Episode 18 – Summer Rostermania Begins!

James: We are back, and it's time for another episode of the All About Counter-Strike Podcast.

James: As always, you've got me, James Banks, hosting here finally at home after being so far away, and our other host, Devilwalk, on the same time zone as me.

James: So let's do this on Devilwalk, because this will be fun.

James: It is the 25th of June, 2025.

James: It is 7.37 in the evening for me, which means it's 6.37 in the evening for you.

James: And actually, it's the 25th for you as well.

James: It's not the 26th.

James: We are in the same day.

Jonatan: It feels so weird to finally record an episode where I'm not chugging coffee for the sake of being awake in the middle of the night.

Jonatan: I'm actually just, all right, I'll have a coffee.

Jonatan: It won't affect my sleep.

Jonatan: It won't ruin me for another...

Jonatan: You know, when you're above 30, it feels like it ruins you for another two days, not just one day.

James: Did you really feel that bad?

Jonatan: Dude, it was terrible.

Jonatan: Because, you know, we ended the, I think the NQC episode, we ended at seven in the morning for me, right?

James: Oh.

Jonatan: And for me, when we finish a recording, especially if we do it late, I can't just fall asleep instantly.

Jonatan: It takes me a little bit of time, even though I'm so tired, I could collapse.

Jonatan: It takes me a little bit of time till I can fall asleep.

Jonatan: So it probably took me an hour.

Jonatan: And then two hours later, I had a job because we have a dog right now, which we're like kind of babysitting.

Jonatan: Two hours later, I had to go out and walk the dog.

Jonatan: So I had to like sleep, you know, one and a half hour, wake up, walk the dog, go back to bed.

James: That's terrible.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: So I was completely ruined, completely gone.

James: Do you know what?

James: It's crazy because obviously I had to do the star episode when I didn't sleep before.

James: But like that I was just traveling all day and kind of sleeping on planes.

James: Yours sounds much worse because you started to sleep, got wrecked by waking up.

James: Like that's probably the worst thing to do is go to sleep and then wake up again and then try go back to sleep afterwards because your body wants to go into a deep sleep.

James: It thinks like, oh, heaven, finally.

James: Then you're like, nope, time to go walking outside in the sun.

Jonatan: It's one of those, you have to walk, pick up the shit of the dog, longer walk.

Jonatan: It was one of those.

Jonatan: I just basically woke up again.

Jonatan: Then I went to sleep and try to go fall asleep again.

Jonatan: It ruined me for the next two days, I'd say.

James: I don't know, we need to ask our editor Noel at some point.

James: Obviously, he then stayed awake after you finished at 7 in the morning to then edit the episode and get it together.

James: So he's probably even more doubly wrecked.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: That's what we're doing, guys.

James: That's commitment to it.

James: What have you been doing these past few days?

James: What have you been doing since I last spoke to you?

James: Obviously, you watch Major.

Jonatan: I think, I mean, most of the time, I've actually been playing a lot of Counter-Strike.

Jonatan: I think me and Mike Helele were trying to reach, I think we said the ultimate goal is just get up to 4k ELO on Faceit.

James: 4k?

James: Wait for me.

James: I can't, you get so far ahead of me, my IQ is going to be horrible.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: So I think last time I played with you, I was 2.7 or something like that.

Jonatan: I'm up at 3k now.

James: We're just not playing together then.

James: Just premier for us now.

Jonatan: Well, I can still play with you, but we'll be with this minus 1 elo, plus 1 elo situation.

James: You won't be getting anything, and I'll probably also won't be getting anything.

James: We'll have to see how that works out.

James: God damn, I went away for a month and look what you did to me.

Jonatan: Yeah, but first gold 3.5k and then move ourselves up to 4k.

James: Trying to see if the boomers have still got it.

Jonatan: I think so.

James: Do you meet some people that you think like how, because obviously people talk about this a lot and face it, they're like, how are these people level 10?

James: How are they playing at this ELO?

James: There's a lot of people who say right now they're like ELO boosted players, like crazy.

Jonatan: I think a lot of people, at least like, I wouldn't consider them like bad aim-wise or anything, but they have a really big problem working together, and there's a lot of baiters, like...

James: Oh, great.

Jonatan: And these people, you know, you can make a call.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: They'll like say that they're going to do it, but they don't do it.

Jonatan: Like middle of the round, they just start doing something else.

Jonatan: So I think it's a pure gamble sometimes.

Jonatan: Sometimes you're like 25% of all games, you just lose because you're not compatible with whoever you're playing with.

James: You face it, it's a bit of a gamble, Devilwalk, but at least you grind an ELO.

James: That's a positive.

Jonatan: You're grinding ELO and playing a little bit with Mikey Laleh, we're playing a little bit with the Get Right Freiberg, Forrest Olof.

Jonatan: Okay.

Jonatan: You're running it back to the boomer demons a little bit.

Jonatan: Just a couple of games.

James: We're going to get you streaming soon.

James: They all stream.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: I was thinking about streaming, but honestly, even playing right now, it's a bit laggy.

Jonatan: That's why I'm like-

James: You need an upgrade, man.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: I think I need an upgrade or something.

Jonatan: Something needs to change in my PC, at least.

Jonatan: I don't think everything-

James: You need one of the AMDs.

James: You need one of the AMDs.

James: The AMD changes the game for how well the-

Jonatan: Because I'm dropping under 200 FPS sometimes.

Jonatan: Really?

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Imagine if you had my PC.

James: Yeah.

James: Okay.

James: I'm going to give you the setup.

James: I'm going to tell you what to get.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Because if you start playing with the AMDs, you'll be minimum 450, 500 FPS.

Jonatan: Minimum.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: Minimum.

Jonatan: I thought you were going to say minimum 4K or maybe.

James: No, you'll definitely level up because you won't have any stuttering problems, any lag.

James: That's crazy.

James: You have to play with that.

James: You are actually, Devil, you're probably the most reliable to the average normal player who has these problems all the time.

James: Because like-

Jonatan: I played with him my entire career as well.

Jonatan: I remember being sponsored by ASOS screens.

Jonatan: Do you remember these?

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: I had one of those like my entire playing career.

James: Wow.

Jonatan: It was like 10 times the normal MS of a Hertz screen.

James: Bro, you got to-

James: we got to have you upgraded, man.

James: That's actually crazy.

James: Yeah, we're gonna-

James: we're gonna give you some updates of what you should be trying to improve on your PC.

James: You sound well overdue on one, man.

James: In a big way.

James: Let's get into the episode.

James: My voice, I'm gonna try to hold out because I traveled for like nearly 20 hours back.

James: They lost two of my bags.

James: Between me and my wife, we had four suitcases.

James: They lost two of them.

James: I was like, great.

James: Thanks very much, Lufanza.

James: By the way, Lufanza is like, I'm just gonna say it is the most dogshit airline in the world.

James: It probably is worse, but I fly only Star Alliance because I like the points you get, right?

James: Austrian, million times better.

James: Lufanza, I swear to God, like every time it's a problem.

James: But now-

Jonatan: Don't you get your tomato juice there?

James: Yeah, you get tomato juice.

James: I get tomato juice.

James: But I mean, like just a service.

James: So we flew to America on United.

James: Yeah.

James: And just the selection of food, the drinks, the seats were bigger.

James: It was more comfy.

James: And then you go on Lufanza and it's like you've gone to budget Europe of, we're just trying to save money and still charge an extortionate amount of money for a flight.

James: It was a horrendous flight back.

James: And then, do you know what?

James: I woke up this morning at 5 a.m.

James: And I was like, oh no, I'm awake.

James: And I was like, this is going to be terrible.

James: And somehow I just within like maybe an hour and a half, I went back to sleep and woke up at 12.

James: So like, I feel like I already beat any former jet lag.

James: I feel like I'm adjusted straight away.

James: I was so worried when I looked at my phone, I was like, it's like five in the morning.

James: I feel very like alert and like I should be doing stuff.

James: And went back to sleep and I have no problems now.

James: I feel pretty good.

James: I feel like maybe I'll even stream in a couple of days.

James: You should be good to be rocking and rolling.

Jonatan: All right.

James: Just got to get a load of stuff done.

James: It is play or break time.

James: But then also there's tons of news coming out.

James: So we're obviously going to talk first of all about the major.

James: We'll talk about just our thoughts on everything.

James: So the last one we did was obviously going into playoffs.

Jonatan: Yes.

James: We spoke about everything with NQZ.

James: It was great to have him on.

James: He spoke for so long.

James: By the way, we seem to choose professionally yapping guests all the time.

James: Monazee was like, the episode will be about an hour, right?

James: I said, yeah.

James: And he yaps for like nearly two.

James: NQZ did three hours.

James: Obviously, we spoke about some things, not just him.

James: Hooksy was DJ.

Jonatan: Almost five hours.

James: Yeah, it was like, I guess, four and a bit hours that we put the full episode out at.

James: But yeah, he was just yapping nonstop as well.

James: But we're choosing the right guest for all of this, man.

James: So because I was there, obviously, right?

James: So for me, it's a whole different call of experience.

James: What was it like for you watching it all from home, time zone wise?

James: Did you enjoy it all?

Jonatan: I'll say it like, obviously, some of the days where you had a second game starting pretty late, usually around two, sometimes at three at night.

Jonatan: Those were really hard to actually follow what was going on.

Jonatan: You had to kind of rewatch some in the morning, going into the next day.

Jonatan: But it was really good watching time for the first game.

Jonatan: Because that usually ended around, I think it started like 21 or something.

Jonatan: Then it's 20, 21, something along those lines.

Jonatan: But obviously, we got some banger games.

Jonatan: There was one in particular, the Spirit vs.

Jonatan: Mouse was going late into the night.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: But the viewing experience was good.

Jonatan: The crowd seemed great, to be honest.

Jonatan: I think it's...

Jonatan: What was it the American event before?

Jonatan: I don't know.

James: Dallas before.

Jonatan: It was Dallas before.

Jonatan: For some reason, I thought this crowd was a lot better than at Dallas.

James: I think just because it's so much bigger than Dallas.

James: Obviously, I didn't do Dallas last year, but I've done Dallas years before that.

James: Dallas is a great crowd and it's a cool arena, but it's very small in comparison.

James: Okay.

James: You're not going to get that same energy.

