
MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
Monte

0
2

NAVI

ENCE

1
2

MOUZ

NAVI

0
3

MOUZ

CS2 enters the scene
torzsi’s reign didn’t just begin in the Grand Final - he was wigging on kids all event long.
Before rolling s1mple up in a blunt and smoking him, he taught G2 and m0NESY a lesson and dropped bombs on ENCE in the rest of the playoffs, ending both series with at least a +20 K/D.
MOUZ cut G2’s run short with an extremely dominant map three, as frozen split them open with torzsi a willing sidekick, after siuhy led from the front to take Mirage.
Then, though, they had the unenviable task of taking down arguably the best team in the world - or at least, the best team left in the event. Vitality got rolled by a resurgent Monte, who looked a lot like the team that put the willies up everyone at the Major.
That left ENCE as the favourites, but once more MOUZ held strong in the face of resistance to put up a dominant third map, with Jimpphat and torzsi bringing the smoke.
ENCE had run a train on Movistar Riders in the quarter-final, giving up just seven rounds in the entire series. In their defence, it was the middle of the afternoon — while American pros cry about early games, at least they don’t have to play mid-siesta.
Not that Movistar actually did any playing.
On the other side of the bracket, s1mple rammed his AWP down Eternal Fire’s throat with iM starting to show why NAVI paid the mega-bucks for him. Or at least would have done in the alternative world where the report about his buyout was true.
sdy’s dreams of revenge were cut short by a bucket of cold water, as Monte were two-zipped by NAVI in the semi-final. He can still be happy with his side’s showing, though. They ended CSGO on a high, even if the ending was anticlimactic.
And, well, we’re sure he got a kick out of the Grand Final.
EPL 18 GRAND FINAL

Goodbye, CS:GO.
ESL Pro League, the final big LAN of Global Offensive, has concluded.
It was a tournament of upsets, one that we might look back on as a passing of the torch and a changing of the guard.
When we left you on Thursday, Monte had upset Vitality and we hadn’t even mentioned MOUZ.
FaZe, G2, ENCE, and NAVI stood in siuhy and co’s path, four titans of GO that all fell on the same (mouse) trap.
Each and every one of them was taken down in convincing fashion as MOUZ clinched the trophy in dramatic fashion. The old core of NXT was always destined for trophies but we didn’t imagine it happening this soon.
xertioN was the best entry-fragger at the event. siuhy was the best IGL. Jimpphat, at just 17 years old, was the best anchor. frozen was the best lurker.
And torzsi… where do we start with torzsi? He talked such a big game in the break, of how dexter held him back.
And boy was he right. siuhy has unleashed him to become one of the most aggressive snipers in the world and it’s worked wonders.
“Before we wanted torzsi to be more confident, now we sometime want to put him on a leash,” xertioN said on stream afterwards.
Everything has come together. And with an average age of just 20, this should be just the start.
MOUZ might not have the most firepower in the world but their chemistry and calling just helped them make one of the best underdog runs in history.
Even if it was in a Maltese studio after a five-week slogfest of an event, this was a poetic send-off for CS:GO.
MOUZ are not just young, they’re international too. All five hail from different countries, a combination of skill, mentality, and cultures that just feels right — and will be the norm in CS2.
The future is here, Global Offensive lovers. But do not weep.
There will be new underdogs like Monte and new prodigies like Jimpphat. CS2, in many ways, is just the beginning.
Here's the final listing:
1st 🇪🇺 MOUZ - $200.000 plus BLAST World & IEM Kato invite
2nd 🇪🇺 NAVI - $90.000
3-4th 🇪🇺 ENCE - $50.000
3-4th 🇺🇦 Monte - $50.000
5-8th 🇪🇺 G2 Esports - $35.000
5-8th 🇪🇸 Movistar Riders - $35.000
5-8th 🇹🇷 Eternal Fire - $35.000
5-8th 🇪🇺 Vitality - $35.000
CS2 FPS BOOST

If you’ve played CS2 you might’ve noticed that it really does struggle on some PCs. For the first time in over a decade, Counter-Strike might actually need decent PC components.
Having said that, where do you start if you’re trying to be CS2-ready? What if you can’t buy a fancy new PC? Well, the answer is… it’s complicated.
As per an investigation by Gamers Nexus, we now know that the best GPUs will run the game well. Shocker huh? In all seriousness, though, GN has some important information to consider.

