The biggest name in CS

We’ve had a bit of a dearth of good names recently.

All the new superstars have simple names like ‘Spinx’ and ‘m0NESY’. They’re fine names, sure, but they’re not at the level of facecrack or RamzikBO$$. OG’s newest player is at the very least, closer to the latter.

Welcome to the history books: HeavyGod.

Israel are beginning to take over the top tiers of Counter-Strike, and OG have seen that and acted quickly, adding the latest product of the Endpoint pipeline to their ranks in pursuit of greatness.

Or, well, slightly-above-averageness.

That’s not a slight on our good-named buddy HeavyGod, who by all accounts is a player who is ready for the step up. He’s been cooking a bit on Endpoint, and we’d trust Endpoint’s recruitment of young players over our own eyes, frankly.

Their record of spotting talent and selling it on is spectacular, and HeavyGod will look to follow in the footsteps of his countrymen NertZ and flameZ, who both have excelled since moving on.

Can he save OG? Well…

If he’s as good as advertised, he can at least give some star power to a team desperate for a rifle core that can match better teams. Even then, though, one God alone might not be enough to turn OG into contenders.

Maybe a HeavyGod can.

Falcons and Spirit add some spice to 2024

BLAST Premier has a ticking timebomb on it. The Danish TO’s semi-franchised circuit will have to be fully open by 2025, meaning that this 2024 season will be it’s last in this format of Groups → Showdown → Finals.

2024, then, is the last chance for BLAST to get a nice cash injection, and they’re taking full advantage.

EG sold their spot to Cloud9 for a hefty six-figure sum (very hefty, according to SPUNJ) and BLAST took note to add a further four spots to the tournament circuit.

So in come Falcons (featuring head BLAST-critic Snappi), Virtus.pro (who will single-handedly kill pay-per-view discussions in BLAST’s head office), GamerLegion, and Spirit. Yep, that’s right: donk will face all the best teams in the world, as early as January.

How GamerLegion got the spot instead of someone like FURIA, MOUZ, (or even the new BLEED team), we do not know. But they’re hardly whipping boys — the circuit should be far more competitive than when we had bloody EG.

16 teams (four groups of 4) will compete for 6 spots at the Spring Final in London, those going to the four group winners before a four-team bracket featuring all of the second-place teams decide the last two.

As curtain-raisers go, we’ve seen far worse. Roll on the new season.

The Lake Supremacy

Congratulations NA fans, your bi-annual good news is here!

Complexity’s core of floppy, Grim, and JT have all had their contract extended along with coach T.c. For those wondering, EliGE and Hallzerk weren’t renewed as they still have enough time left on their current deals. Or they’re kicking both, whatever explanation you prefer.

General Manager, messioso, confirmed that these are all multi-year extensions, which normally would be completely un-noteworthy.

But, we’re talking about it… so why is this different?

Well, in case you missed it, Complexity’s current owners are on the verge of buying FaZe. If that deal goes through, coL and FaZe wouldn’t be allowed at the same events due to conflict of interest rules. And realistically, they’re not buying FaZe to kick their best Esports team.

Complexity isn’t dumb, they wouldn’t extend their players just to sit on the sidelines, so what’s happening?

Wait, is that a bird? Or a plane? No, that’s Jason Lake!

Complexity’s founder, CEO, and ex-CIA assassin, Jason Lake is reportedly looking to buy the org back. That report was from last month, and with these extensions being signed now it’s really pointing at Lake’s return as the team owner. The announcement being headlined with “From the desk of Jason Lake” is also a strong wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

For Complexity fans, this is probably the best-case scenario: Ownership returns to the man who made the org what it is today, and the team gets to continue its good CS2 form. A truly rare NA W.

The Major (qualifiers) start today!

Oh, hell yeah.

The Major is back today.

Well, sort of. It’s like when weirdo football fans tell you that ‘the FA Cup starts today’ in like July, and they’re talking about Nowhereville Town vs Low Elo FC in the first preliminary round.

Except much better, obviously.

It’s better largely because there’s a real, palpable chance that teams like TSM can get exposed by random Russian children and tryhard Danish teenagers in Open Qualifiers and start complaining about how unfair online qualifiers are.

And they’re right, obviously — but we won’t feel sorry for a team that has spent that much to be such a failure.

The Major cycle exposes fraudulent big teams and begins some of the greatest underdog stories in Counter-Strike. From Vega Squadron, to QBF, to even GamerLegion in Paris — the Major changes lives, ruins dreams and changes the history of Counter-Strike in ways nothing else does.

For most of the teams in the cycle, it begins today; and some of them will make it through to the big boy qualifiers.

There’s going to be a big story this Major — maybe that story begins today.

Get all your info on the games going on here, or get on HLTV’s live post - and strap in for the start of CS2’s first Major.

Oh, hell yeah.

👷 Changing the system

👁️ Looking back on things

👍 Not a bad look at all

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, NER0, Horizzon and napz.
Welshy coded the email and Incipiens copy edited.

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