James: Obviously, when it comes to Dallas, there's also the exhibition hall that they have for DreamHack and stuff on the side of it.

James: They're probably not always in until maybe the grand final.

James: I felt like the grand final crowd was still pretty good, but yeah, Dallas looks obviously is a lot smaller and this is a major.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: But I thought the crowd, the setting, the arena, it was all great.

Jonatan: I was a little bit weirded out by the desk at some point because it was like a desk in the entrance with a shop in the back.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: Just see people trolling behind the desk segment, which maybe it's the thing for some people.

Jonatan: But personally, I thought it was a bit weird.

Jonatan: I felt a bit off-placed, misplaced in some sense.

James: Yeah.

James: See, I think it was done, because I'm not in desk hosting, right?

James: I think they went for just everything of this major, the full American approach.

Jonatan: You know?

James: So like, regularly you'll see in American sports things, they do like a lobby segment, and they're just sat down in chairs with fans behind them.

Jonatan: Okay.

James: Yeah.

James: Like, there is desk for the studio games, for example, in a normal place, and then they'll try and change it up.

James: So it felt like it was a lot of moving around.

James: I love the one where they had like, Moses was kept going on camera, and there's a guy holding a bald side above his head.

James: And then like, the guys had turned up, and they just had sunglasses on.

James: So I think it was meant for like, the American humor, giving us a different, like, location for it all.

Jonatan: But it was weird sometimes, you know, you would see the desk talk about the game, and then all of a sudden, you know, there's a pause, and it's the same people at the arena after like, a couple of minutes.

James: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jonatan: So I don't know, it felt weird to me, but maybe it's something that's just me, gets a little bit iffy about.

James: I'll say this, I think what you're saying about the crowd, by the way, and how good the major crowd was, just imagine that this is my opinion.

James: I don't know how this would work, but if Blast did a 360 stage, 360 degree stage for that major, they could have sold more seats, and it would have been incredible, because it was sold out all days.

James: It did always look fantastic.

James: Obviously, on the second game, it was a bit better.

James: I think at the beginning game, still people coming in at the start of all these time, but still a good number of bums on seats.

James: But if they had 360 arena, they could have opened up the back parts of the arena, which obviously is closed off, because you have the stage in front of it.

James: And this is just opinion.

James: I was there, I didn't speak to none about it, but I imagine they looked at this afterwards and went, damn, we really could have done this, because not only did they sell out, but the arena was loud.

James: Everyone was super confident.

James: Everyone was enjoying it.

James: Everyone was going crazy.

James: They were having a wild time.

James: The American crowd was engaged in everything that was happening.

James: Obviously even on Sunday, I wasn't supposed to do any stage, right?

James: On Sunday, I got to do the show match, just so I could help the guys out, because obviously they had so much to prepare for in the way they're doing the grand finals and the opening and stuff.

James: So I got asked to do the show match bit, and I was like, oh, I'm just going to have so much fun.

James: I didn't get much time to talk with a crowd, because you have to be so quick to get a show match.

James: People, I know, love some show match stuff.

James: I do think we just need to stop doing them, because it'd be better if we just had a Best of Five final or a third place decide or something like that and give them more value for their money on a Sunday.

James: But still, there was enough crowd in there supporting their Americans, having some fun with it as well.

James: And even when people were not even full in the arena, that crowd was still epic.

James: So for me to get to experience, I also got to see it from the stage side as well.

James: And I met so many people, by the way, who traveled.

James: Like there was a group of British guys, maybe five, six British guys with flags.

James: Yeah.

James: And they were like, they were cheering on Messi.

James: They traveled from the UK.

James: And I'm thinking, okay, you spent money and you traveled and you came to the Major.

James: There are some Europeans I met from Netherlands, some Finnish guy as well.

James: Obviously, very sad that Alexis didn't go further in the tournament.

James: But there was, it was a very American crowd and arena, but there was a lot of people that traveled from all around the world to come for a Major.

James: And the reason I'm more impressed is because I feel like it is easier and cheaper at times to travel to Europe than it is to America.

James: Like, it's like, if you're a European, you come from all different places and you get some Americans travel over, internal American flights are expensive, by the way.

James: Like if you're looking at inside America, it's hella expensive.

James: But like traveling international or traveling for us in Europe is not too bad in comparison.

James: But I honestly, I think we had a whale of a time.

James: And it's crazy that the first day of quarterfinals was like so much better than almost every other day.

James: Yeah, because like I didn't expect Mongols to 2-0 phase.

James: Yeah.

James: Vitality Na'Vi, you could maybe expect the Vitality would 2-0.

James: I was at least hoping we'd get a third map.

James: Obviously, I'm always hoping that Na'Vi would win.

James: But like the Mouz spirit game was incredible.

James: Let's start with that one because it was the first one, right?

James: Yeah.

James: Mouz spirit.

James: Yeah.

James: Mouz have never ever had a chance more than they had then, right?

James: Of having a fantastic opportunity to really dominate spirit.

James: Obviously, it's their map pick and we've seen a lot of good plays.

James: They played Liquid on Mirage, right?

James: Which also went crazy over time.

James: And I thought, okay, this time, Mouz is going to win Mirage in style.

James: No problem at all.

James: And then suddenly we get one of the most epic series of the whole major.

James: And they lose it.

James: And I think, oh, God, this is happening again.

James: The fact they could come back from that, as well as we've all got to remember that they were 0-2 down, is crazy impressive.

James: It is crazy.

James: And it's teamwork that did it.

James: It's all different players playing well at different times.

Jonatan: I think, for me, watching, when Spirit kind of took the lead or took the control eventually on Mirage, I thought it was over.

Jonatan: I thought it was completely over.

Jonatan: I thought Spirit would win this game, hands down, because Mouse looked a little bit sluggish.

Jonatan: You know, even the games that's, you know, coming all this way from the position they were in, even though they had some easier opponents, they were struggling through these matches.

James: Every opponent struggled.

Jonatan: Every single game.

Jonatan: And I don't know, I thought that Sheero and Dong, they looked great.

Jonatan: I thought that Sontix, he had some moments.

Jonatan: I had almost nothing in me telling me that Mouse would turn this series around after that mirage.

Jonatan: But they did it.

Jonatan: And, you know, I feel like they got into this underdog position in a weird way, even though they're like the second best team in the world, where every round meant the world to them.

Jonatan: You could see it on Torch's face.

Jonatan: You could see it on every time they won a round.

Jonatan: All that energy that they kind of exuded throughout that series.

Jonatan: Yeah, it just looked like they wanted it a little bit more in some sense.

James: Yeah.

James: I'll say this right.

James: When you're...

James: The thing I was most impressed with with Mouz is...

James: Let's just look at this.

James: In 2025, they've had a series at EPL and a series at Blast Open Lisbon.

James: Out of six maps, three have gone to overtime before this major fight, yeah.

James: And always in overtime is when Mouz wins.

James: That's why I was worried for Mouz losing Mirage.

James: And the fact they were able to come back, win on Dust2, then do it on Nuke as well, and have this insane CT side.

James: You know, like, what were they down?

James: They were down...

Jonatan: They were down 8-4 at least on Nuke.

James: But also 8-4 and a half, and then also 8-7 to then just claw it back and get every single round after that.

Jonatan: Yeah, and then they were down 7-2 on Nuke as well, which they made to 8-4 and then 9-2 CT half.

Jonatan: Like, there's so many moments where, like, it just didn't feel like it was even conceivable for them to claw it back.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: Especially on Nuke.

Jonatan: I think Dust2, they kind of won the engagement.

Jonatan: They had some crazy rounds, but they had the control of that game throughout Dust2.

Jonatan: Even though they got into a rocky position, I mean, we have to remember, they won pistol and lost the force buy and then still made it 8-4 CT half on Dust2.

Jonatan: That's not an easy thing to do.

James: No.

Jonatan: And Spirit won pistol, so they actually just dominated Spirit on Dust2.

Jonatan: But when you came along, I thought this was over.

Jonatan: I mean, they didn't get anything.

Jonatan: Anything.

Jonatan: But it felt like Spirit was a bit stressed this game as well.

Jonatan: I don't know, it looks...

Jonatan: There's a complete polar opposite when you look at the Spirit's faces and you look at the mouse faces.

Jonatan: Every round, mouse is winning, they're enjoying, they're screaming.

Jonatan: They're loving life.

Jonatan: You look at Spirit, it's almost like they expect to win the round in a weird way, that when they lose, it's just full tilt.

Jonatan: They looked stressed, they looked flustered.

Jonatan: A lot of pressure went into that game for Spirit.

James: It's crazy.

James: It's absolutely crazy.

James: And then obviously we'll come on.

James: We're going to talk about roster moves and stuff, and the shuffles that are going to be happening later.

James: They were just going to cover the Major first, but obviously it had repercussions for Spirit now, because changes are coming 100%.

James: That is confirmed.

James: Next game, the other quarter game, Pain vs.

James: Furia.

James: Now Pain obviously had that amazing game against VP, you know, fighting all the way back.

James: NQZ being so happy they made playoffs.

James: But then I was so worried for these guys that they don't have experience in an arena, still a very young team outside of Biggazera, right?

James: Their average age is 23.2, Biggazera is 28, you know?

James: Yeah.

James: Like all of them, by the way, every single player had only ever played one stage game, DGT back in Dallas 2024, the rest of them played during BGL inclusion of poker this year.

James: So they don't have that experience.

James: And you compare that to what Furia have, you think there's no way.

James: Now admittedly on their pick of Nuke, it was a slow start.

James: They didn't look like they had a single hope in hell's chance of doing anything.

James: Molodoy was dominating.

James: Uri kept his form up from the group stage.

James: It was obviously great to see for them.

James: But then we go to Anubis.

James: Now, Payon actually can play Anubis.

James: They like it, but I'm not going to say they're like super good on it.

James: But something changed your rhythm.

James: Obviously, Davide is winning X amount of clutches.

James: Clutches he should not, he's not even a player I'm looking at to make those kind of clutches and having that impact.

James: And then we get to Inferno.

James: And honestly, for the first half, maybe the first 10 rounds of the game, I'm just going to have to look at this.

James: So let's see.

Jonatan: I'll let you know, though, this map was mega late.

Jonatan: I had, I think I had it on my phone while I was half asleep.

Jonatan: So you'll probably have to talk us through this one a bit more than I.