Keep in mind that these values are subject to change and don’t necessarily reflect on where Counter-Strike 2 will end up.
It looks like a 3080 is probably very good value if CS2 is all you play, but wait. Gamers Nexus talk a lot about the frame pacing issues of CS2, and if there are severe performance issues, then it’s possible that those will be rectified and improve performance on older cards, too.
Expanding that even further, if you’re not just playing CS2, the 3080 is still a stellar card that you can get for pretty cheap (relatively speaking). You’re not overdoing it price-wise, though you will miss out on features like DLSS 3.5. In our humble opinion, we think you’d be best off getting either a 4070 (especially after recent price drops) or a 4090. The 4090 is very expensive, but it’ll last you years.
If you’re trying to save even more money, the last generation’s RTX 3070 can be had for quite a discount on the second-hand market and performs admirably as well. It’s generally good advice to be careful when you’re buying used hardware, especially GPUs that may have been used for mining previously. Here are some things you can look out for.
As it stands, if you’re building a PC on a budget for CS2, the RTX 3060 could get the job done too and can be found pre-owned for €300-400. There are some AMD options too of course, but those apparently don’t play too nice with CS2 right now.
If you’re in a position where you can’t afford to go out and buy a whole new super-expensive graphics card, then good news! There are a few things you can change for better performance.
Thanks to fREQUENCYCS we have an idea of what the best settings may be. If you have an NVIDIA GPU, follow this link and copy the settings, whereas AMD users should go here instead. There’s no guarantee they’ll work or even improve performance, but it’s worth a shot.
Note: As of writing, there’s a bug causing AMD GPUs to rebuild the shader cache every time. This causes really bad stuttering. We’re not sure how this affects Gamers Nexus’ numbers, and it won't be fixed with the settings above. You can use this fix shared by fREQUENCY whilst waiting for an official solution. This same issue affected NVIDIA GPUs once upon a time, and you can run the same fix they had before here.
All of this is to say that you shouldn’t worry too much if you're struggling to run CS2 right now, most of us seem to be. Valve will continue to optimize the game as they did CS:GO, and within a few years we’ll all be in FPS Heaven again. Or playing Valorant. Nah..
BLAST FALL SHOWDOWN ‘23

Desperate times call for desperate measures.
According to Overdrive and Dust2.us, Liquid have benched Rainwaker for BLAST Showdown.
daps will come in to replace him, at least at first, and he’s even taking the IGL reins off of YEKINDAR.
NAF can go back to lurking. YEKINDAR is unleashed. Liquid have the NA flag on HLTV again. It all seems like a great idea.
But it will be daps’ first game since April 2022, and he hasn’t really competed at tier one since the NRG team of 2019. And YEKINDAR and Patsi co-existing still feels like a step too far.
And you know what the best part is? Liquid’s debut with daps is against stanislaw in the BLAST Showdown, who will inevitably replace daps in about three months just like he did in OpTic and NRG all those years ago.
Showdown will be a weird event anyway, being run on CS:GO for “reasons” that we still aren’t really convinced by. It just punishes the teams competing, with everyone else racing ahead on CS2.
NiKo has moaned about it. So has JT. If this was a decision made for the players’ benefit it doesn’t seem to have played out that way.
So this will be the last CS:GO event of all time: An online qualifier that most teams really aren’t fussed about. At least they disqualified the cheaters.
There is potential for good matchups. G2, Cloud9, and ENCE headline the EU edition. Liquid’s daps experiment might face the likes of Complexity and FURIA in the Americas.
We just wish it was on CS2 — CS:GO doesn’t deserve to go out like this.
Everything Else
📈 CS2 hype
🌎 Regional dealings
🔄 Miscellaneous stuff (and also things)