James: Okay, so the Inferno right to get to the decider.

James: Yakinda drops a 1.91 rating on Banana owning, like, he looked incredible.

James: He was 15 kills, seven deaths.

James: And then you go to his T side and he couldn't do anything.

James: Now, Banana is hard.

James: And in the Loser interview, he did say to me that I played like a bot on the second half of the game.

James: He got three kills and he died 13 times.

James: And he just wasn't having an impact.

Jonatan: Mine and three deaths on T side alone.

James: Yeah.

James: Yeah.

James: And he was getting bullied.

James: And you were watching these rounds.

James: So they were up, they won the pistol.

James: So they were up eight five, even though they conceded the last few rounds of the first half.

James: And then Pain just went on this streak.

James: But then Pain got to 12 and it was like they, they lost their ability to win.

James: They started to bottle it.

James: And then again, I just turned in my mind and I said, okay, sadly Pain, as much as I was the only person to predict you guys to win this game, no other talent did it.

James: I think you're, you're screwed here.

James: And then they go into overtime and they switch and they win every round and they stop doing some regret.

James: I think it was NQZ started doing some mid pokes with his orb.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: They were, they were back to being a bit more coordinated.

James: They just, I guess they just had like no fear at that point.

James: They were like, shit, it's going down.

James: Well, we're going to go down fighting our way.

James: And that really was the turning point for them.

James: Admittedly, when we look at what happened in the rest of the games, I think the Fury would have been a better matchup for the Mongols on stage.

James: But making it to semi-finals, sorry, beating Fury in the quarters is such an impressive run for this team.

James: And I know some people are like, oh, they're lucky to get there.

James: Look at the teams they beat.

James: They can't choose who they had to play against.

James: Yeah, I know they might not look like the greatest team on paper to everyone.

James: But let's see what they do next year before you start writing them off.

James: Because they've got some things.

Jonatan: They're still going to have a semi-finalist badge on Counter-Strike.

Jonatan: No, but I think the one thing you can mention is a little bit that even though this is like super impressive from Pain, there's also a lot to be impressed with with Fury.

Jonatan: Yeah, because they are themselves a brand new team.

Jonatan: They've just gotten, I don't even know how many weeks, but probably four or five weeks before this event to incorporate Molodoy and Yukindar.

Jonatan: And they make it to the quarterfinals with which I think if they would have that original line up, they wouldn't even be close to getting this kind of result.

Jonatan: Looking at what if their form was at the end.

Jonatan: So just doing it this way with changing of roles, a lot of new stuff for them.

Jonatan: I think that's immensely impressive.

Jonatan: You know, one month of work and you're in a quarterfinal.

Jonatan: So in that sense, maybe it was a little bit lucky from Pain to get Furia.

Jonatan: Just because especially if you get into these overtime situations, you're not going to have that as well.

Jonatan: But again, you know, Pain is not a completely, they're a completely new team too.

Jonatan: They've just changed, I don't know, to two players.

James: Well, Davide is a bit earlier than DGC afterwards, and he was never at any event.

James: So I think it was like 13 days practice, they told me in the end, right, total.

Jonatan: Yeah, so it's a pretty fair fight.

Jonatan: It's probably more unfair for the other side of the bracket, which I think everyone was a little bit shocked when they saw the bracket formation with Furia Payne on this side with FaZe Mongols and Na'Vi Vitality and Spirit Mouse on the other.

Jonatan: I think everyone went...

James: We know how that got messed up by the teams that are supposed to go 3-0, didn't go 3-0, you know, on the paper working out that way.

James: So that changed a lot of things.

James: Do you know, the fun fact here as well is Payne obviously will keep this roster going forward into next season, they're not making any changes.

James: For people who were saying that Molodoy is not a permanent player, he's on loan, that's incorrect.

James: He's a permanent Furia player.

James: It's only Yakinda that's on loan.

James: And obviously in the Loser interview, Yakinda said he's not sure if this is what he's gonna do, right?

James: If he's gonna stay here.

James: I know 100% Furia want to keep him, but I guess it's up to his decision or whatever they want to work out on what that looks like.

James: But it's like for me, I think Yakinda should stay there, but I guess he was very sad about his performance at the end there and put a lot of blame on him, which is why he had a bit more of a tame interview with me at the end about it.

James: By the way, shout out to Reddit, who normally just wreck me all the time.

James: They were like, that was such a nice interview, because obviously he was blaming himself a lot and I tried to pick him back up.

James: But it is still a team game.

James: You might have had a horrible half, but you also were the only reason they were doing so well on CT side.

James: You were dominating Banana, which is such a key part of the map.

Jonatan: I think for me, Yikinda is a no-brainer for him to say.

Jonatan: I think we've seen the resurgence of Yikinda going into this lineup.

Jonatan: He had a terrible, terrible stint in Liquid.

Jonatan: And now we're finally starting to see glimpses and big parts of his old self when he was considered probably the best entry fragger in the world at some point.

Jonatan: So I think it would be probably a mistake for him to just, okay, I'm back.

Jonatan: Let's leave it and go to somewhere else.

Jonatan: I think that's a gamble.

Jonatan: I think he should stay.

Jonatan: I think there's a lot of potential with the Fourier lineup, especially with giving them some more time, having a bit of an off season and going back into it, knowing there's stability in the project because they shouldn't be thinking about changing anything.

Jonatan: I think they've found a good recipe and stick to it.

James: Just give it some more time, man.

James: I'm with you.

James: Please stay.

James: Keep this team is exciting.

James: This Fourier is exciting.

James: Yeah, 100%.

James: Next quarter's game, you're probably awake for this one.

James: This is Vitality, Na'Vi.

James: Bro, this is heartbreaking.

James: This was heartbreaking for me.

James: Obviously, Vitality are supposed to win the Major.

James: They did go on to win the Major.

James: But Mirage, the golden pick for Na'Vi.

James: They looked really good, bro.

James: Like, do you know how much belief I had?

James: I was sat there at one point, screaming at the TV.

James: By the way, I'm in an arena, so I say screaming at the TV.

James: I'm screaming, like I've got fans near me, and I'm screaming at the screen, because I'm like, we're actually going to do it.

James: Like, we're actually going to be able to.

James: But then I think we let the last two rounds slip of CT.

James: I say Na'Vi let the last two rounds slip of CT.

James: Then winning pistol was key.

James: And then you win the force as well.

James: And I thought they're going to do it.

James: But the CT side, this is a team that's been together for so long.

James: They fumbled it.

James: And Alexey in his interview afterwards of me was obviously very like, yeah, we felt like we had them, we felt like we were playing well.

James: And then that disconnect that keeps happening with them is not agreeing on certain things, not sticking to what they know in Blade system.

James: It just, yes, you're going up against Vitality, but these teams don't know each other so well.

James: They're not playing against each other.

James: This is the first game they've played in nearly a year.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: But I sincerely thought that everyone would walk out of this major with a bronze coin, Pick'em's coin, if Navi won.

James: Except for me.

Jonatan: They had them on the ropes, and they had them on the ropes on both maps.

Jonatan: And Vitality looked really shaky there for a while.

Jonatan: And as you said, it was just something started to click a little bit for Vitality, and they brought it back.

Jonatan: But I mean...

James: On Nuke as well, right?

James: So like, Na'Vi wins both pistols CT, and I'm thinking, cool, in my mind, this is going to be like a 5-0 start.

James: But they got...

James: Like, there was not enough CT rounds.

James: And this is the problem.

James: I almost think it would have been better if they started T side.

James: In one of those weird situations, because they played so horribly CT side mirage, they continue to play horribly on Nuke, which is a CT-sided map.

James: And on that last round, Mezi, by the way, beast last round the way he locked it down, he stops it from going to 12-12.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: And he wins it out of 4.

Jonatan: I'll mention one thing.

Jonatan: I read this on Reddit, and it reminded me of one of my first opinions about CS2.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: And it's the fact, you know, like, if you look at this CT half from Na'Vi, they're losing it seven, or I mean, seven-five.

James: Yep.

Jonatan: If this was like an MR-15, I'm pretty sure this is like an eight-seven-half for Na'Vi.

Jonatan: And why I say that is because of the money system is so broken in CS2 compared to CSGO because of this round loss bonus at $1400.

Jonatan: It made a lot of sense in CSGO when you had an MR-15, because you could eventually build up and then break them, and then you can start to get on the roll.

Jonatan: But it feels like a lot of the time, you break them, and the half is over, you know?

Jonatan: Like there's not enough, once you figure them out it's so late.

Jonatan: Like you need it instantly, and it just feels like people can roll you over, you lose all money control, and eventually when you get to the point where you can build up, get some money, and start changing the moment of the game, it just switches half.

Jonatan: So I feel like the $1400 round bonus doesn't make sense.

Jonatan: If you're gonna have less rounds, I think it should start at $1900 from the start, just to give people, it's like one more round faster, to get up to that loss bonus to kind of get some good rounds in.

James: It's interesting because you're saying that right.

James: I just was reading Twist's tweet.

James: He said, before any map pool changes happen, MR12 and the economy needs to be reevaluated.

James: Increasing the money of the Galil, or adding a fifth loss bonus around $3,900 to $4,000 could help balance things out.

James: My personal opinion is that MR15 was better, I agree.

James: And they found what really worked.

James: So he wants an extra fifth loss bonus, which obviously could help if you get to that stage.

James: But I think I like what you're saying there on the 1900s, a little bit more.

Jonatan: Because you got more of a fighting chance.

Jonatan: I think we would get less of these random four spy rounds, more actual gun rounds.

James: And I hope he said it's the Valve, by the way.

James: Valve have been in the building, the whole arena.

James: And I keep saying this, it's like talent or other people and streamers, whoever can go speak to Valve.

James: Valve is very open when it's at the majors and the arenas.

James: But more players have to go and talk to them.

James: The more players that go talk and give their opinions is much better.

James: Yeah.

James: They're very reasonable people.

Jonatan: It's over too quick.

Jonatan: Especially now on the T side.

Jonatan: I like that it changed the economy a little bit to favor the CT side, the cheaper M4s, et cetera.

Jonatan: But still not enough in the terms of, you know, yes, you made Molo, like the Molo, you kind of nerfed it with this economy change as well for the CTs.

James: It doesn't help.

Jonatan: That doesn't really help to kind of string CT rounds together.

Jonatan: So I don't know, it's kind of a balanced change, but I feel like if CTs can get more weapon rounds in, and also it's because like a 4k buy a CT doesn't give you shit.

Jonatan: Like you don't, what are you supposed to do?

Jonatan: You have to have like two players on MP9, maybe a Phalmas, to have that utility to block.

Jonatan: Because it's just, you know, you have to send people to the death or gamble, push, or I don't know, it just feels weird.

Jonatan: It doesn't feel like CounterStrike enough for me, because it becomes these very risky buys that you kind of are forced to do, because you don't have enough time to break them.

Jonatan: Yeah, you're trying to force this too many times.

Jonatan: It just makes snowballing matches to happen.

Jonatan: And I think this was a little bit of a problem for Na'Vi.

Jonatan: I think if they had a couple more rounds to play with, I actually think they would clinch this series.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: But yeah, Vitality, they made it.

James: They did make it, and they continue to make it.

James: The other quarterfinal game, the last one to look at, Mongols taking on FaZe.

James: I was almost super convinced that Mongols picking Mirage, because obviously, they normally either pick Mirage or Ancient.

James: They picked Ancient last time they got destroyed.

James: Obviously, Kerrigan was ready for this, and I fought with the individuals that this FaZe has.

James: They are going to still enjoy playing Mirage, yeah.

James: Well, they couldn't get shit done on their T side.

Jonatan: I think, you know, like, it's incredible how good of an operator 910 is.

Jonatan: It's unbelievable how good he is.

Jonatan: I think I've told you...

James: And he's not going missing now.

James: Sometimes he used to go missing, and he's not.

James: This is great for them.

Jonatan: Well, the whole Mongo squad, to be fair, I thought they would crumble on a stage game because that's what they've been doing in the past.

James: That's what happened, yeah.

Jonatan: But something clicked for them now, and they looked amazing, and they didn't stop looking amazing.

Jonatan: You know, Senzu picking up Techno, 4K even stepping up, clutching rounds, doing the important work.

Jonatan: I think the only one that kind of, for me, underperformed in Mongols throughout the playoff was Mausinho, the one I usually see like wrecking it up.

James: Little babyface headshot machine.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: No, but I think 910 is like a top three opera in the world.

James: Ooh, high praise.

James: High, high praise.

James: Dude, so what was incredible here for me is that they didn't choke on stage.

James: The crowd was against them in this game because you're going up against FaZe, who are just not only internationally loved, but have a liege, and they've got simple back, right?

James: I can forgive them for losing Mirage, but this Anubis, you don't go from dominating them one Anubis to playing this badly.

James: And like, Symbol did underperform like crazy here.

James: Symbol had a lesser rating than Karaghan.

James: I don't know if he started to feel pressure.

James: I don't know if he just switched off.

James: He wasn't up to standard of what he wanted to do.

James: They won three clutches in that game and still couldn't pull it over the line.

Jonatan: And they had a 7-5 CT half on Anubis, which is incredible.

James: So both times the T-side has let them down, both times.

Jonatan: They should not be losing this, especially as you mentioned, they had three clutches against one clutch of Mongols.

Jonatan: They had the CT side.

Jonatan: They broke them pretty early even though Mongols won pistol.

Jonatan: I still think that they broke them early on the third round.

Jonatan: But then Mongols just, I don't know what happened.

Jonatan: It's like you say, it's maybe some jitters, because I know a lot of people talked even about the Mirage ending, where it was like simple missing, can't remember who was top mid.

Jonatan: Like through the, it was millimeters where you missed two shots essentially.

Jonatan: I saw the post on Reddit where they even did the trajectory thing.

Jonatan: And I'll let you tell, I'll just tell the guys like that's, who cares, that round doesn't mean shit like at the end.

Jonatan: That's not why they lost Mirage.

Jonatan: Like that's nothing to do with it, honestly.

James: People do hate what Simple like crazy though.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: But people were flaming him for losing Mirage or something.

Jonatan: I don't know.

Jonatan: I thought that was...

James: Bro, the whole team other than Karogon didn't perform Mirage.

James: Like you can blame him for a bit of the Anubis performance for sure.

James: And maybe his mental had gone because of like some of the missed shots he did have in Mirage, right?

James: That's definitely possible.

James: But this is a phase who beast on Mirage normally.

James: And if Karogon is your top performer, we know that's not a phase winning map.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: But it's also, I mean, S1mple never played the Anubis professionally.

Jonatan: It came in like after him, right?

James: No, he would have played it a little bit with Na'Vi.

James: He would have played it a little bit with main Na'Vi.

Jonatan: Maybe a little bit, but it feels like he doesn't have that many reps on it.

Jonatan: Let's just put it that way.

Jonatan: S1mple is not the one that should be performing on Anubis.

Jonatan: It's definitely the rest of the team.

James: He only has 23 games on Anubis, ever.

Jonatan: I think if you ask anyone in Faze, if they have a 7-5 half, what their confidence level would be going into the second half from that CT side, I think they would say they win 99 of 100 times.

Jonatan: And that just makes it so incredible, because they looked insane on the CT side Mongols.

Jonatan: And Techno being criticized online, his teammates, you know, stepping up to defend him on Twitter.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: And then having this kind of performance on the CT side, it's great to see, because he kind of pushed them over the edge on Anubis.

James: I think from individual ability, everyone on this Mongol team has a chance to have, like, some star pop-off map.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: It was crazy when I did the interview with Blitz the next day.

James: He was like, I don't understand.

James: Why did everyone pick FaZe?

James: We're a top five team in the world.

James: Why do they think we'd lose to them?

James: I said, well, you did lose to them in the group stage.

James: And also you play badly in arenas normally.

James: And he just in his mind, his own belief, by the way, and this is what I will respect.

James: People can call it delusion or whatever, but his mind is like, no, we are a consistent playoff team.

James: We're in a more playoff some phase this year.

James: We may have lost games there, but we know what we can do.

James: And I was like, okay, we're really cooking.

James: And that was, by the way, just before they played pain, he told me that, but it was solid.

James: It was real solid.

Jonatan: I think I even picked phase and I always pick Mongols, but I got convinced by that same reason that just because it's a playoff game, otherwise I would have picked Mongols 100 over 100.

James: Playoff game and they played each other like in the same tournament and lost in a pretty bad way, you know?

James: They had the game in their hands and they just got rolled over in the end on Ancient.

James: And then they just continued into Anubis and they didn't stand a chance.

James: Yeah.

James: Coming to the semifinals, first game was Vitality Mouth again.

James: This is the seventh time they would have played in the year.

James: It's kind of wild to think how much they have played against each other.

James: It felt like this was the grand final, if I'm being honest.

Jonatan: In some way, yeah.

James: Yeah, this is what I was expecting to be a grand final.

James: Mirage starts off really well for them.

James: It's actually a fantastic performance from Flamzee who had been struggling.

James: People are going to go, why did you say fantastic?

James: He only has a 1.34 rating, but he had not looked so good the whole tournament.

James: So it was great to see him have a lot more impact here and do well.

Jonatan: But he also plays a lot harder roles.

James: Yes, bro, he's got more time than any other player on that team, even more than Apex, I swear.

Jonatan: Sometimes I feel like we should come out with some kind of guide for people, like, okay, this comp player has 1.28 rating, he's trash.

Jonatan: You know, like, instead of this B player has 0.9 or 1.0 rating, dude, he's a fucking beast, man.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: Because a lot of the time, these weaker positions get so much flak, like playing, I think Flames plays A site on Mirage, right?

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: On CT.

Jonatan: I think that is one of the hardest positions to play in the entire game.

Jonatan: Like, it's unbelievably tough.

Jonatan: If you don't have good synergy with your con and window player, depending on who is aggressive in mid, they can just walk out ramp and take that one on one duel.

Jonatan: You lose that and you put your whole team in an insanely bad position.

Jonatan: I think you have to have a lot of balls to play that site and he does it so well.

Jonatan: He pushes close ramp, close to the smokes.

Jonatan: He's being a nuisance.

Jonatan: He's blocking.

Jonatan: He's sometimes holding the site on his own.

Jonatan: So I think a lot of people need to...

Jonatan: I don't know.

Jonatan: I hope people can understand that the rating system is flawed because some positions you should have a higher rating on.

James: Yeah.

James: We need to make a scale.

James: Maybe we can do this one episode where we make a scale of like based on your position, what would be considered a good rating.

Jonatan: Yes.

Jonatan: Like some kind of guide.

James: You'd be perfect to do that.

James: That would be really good.

James: All right.

James: Let's make a note of that for a following episode.

James: Then we come on to Inferno.

James: Now, they did lose Inferno to Legacy.

Jonatan: By the way, what the fuck has happened with Vitality's Inferno?

Jonatan: It was like their castle of a map.

Jonatan: No one ever beat them on Inferno.

James: I'll explain because I spoke to Apex about this and I just said like, is this the case if you're not having as much reps on it, like in terms of working it?

James: Because if you put more time into other maps, then some other maps will drop off a bit.

James: That's just the way it goes.

James: He was like, yeah, obviously, I'm not too concerned about the rest of the map Paul Strong, but you're getting obliterated on these maps.

James: You're getting absolutely bullied on these maps.

Jonatan: And it's ruining people's pick-ems.

James: He would say, fuck your pick-ems.

Jonatan: I know.

James: But it's wild when you think of how good they were on it.

James: The only thing I'll say is it was positive for Mouz to get a win and the way they did with the 11-1 start.

James: But it's just more impressive again from Vitality, where they can just shrug this off, go into Train.

James: ZywOo obviously is a monster on that.

James: Everyone dominated.

James: It was perfection from the whole team.

Jonatan: I have a question for you, actually.

Jonatan: So like leading up to this, you see the map pool, right?

Jonatan: It's Mirage, Inferno and Train.

Jonatan: What did you see as Mouz like kind of win condition?

Jonatan: What did they need to do with this?

James: Win Mirage?

Jonatan: So exactly.

Jonatan: Like if I thought, okay, this game is over.

Jonatan: Vitality won Mirage.

James: It's just, yeah, yeah.

Jonatan: It's just done.

Jonatan: What can they do now?

Jonatan: And obviously they can have amazing Inferno and amazing Train in some kind of world, but it was even unlikely that they would win Inferno, even though Vitality been looking a little bit rough on it.

Jonatan: I still had more faith in Vitality and that for some reason.

Jonatan: I don't think they would flunk two maps in a row, especially being more favored towards them.

James: And also because like, Mouz is a team that they understand well.

James: They played against each other so many times.

James: Yeah.

James: So it's not like a legacy that can throw some craziness at you, who can just disrespect you round after round, bully you on the beach.

James: So like, I was well expecting this to be maybe a closer Inferno, sure, but not a Mouz dominant Inferno like this.

James: No.

James: No way.

Jonatan: But I just felt like this game was over.

Jonatan: I kind of lost interest because Mouz lost Mirage, if I'm going to be honest watching it.

Jonatan: Even though Mouz came back on that Inferno, I was 100% sure Vitality would win.

James: But then, mate, then we come on to Train and there was no chance.

James: There was literally no chance.

James: There is nothing you can do against Vitality on Train right now.

James: And people, if people didn't watch it, it wasn't even like there was some close rounds.

James: It was like even in the clutch rounds, I was having like huge confidence that Vitality were going to play it off.

James: You could see there was moments in time where like Mouz would even get space outside.

James: Yeah.

James: And then they just kind of get stuck.

James: Zy was peeking from gap.

James: Apex is playing on the bomb train.

James: Flames is running around with MP9, sometimes got on top of trains.

James: It was so strong from them.

Jonatan: There's also this thing where you're having, you know, a star player holding B site and you have that roaming AWPer star player on the outside.

Jonatan: It just, it feels almost like cheating to have a star player that could hold the B site.

Jonatan: Because I think, you know, you can play that four outside start, you can shut everything down on the outside, and you know you're going to get something if they go inside, like every single time, because Rops doesn't matter where he is, he's going to get one or two with them.

Jonatan: And it just made it, it's almost like it's a, it's a great map for Vitality, not only because of how they play, but also because of who is their star players.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: And it just suits them role-wise very, very well on the CT side.

James: Yeah, I just love how they play their train, man.

James: And I'm so happy we got to see a train coming there again.

James: Whenever a train gets played, I'm just happy.

James: It was like one of the lowest played maps of the Major, and I'm still just whenever I get it, it's good.

James: It's always left as like a decider or last map of a best of five.

James: And then by the way, I don't know if anyone ever on their pickups other than Mongolian people predicted Vitality Mongols.

James: But if you did, hats off to you.

James: Mongols going into a Major where the whole crowd, by the way, is against Apex.

James: To explain this to people, this whole fuck you Apex thing is Apex loves it and is playing the villain.

James: The Americans continue this is the previous Dallas.

James: And I would say that you actually give him fuel.

James: Like you're actually making Apex who is a veteran player who comes from this like old land center scenarios.

James: Yeah.

James: Where there's a lot of back chat and a lot of trash talking.

James: He even came up for the Grand Finals with mobile phone in his pocket and was like, haha, just spinning around.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Enjoying it.

Jonatan: Like you can every time they like film Apex, there's like a boo, there's like a fuck you Apex chant.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: Like he must know when he's on camera every single time.

Jonatan: It goes from like, wait, boo.

James: Bro, the best one is every time, so they boo Apex, right?

James: They're pretty nice to everyone else in Vitality.

James: But when X-Taz comes on screen, the whole arena goes bold, bold.

Jonatan: I didn't hear that.

James: Because the way they're doing it, it probably sounds like a boo when you're in the arena.

James: So obviously, I'm really lucky.

James: I get to just see anywhere I want in the arena.

James: So sometimes I went up to like the rafters to film some content with fans, like in between map content.

James: And I sat there, I watched the Techno Clutch, where Techno Clutched out around the Mirage, where they were dominating.

James: And then the whole arena, Techno, Techno, because they were loving the Mongols.

James: And I was like, shit, America's adopted the Mongols.

James: I will say, after Mirage, there was a very small percent of my heart that went, they're going to fucking do it.

James: They've actually nailed this, somehow they're going to do it.

James: But every time X-Taz came on screen, I looked behind me, I was like, guys, you're really just shouting bull to him.

James: Like, what the hell, man?

James: I was like, he might have a complex or something.

James: You guys just, bulled, bulled.

Jonatan: That's kind of crazy.

Jonatan: I didn't actually catch that.

Jonatan: I must have thought they were booing still Apex.

James: Yeah, it was, every time there was a timeout, you see X-Taz, and they obviously put him up on the screen, bulled.

James: And then any Mongols player, by the way, big cheers, big shouting, Mongols, Mongols.

James: There was, there was, they sold out.

James: Oh yeah, this is another thing.

James: Whoever runs the Blast shop, just needs to ask teams to send more jerseys, because day one, every jersey was sold out.

James: Every team, every jersey, you couldn't get it anymore.

James: People were desperate for Mongol shirts, and they didn't exist.

James: People were making their own by drawing on a white t-shirt, the Mongols logo.

Jonatan: I did see that.

Jonatan: Yeah, I did see that.

James: I said to them, fair play, if you can't buy it.

James: And they were like, we would buy it.

James: He goes, oh, I was like, because in my mind, I'm thinking like, you can't afford it, right?

James: It's more like a $50, $60 shirt.

James: And he's like, no, I want to buy it.

James: I can buy it, but they're not there.

James: So the stock was gone.

James: Every shirt was sold out.

James: No team shirts were left.

James: And you've got to think, because more people come.

Jonatan: Even I would buy a Mongols shirt, so I'm a big fan of them.

James: Hell yeah.

James: And so back to the game, back to the thing.

James: This mirage was incredible.

James: Clutch is in there, by the way, even sometimes being a man disadvantage, winning a clutch game, winning a clutch round, like the Mongols impressed me on mirage in a way I didn't expect, because doing it against FaZe is one thing, but doing it against Vitality is another.

James: And this, the way they did it was the most important thing.

James: In the history of matchups that they've played this year, and by the way, in 2025, the one, two, three, four series before this grand final, Mongols won Nuke, and they won Nuke.

James: And that's, yeah, that's two Nukes.

James: One was in overtime.

James: They've never won a mirage.

Jonatan: And the weird thing is, you know that in the Vito, Mongols had the option to have Nuke as the third map.

James: They had the choice.

James: Oh, yeah, they have.

James: But I guess they were thinking, you know what?

James: We're not going to go to Nuke.

James: They'll expect this.

James: We'll go to Inferno.

Jonatan: They 100% picked Inferno, because Vitality is the absolute rock bottom on Inferno.

James: Oh.

Jonatan: That's the only, I think that's the only reason, is because Legacy and Mouse just destroyed Vitality on Inferno.

James: And Mongols were like, we can do it.

James: This is the time.

James: It's going to happen.

James: Oh, mate.

Jonatan: But it was a very, very exciting mirage.

Jonatan: I got some, you know, maybe they can do it.

Jonatan: Maybe.

Jonatan: How amazing would it be if they are the first Asian-based team to win a Major?

Jonatan: It would have been such an historic moment.

Jonatan: Not that Vitality winning isn't historic.

Jonatan: It's very historic itself.

Jonatan: But I was definitely cheering for for Mongols.

Jonatan: I think it would have been a Cinderella story in some sense.

James: So someone asked me like who would I like to win?

James: And I just said like it's great if the Mongols win for Asia and for like the story of all that, right?

James: It'd be such an unexpected one.

James: It would continue on the tradition of times of like where many major favorites have not made it.

James: But I just felt like it Vitality winning it, right?

James: And this cherry on top for the, they literally only didn't win one event this year that they entered at the very beginning of the season.

Jonatan: Only the first one, right?

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Only Blast Bounty, which part of that was online into an offline eight teams final, all in the studio.

James: And then they just clicked and they dominated and they played so well.

James: And it was kind of nice for the way they got to do it, you know?

James: Yeah.

James: And both teams winning, even for me, would have been fine.

James: But it's like this thing with Vitality sets up such a great set of storylines for the next season in such a big and impressive way.

James: And remember, we come out of the player break straight into Cologne.

James: There's Fissure, which is the technical first event.

James: But I don't know if their team has even announced yet.

Jonatan: I'll also say this about Vitality, right?

Jonatan: Because I even tweeted, you know, Apex, I think is in the GOAT conversation for me, 100%.

Jonatan: Like one of the greatest players to ever touch the game.

Jonatan: And people might agree or disagree.

Jonatan: But I'm thinking in terms of, you know, impacts not only by stats, but actually, you know, impact throughout his whole career.

Jonatan: He's won trophies, I think, every single year he's competed.

Jonatan: And he's done it for such a long time.

Jonatan: He converts to the in-game leader, doing different roles.

Jonatan: Still looks fucking sharp, I have to say.

Jonatan: It's not like, like he's a high-fragging in-game leader.

Jonatan: He can have games where he just looks like a star player.

Jonatan: And I don't know.

Jonatan: To me, I don't know where I'd put him, but I think he's up there in like top three in my greatest players right now.

Jonatan: And I think he can be even more.

James: And bro, he was 1.37 rating for the grand final above Zyru, Raps, Mezi, Blamez, obviously above everyone.

James: But I mean like just crazy when you think of that.

James: I will say hats off to Mezi for having some really pop-off moments.

James: He stayed solid.

James: First, by the way, this is going to be something I talk about on another video of my own somewhere.

James: But Mezi is the greatest player the UK has ever produced of any version of Counter-Strike of all time.

James: Don't even try and hit me with the rattlesnake or the Mangia Capra shit, because it's not even up for debate now.

James: I'm pretty sure if you ask these players, they will tell you it is him.

James: Seven trophies this year, A major, playing incredibly tough roles.

James: He's not being set up in the same way.

Jonatan: He's potentially in the greatest Counter-Strike lineup that we've ever seen.

Jonatan: I think that's still debatable, but the pathway looking...

Jonatan: This conversation could be ended by this year.

James: If they go this year, right?

James: And I don't even need to see them win every big event, but if they win Cologne and they win the next major...

James: Let's see what other events are.

Jonatan: I think they still have the record for the most tournament runs, like wins in a row.

James: I'm not sure about it, because I'm not sure if Astralis had that or not.

Jonatan: No, I'm pretty sure it's Vitality right now.

James: Okay.

James: Look at this, right?

James: You have Blast Bounty, which sadly starts online at the beginning, but it did the same earlier.

James: It goes to the LAN finals.

James: You've got Cologne.

James: I don't think they'll attend Fissure, because it starts on the 15th of July.

James: I think they'll skip Fissure and go to Cologne.

James: I think a lot of teams will skip Fissure maybe because of the coming back earlier from break, because it starts like 15th to the 20th of July.

James: It's in Serbia, which is not too bad, but it's like they deserve a longer break.

James: You need at least three weeks, because you're going to have to come back.

James: So I think a lot of teams will skip that.

James: So they do Cologne.

James: Remember, they don't have to go playing either.

James: So they do Cologne, they do Bounty, they do an Esports World Cup.

James: Then they go to Blast Open, London, probably, it's a Pro League game, then into Major.

James: There is a world where they could win.

James: If they win three events in a Major, that's ten, no, that would be eleven trophies.

James: They're obviously very careful on their planning, by the way.

James: They're very careful on how they do events, how they choose events.

Jonatan: I think that you have to, if you're playing on the top level of the game, and I think it's a really tough thing to plan for, because it's so hard to know what levels are capable of, and stuff like that.

Jonatan: But I will say, as a little bit of a, maybe a segment, if you feel like you're done talking about the actual major.

James: Oh, no, I'm not done just yet.

Jonatan: Okay.

Jonatan: But...

James: I'm not done just yet.

Jonatan: All right.

Jonatan: I'll hold on my, like, segue.

James: So we got to also think about this, right?

James: ZywOo has won MVP of every event.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Now, my GOAT has always been s1mple, but ZywOo just earned his seventh major MVP in a row.

James: Sorry, seventh MVP in a row and got the major MVP.

Jonatan: And his past s1mple and MVP award, right?

James: We did that last time in Dallas.

James: He has to be the GOAT now.

Jonatan: I think he has.

James: I know s1mple wasn't there, and people can say that might be a factor.

James: I will always say this, as an individual player at his peak, s1mple was the best and no one's coming close to that for a while.

James: The way he plays, the way he moved, the way he had control of the game, Zywoo was not that type of player.

James: But the accolades now that Zywoo has, from French team to English speaking team, to multiple different rosters, to dominating and taking this many MVPs, you can't fault him.

James: You can't fault him at all.

James: And by the way, this is, I need to get your opinion on this.

James: I was actually sent this Devilwalk, so we have to talk about this.

James: This isn't a sponsor thing, by the way, because I'm sponsored by Zowie.

James: This is just the fact that Zowie changed his mouse before the Major.

James: Now he changed it to this thing here.

James: I'm going to have a little play around with it at some point and see how good it is.

James: I'm a loyal...

Jonatan: I want to try it as well.

James: I will have to get you one as well, but I'm a loyal Zowie user.

James: Yeah.

James: Always use the EC2.

James: It's my type of shape.

James: Zowie even used to use the Zowie EC2.

Jonatan: But isn't that...

Jonatan: It looks like an EC2 to me.

James: Very similar.

James: I'm trying to compare it.

James: Like, I feel like it's like an EC2 shape, a higher back.

James: Is it a higher back?

James: No, a bit...

James: Yeah, a bit of a higher back and a bit shorter.

James: People were saying it's a cross between like the Vaxe and the EC2.

James: So obviously it's shapes he likes, right?

James: When I put my hand in it, I get a similar feel.

James: It's actually a bit more room for my thing.

James: I've got big hands, which is more room for these fingers to sit on the edge of the mouse.

James: If you play like one, two.

James: Yeah, because I don't like my my little finger dragging across the mouse, but I know same.

James: It also has like a weight you can put inside it.

James: If you want to make it heavier, this one's just a standard one without the weight.

Jonatan: I don't care too much about that stuff.

James: But let me just ask you this.

James: In Dallas, he was not using this mouse.

James: And yes, he was probably testing it for months, maybe a year.

James: It's his shape.

James: He designed it.

James: But then you change mouse before the most important tournament of the year.

James: That is a risk, even if you made the mouse, even if you love it.

Jonatan: I was going to say that.

Jonatan: I do think, to some degree, he designed it and helped make it his perfect mouse.

Jonatan: It must make it a little bit more OK than just randomly changing a mouse.

James: Dude, I asked him on day one of stage three.

James: I said, this is the first tournament you're playing with.

James: He's like, yeah.

James: I'm like, my God.

James: He's like, I've had practice games of it.

James: I've played between.

Jonatan: How long between this is between Dallas and the Major?

James: He was in stage three, so I guess like two and a half weeks.

Jonatan: So two and a half weeks.

Jonatan: I think if you played for two and a half weeks, it's fine.

Jonatan: I think the thing that.

Jonatan: That sucks is when people do like, OK, they're playing half the boot camp with we're going to, you know, compete in four days.

Jonatan: Nah, fuck this.

Jonatan: I'm playing bad.

Jonatan: I'm going to change my mouse, right?

James: Classic, terrible thing to do.

Jonatan: Yeah, I think that's the, you know, terrible one.

Jonatan: Well, I think Saivu probably, OK, I'm going to I'm finally going to get to show off my new mouse.

Jonatan: I'm going to, you know, they probably planned it.

Jonatan: I'm going to use it at the Major.

James: Greatest marketing thing, by the way, in the world, because.

Jonatan: Change his mouse, MVP at Major.

James: But I will say this, let me give you this, yeah.

James: This is the same Saivu back in Rio, who forgot he had like the film at the bottom of his mouse skates.

James: So he left the protective blue film on and won the tournament and played with it the whole time.

James: Didn't even notice.

James: He is a player that is unlike.

James: So there are certain players, if you look at them like Amanasi, same mouse, same mouse pad, doesn't change settings and stuff like that, just keeps the same, right?

James: Very important for the mental, they just want to have the same, they know they're used to that.

James: Zaiwu is a player where I've watched him use a Zowie mouse, I've watched him use a different company mouse, you know?

James: I've watched him change through different mice and he'll still dominate.

James: So there is their marketing thing and it looks great for them.

James: And obviously he's very happy to use it and it works that way.

James: But there's also that caveat, like no one should ever buy a mouse and think I'm going to play like the player that uses it, because you ain't that player.

James: You still need to find the right shape that works for you.

Jonatan: I'll add a little bit like if you're like a super emotional player and you play a lot with emotions and you get affected easily.

Jonatan: I don't think Saivo is that kind of person that seems to be rattled up with his emotions that much.

Jonatan: He just plays the games, has a good time.

Jonatan: So if you're more of the emotional one, I think that's when it's a really terrible idea to change my eyes, no matter if it's before a tournament, because it's almost like some people like to give themselves excuses.

Jonatan: Even if it's not planned, they will use it as an excuse later.

Jonatan: And you can see that pattern.

Jonatan: I think then it's terrible because then it's kind of like you.

Jonatan: I don't need to improve.

Jonatan: It was because I changed my eyes.

Jonatan: Trust me, there's more players like this than you'd imagine.

James: This is why I want to ask your opinion on it.

James: Because it's probably less of a risk for Zywoo because of the player he is, which is why everyone agreed to it, right?

James: But personally, I'm a top tier in-game leader.

James: I look over to the right and I'm like, oh, you got a new mouse.

James: I'm about to play the Major.

James: We just won six tournaments.

James: What the fuck are you doing?

James: What the fuck is going on, man?

Jonatan: Okay, let's say it was a sensitive player and you go like, what the fuck are you doing?

Jonatan: Is it worth the risk to break his mental before the tournament?

James: No, obviously not.

James: This is what I'm saying.

James: You kind of have to let this person go with their shit, right?

James: But my God, it's like we've just won and dominated everything.

James: Like, if it was Amanasi, if it was anyone else, I'd probably be saying no, I can't say anyone else.

James: But like what you're saying, if it was someone who's mental is not as strong or someone who's very stuck in their ways and likes things all the same, yeah, this is now is not the time to change.

James: But he did it and he still, by the way, he was actually on track to be the highest rated major winning player ever to pass Donk after last time, but he dropped off too much in the finals.

James: Apex took too many kills.

James: Yeah, Apex took too many kills.

James: Well, let me just get Donk Shanghai because Simple was the leader.

James: I mean, he was like 1.39.

James: Donk got 1.49.

James: Yeah, we got a Stockholm.

Jonatan: By the way, even looking at these stats for the grand final, right, doesn't this tell you if you just go on the stats page and just look at the kills and the deaths of all the players in Vitality?

Jonatan: Doesn't this just tell you how fucking good this team is?

James: Yeah, plus 10 Apex, plus 14 Mezzy, plus 3 Ropz.

Jonatan: Look, 43 kills, 33 deaths, 47 kills, 33 deaths, 41, 38.

James: Plus 11 for flames.

Jonatan: 44, 33.

Jonatan: Like, everyone is so close to each other.

Jonatan: And we're still, you know, spewing Saivu and Ropz and all of this stuff, right?

Jonatan: They're carrying or they're the superstars, but everyone in this team has the potential to be a superstar in any team they're on.

James: Yeah.

James: And by the way, I don't know if people caught this on the cameras.

James: I don't know how big an eye people are looking at this to continue to just harp on the positives of Vitality.

James: You know, when they go for like a team talk outside?

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Apex and Matt, the analyst, go together and are talking separately about whatever game plan or whatever is going to happen.

James: And then XTaz and Jack, who Jack is the performance coach, huge Australian guy.

James: By the way, this guy is taller than me.

James: Big, like he's strong as hell.

James: He used to play like very high level, maybe professional rugby.

James: I'm trying to just remember.

James: Sorry, Jack, if I got this wrong.

James: But everyone talks so positively about the differences he makes.

James: So XTaz and Jack have the rest of the team.

James: And then Apex and Matt are on the other side together.

James: They all come together at the end.

James: But like whatever they're doing, whatever this unit is, this shit works.

James: Because normally, in general, if I'm speaking, everyone's together as a whole team.

James: Analyst, performance, manager, coach, yeah?

James: Full team, everyone's there.

James: But they had a very different set up on this.

James: And they know what it means to win a major.

James: Like I think if Vitality didn't win, if Apex didn't win, bro, they would be, there would be massive fallout, despite how successful they have been, despite how well they've been playing.

James: Because they did everything to...

James: Not of the players, but like fallout of mentality, fallout of belief, because they followed obviously this plan, this way they've been doing things, yeah?

James: And the vibe I was getting was like that anything else would be a disappointment.

James: Despite all the trophies they had before, the goal was like to peak and to be in the best shape and to have this at the right time.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: And even when they stumbled and lost that best of one, it didn't shut them down.

James: They lost the win streak, it didn't shut them down.

James: They still kept going, they still had that hunger.

James: Like anything else would have been a huge loss for them.

James: And they knew how big a favorites they were.

James: Probably one of the biggest favorites since Na'Vi 2021.

Jonatan: I mean, I don't think there's been a bigger favorite ever.

James: Really?

James: Na'Vi didn't even drop a map when they got to playoffs though.

James: They were like the ultimate favorites.

Jonatan: Yeah, but like, yeah, they were the favorites, but were they really bigger favorites?

James: I guess it depends which way you look at it, because obviously Na'Vi didn't win every single tournament before, like Vitality, I guess you could say, no.

James: But maybe because the narrative changed because of what we saw, that they could, you know, a final started to get harder for them.

James: They would drop a map here and there.

Jonatan: But I feel like the Na'Vi one was more like people wanted, you know, Na'Vi to win more than they 100% believe they would win.

Jonatan: Compared to Vitality, I feel like everyone just like, probably a percentage of people have picked Vitality to win the Major throughout the whole bracket.

Jonatan: It's like 99%.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: Well, I feel like there must have been more people who like even picked G2 or something like that back in the day.

James: True, true.

James: Yeah, maybe we looked at the stats of like coin picks or whatever like that.

James: I know it's not the best indication, but that would be right.

Jonatan: I feel like even though they were massive favors, I'm not saying that like that they're not, but I feel like Vitality right now was like, I don't remember anyone being this much of a favorite.

Jonatan: Even looking back at like early Majors, NIP, the Astralis, I feel like this still is the most dominant favorite.

James: I respect it.

James: I won't argue it, but I respect it.

Jonatan: That's my opinion.

James: Well, with that, we do actually finish our major talk.

James: It was an incredible major.

James: It was so much fun to be at.

James: I will say that-

Jonatan: I'll do my little segue now.

James: Well, let me finish my bit then on the major part.

James: Because I'll say that for me, the crowd proved that America deserves to have majors more regularly.

James: We shouldn't have another seven-year gap before we come back to America for a major.

James: The opportunity in America of big arenas and to go bigger and potentially break records depending on where we go, like have a 20,000-person arena or bigger, I definitely think should be looked at by tournament organizers.

James: I still need Valve to put a best of five final.

James: Actually, you know what?

James: Even if they don't give us a best of five final, just remove best of ones and just give us the best of threes the whole way.

James: I'll even accept the best of three final.

James: I'll deal with that for now.

James: But we just can't have any more best of ones, especially in MR 12.

James: It's not allowed.

James: It's not good.

James: It's not positive.

James: But this major was impressive.

James: I did enjoy what we got to see from it.

James: I'm still not 100% happy with the whole stage one over RMRs.

James: It's still a bit sad, I'll be honest.

James: But we are hopefully moving in the right direction to the game being in a better position, being like as we wanted, you know.

James: But it was all in all pretty good major.

Jonatan: Give it a solid.

Jonatan: It was a great, great major.

Jonatan: I think we got a lot of new like personalities.

Jonatan: I haven't, you know, seen before or heard that much from we have Emilia, we have G obviously.

Jonatan: I think we got a little bit more, you know, NQC.

James: I'll tell you what, G messaged me.

James: Wait, wait, wait.

James: G messaged me during the major.

James: What did he say?

James: He just randomly, yeah, on the last Friday, was like, miss you.

James: And I was like, it just made me so sad.

James: He's just obviously watching the major from home and he just goes, miss you.

James: And I was like, hope you have a nice time with family and friends.

James: Poor guy, man.

James: I love him.

James: I obviously, I love him so much.

James: I actually, I am a G fan.

Jonatan: I am a G fan too.

Jonatan: And yeah, I feel like a lot of new personality shine through for me, this major.

Jonatan: I feel like a lot more than prior majors haven't really.

James: This was the trash talk major, a hundred percent.

James: Showing up, showing emotion.

Jonatan: There were so many new individuals that did things a little bit differently, and it was enjoyable to watch.

Jonatan: But concluding everything, great major, I thought it was great to watch.

Jonatan: I do think some of the roster changes that we are about to talk about is a little bit sprung with who's going to catch Vitality right now.

James: That's the game now.

James: That's the name of the game now.

James: What was your last point then on the major?

James: What did you want to go for?

Jonatan: The last bit?

James: Yeah, you said like you had a segue.

Jonatan: The segue is essentially that I think that Vitality has just made sure that everyone is like in panic mode.

Jonatan: I think if Vitality wasn't so damn good, I think some of these roster changes wouldn't be as stressful for some of these teams going into the next season.

James: When you say stressful, you mean like so much like they need to?

Jonatan: Like they need to happen now because otherwise, like it's too big of a gap and we're never going to reach that with just grinding theory.

Jonatan: We need to have fresh blood in here and we need to reach the gap in other ways as well.

Jonatan: Because I think, yeah.

James: This gets more interesting, right?

James: Because, yes, people have said, well, Vitality added more firepower, had two stars on the team.

James: That's why they're doing it right.

James: It's not just a one star setup, blah, blah, blah.

James: But Rop's coming in wasn't just star power.

James: It was everyone on that team improved.

James: And I'm going to say this from someone from the outside perspective, not just game side.

James: Apex praises how much Matt does, how much Jack does as well, the performance coach.

James: There is a lot more, I think, behind the scenes of Vitality that also helped them be in this situation.

James: Not forcing them to go to every event, not forcing them to turn up to everything every time, having a good plan schedule, all of them being in agreement of when to have this work, have this rest.

James: Remember, Messi's done this while having a newborn baby at home.

Jonatan: Yeah, that's crazy.

James: Like, I am a dad.

James: I understand how mental that is.

James: His wife was there even at Dallas, right, with the kid.

James: That was an amazing moment for him.

James: Like, this is right now something we haven't seen before.

James: That's why the Vitality era 100% has started.

James: And I will agree with your point.

James: The people think they want to chase by changing players and adding firepower and going through this stuff, but they might not get to where they want until they realize the other factors.

James: Because having players happy, mood happy, understanding the schedule, knowing what they're doing, when's this media day for X sponsor, when's this travel day going to be, when we boot camp, when we don't boot camp.

James: By Vitality did a lot of online boot camps, yeah?

James: Not in-person boot camps like people were loving to do.

James: There's all these factors that come into it, which is way different.

James: And I can say this now, right?

James: I'm not gonna mention who it's gonna be.

James: But very, very soon on this podcast, we will have an All About Counter-Strike episode with a Vitality Major winner from this current team that's playing right now.

James: And we're gonna ask a lot of questions to get answers to this, because this is going to be a lot of details and things that have never been spoken about before.

James: And we again, luckily somehow, thanks to, I guess, Devilwalk's beautiful face.

Jonatan: I think it's your beautiful voice, man.

James: We continue to hit guests which, like, don't come on podcasts and do stuff regularly.

James: So we're in a massive win for this right now.

James: And I'm so excited for that episode because we can start unpacking and learning and understanding this in a million ways.

James: But I agree with you, teams are trying to catch up.

James: So do you want to go into roster shuffles from here, roster moves?

Jonatan: Yeah, which one do you want to?

James: So we normally do roster moves, right?

James: So we'll start with the actual roster move because this one is a confirmed one.

James: And some of the other ones are just rumors as of now.

James: It is the 25th of June 2025, just to be clear.

Jonatan: All right.

James: Let's start with Falcons benching Magisk, signing Kiyosuke or Kaosuke, whoever the fuck you want to say it.

James: In Japanese, it's Kiyosuke, but he is a Russian player.

James: So maybe it's just Kaosuke.

James: Today we announced that a Mill Magisk Reef is being moved to the bench.

James: Magisk has been with our roster for almost two years.

James: He has brought many memorable moments and helped us win our first CS2 Trophy in Bucharest.

James: He was also crucial to making the finals of IAM Melbourne, PGL Cluj-Napoca and Blast Rivals S1.

James: We thank him for his dedication to the team as we seek a new path after this season.

James: I'll just say this, Tess says, you deserve to stay and you even survive the friendship of Zonic and Magisk where Zonic is bringing Magisk to everywhere, bringing him to Vitality, bringing him to Falcons, taking him with him everywhere.

James: And that on its own is a statement.

James: Now, the other thing which I'm going to touch on because I have information on this.

Jonatan: Can I tell you a funny thing?

James: Go for it.

Jonatan: So I've obviously been kind of grinding the Major on my television.

Jonatan: And my girlfriend doesn't know anything about CS, like absolute zero.

Jonatan: And she just randomly, when I had a game on, picked Magisk.

Jonatan: He's my favorite player now.

Jonatan: Oh, no, so she was super sad.

Jonatan: I was like, he might be kidding me.

James: He's kind of going.

James: He's kind of going.

Jonatan: So she's a little bit sad now.

Jonatan: I had to show her the news.

Jonatan: And she's like, aww.

James: The thing is, right, I'm not sure what his buyout would look like.

James: He's had two years on the team.

James: Maybe just, I don't know his contract length.

James: Maybe it's just three years or something.

James: He's a smart player, but I'm worried about where he goes next.

James: Because Majors, he's not old.

James: He's got plenty of time to still play.

James: He's 27.

James: He's a four-time major winner, major MVP.

James: He's good in his roles.

James: He's had some struggles, but there's a lot of pressure when you're on Falcons.

James: There are teams I feel like he could make better, but it might be like a tier 1.5, 2-ish team, which is kind of tough for him.

Jonatan: But what would you say if you would put Magisk in converting into an in-game leader?

James: Did he try that once already?

Jonatan: I think he was in-game leading a little bit in Astralis, right?

James: He had a moment in Astralis when he was, yeah.

Jonatan: So I think there's indications at least to that he has that ability, at least to be improved upon.

Jonatan: And I actually think that would make him a lot more attractive on the market, rather than staying as like an anchor or rifler or whatever you want to, you know, kind of categorize himself as right now.

Jonatan: I don't really know what his preferred role is at the moment.

Jonatan: He probably just played anchor roles a little bit more because he was forced to right now.

Jonatan: But I would say that if that is the case, to have such an experienced guy, he still has a couple of years left with him.

Jonatan: And, you know, calling and maybe, you know, as you say, taking on a team, you know, probably around, I don't know, I could see him in like maybe a heroic-ish line up or something like along those lines, taking the reins and kind of impeding with his experience.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: I could see that working.

James: That's not a bad route for him to go.

James: Definitely not.

James: Change up some positions again when he comes to be an IGL, what he can see on the map, how he'd work, what plays he have around him.

James: Not against that.

James: I just don't think he's not going to get on a tier one team, I don't think.

Jonatan: I think I had a pretty rough stint at the end now at Falcons that he either needs to take a little small break or I think, I mean, he's obviously going to take a small break, but when he comes back, I hope that he comes back as like an in-game leader and tries to, you know.

James: Do you think he comes back next season, right?

James: Because he might not get picked up in this season.

Jonatan: Yeah, I imagine he would run out his contract in Falcons, however long that is.

James: Yeah.

James: I'm not sure on Falcons buyout or anything like that for like, if a player is up, same for Dexter, who's now in that same situation.

James: But the funny thing is, right, Kiewski coming to Falcon was Overdrive saying it's a two million buyout.

James: I heard different.

James: I heard between one and 1.5, but then Overdrive himself also said to me that it was in like close to two mil.

James: Yeah.

James: So I'm just guessing because the CEO of Falcons, Massad, he came out and said it's not two mil.

James: But obviously I love when they try to say this is not happening.

James: But then give us an indication.

James: You don't need to tell us the amount, but just say, think a bit less, like a few hundred K less or something, you know, because once you've started this whole game, it's all about guessing.

James: I wasn't told an exact number, but I'm I'm in the numbers I'm hearing is between 1 and 1.5.

James: But then I was so close to spirit that I was going to believe him, honestly.

James: So anyone who's telling me could just be lying at this point.

James: It's also like my mother, she was already a lot for a Academy player to 600K.

James: Right.

James: Because there's still a risk.

James: And let alone we don't know what roles and stuff is going to go into Falcons.

James: But obviously, there's massive roles clash with what Magisk used to do and what Kiyosuke used to do.

James: So now we're in a position where you want to pay, imagine if they didn't pay 2 million and like, he doesn't get any of the roles he's used to and doesn't hit as hard.

Jonatan: I would be incredibly sad if they made this move happen and did not let Kiyosuke actually pick his roles or them making him comfortable.

Jonatan: I'm sure there's still going to have things that he has to learn and he has to kind of sort himself in with, but he's very fortunate to both have Nico there, have Monizudera has kind of made that journey into an international team from that kind of Russian perspective.

Jonatan: So I think they have everything to kind of make him the best player he could be.

Jonatan: But I hope that they firstly put him in spots and positions.

Jonatan: He is comfortable with using his own gut feeling and kind of playing his game.

James: I 100% agree with you and that's what I want to see.

James: And do you want some more fun news as well?

James: Maui Snake already spoke about this and it is confirmed.

James: He was going to go to Spirit Academy like that.

James: Spirit Academy wanted him.

James: He didn't want to go to Spirit Academy.

James: Sorry, he didn't want to go to Spirit Main Team.

James: He didn't want to go from the Academy Team to the Main Team.

James: That was confirmed.

James: He had the opportunity, but he said he wanted to go to Falcons when that offer came.

James: He didn't want to join the Main Team, which is crazy.

James: Because just imagine Kiewski and Donk on the same team.

James: Yes, I know you're going to get a lot of clashes again, but I mean...

Jonatan: I think it's more easily fixable on...

Jonatan: Because if you look at Spirit, so role-wise, Kiewski would fit a lot more into Spirit and would fix a lot of problems that Spirit have, which is when people kill Donk, the round goes to like 10 seconds, they don't really get anything going, because they're very slow pacing, lurking around, they're very careful, because the only real aggressive player they have is Donk on Spirit.

Jonatan: So they have a complete unbalanced team in some sense, because you have, I think, both Sontics, Magics, they're not very aggressive.

Jonatan: Of course, everyone can be, but in their nature, they're not.

Jonatan: And Chopper is not an aggressive player.

Jonatan: He can sometimes throw himself in there and get a frag, but he's more slow-paced, holding shift kind of dude.

Jonatan: And Shiro is not a super aggressive offer.

Jonatan: No, he's definitely not.

Jonatan: They're very in tune towards that defensive side.

Jonatan: So putting Kioski in, who's a bit more aggressive, taking those kind of impulsive decisions, and you can kind of throw him in there as an X factor.

Jonatan: I think it would suit him a lot more than actually Falcons, even though I don't think that's a bad move either.

James: No, it does.

James: It makes, by the way, if like Tessis keeps up the level he's been able to show, Kixx and obviously leading very well.

James: We've both been impressed by him.

James: And you just have Niko, Monosie and Kioski as your three.

James: This is such a deadly sick team.

James: And they announced that so quick.

James: I'm imagining because they fell out of the Major so early as well.

James: Holidays cut short.

James: You're back to practice and back to training very soon.

James: Not very soon.

James: I guess maybe in like a week and a half time, two weeks time.

James: You're ready for the upcoming events.

Jonatan: But it's going to be super exciting to see how they do this.

James: I think Falcons will accept the invite to Fissure.

James: They'll do Fissure in two years.

Jonatan: They'll probably do everything they can in the beginning.

James: Yeah.

James: I can see that.

James: Some of the next news then.

James: We'll keep it with Spirit a bit.

James: Spirit are looking to get the signature of Namiga star anchor, Ivan Zwei Goggin.

James: Sources who wish to remain anonymous tell HLTV.

James: We reached out to Namiga CEO, but they declined the comment.

James: Now, Namiga can make bank.

James: Zwei is an exciting player.

James: It's a good move.

James: I'm guessing that just means Magisk is out.

James: Oh, Magisk, sorry.

James: I'm saying the wrong name now.

James: Magisk is out?

Jonatan: Oh, it's a tough one.

Jonatan: I honestly don't know.

Jonatan: Honestly don't know.

Jonatan: Because I don't think there's been that much difference between Sontics and Magisks in the last couple of events.

Jonatan: Maybe Sontics has been a little bit better, but I don't think it's like a massive difference where it's a pure obvious choice.

James: So you think Sontics could be an option to go as well?

Jonatan: I think so, but I think it depends.

Jonatan: I mean, if you look at like, you know, the interviews and everything, Donk is praising Magisk for having the most insane name ever.

Jonatan: I don't know if that will have anything to do with it, but I'm sure Donk is kind of, to some degree, I'm not saying he's the one deciding and the change needs to happen, but I think his increase in frustrations kind of forces the hand to some degree that a change is needed before.

Jonatan: Because if you're an organization, you look at the best player probably in the world, or at least top two is starting to increasingly get frustrated with how they're performing at events.

Jonatan: Your pretty much only fear in life at that point is to lose him, for him to not resign a contract or want to leave, or is dissatisfied in some sense.

Jonatan: So even though he is not telling the organization, I need to change.

Jonatan: They're going to watch him, they're going to see the behavior and they're going to react based on that in some degree.

Jonatan: Because they want to keep him happy.

James: But as I understand it, as I understand it, it is highly making nearly all decisions along with management.

James: I don't think players in spirit have any choice.

Jonatan: No, I don't think Donk has any say in this.

Jonatan: But I still believe he influences it.

James: I've done so many interviews with Donk, right?

James: Good and bad, yes, no's and no's and more.

James: When he came off the stage for this Major, I've never seen him near close to crying.

James: So I can't tell you if he was going to cry or not.

James: But this was what I saw was actual tears forming in his eyes.

James: Whether that was from anger or frustration, I was emotionally, oh no, even Donk, man.

James: He's not supposed to have these emotions and that's how sad he was with that loss.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: So it makes sense.

James: Something has to change in it.

James: People keep saying, cut chopper.

James: I'm thinking, why would you cut chopper right now?

Jonatan: Who would you replace chopper with?

James: Well, yeah, people are like, bring Broomage.

James: I'm like, you're not replacing chopper.

James: He's been in this hally system for a long time.

James: He's finally started to win some trophies.

James: He's got great players alongside him.

James: That's the move we don't need to see happen.

James: Like calling for chopper's head is not a smart decision.

James: Not at all.

James: No.

Jonatan: I think you're right on that.

Jonatan: But yeah, I honestly couldn't say, I feel like it's maybe leaning a little bit more towards Magix getting cut, but I wouldn't say it's clear cuts.

James: The other one, we didn't have this listed here, but I want to go through with you, is the G2 stuff.

James: So Nell is the guy who reported all of this one.

James: Normally with Nell, he gets all his information about Falcons from the French people at Falcons, and that gives him like the extra insights, so he's always the first doing it, but he's pretty spot on.

James: I'll say Nell's stuff is pretty banger.

James: Now already some Piersons saw coming in, right?

James: So Hades is just on loan.

James: So Taz has gone.

James: That's already been announced.

James: By the way, that was such a...

James: I saw Taz still trying so hard at the Major every game with all the players, like trying to push for change.

James: People who want to hate on him for like not being a smarter coach or like not doing enough with the players he had.

James: This guy was working damn hard on his life, even though it was the last event and he knew he was being kicked, he was given his all.

James: And that must have been such a shit situation for a legend of Counter-Strike.

James: By the way, never disrespect Taz.

James: You can say what you want from him as a coach, but this is a legend of the game since the early, early 1.6 days.

James: Like he's been playing since the beginning.

James: He's been winning titles in every version of the game.

Jonatan: Yeah, I think, as you say, I agree.

Jonatan: I mean, it's an incredible difficult thing.

Jonatan: I've been through it sometimes myself when you're a coach.

Jonatan: You have to kind of swallow the bad within you for the moment and try to pick up the pieces and find something positive, push people, even though you look at them and it's sort of like they've given up, and you have to kind of get the last out of them because let's just, it's just one more game.

Jonatan: This might be the last of it.

Jonatan: Let's make sure we do the best until the very end and not give up early because I think it's also very tough for the players to kind of feel motivated and driven and push past the feeling that it doesn't matter what I do.

Jonatan: This lineup is dead to some degree.

Jonatan: So it's not only difficult for Taz.

Jonatan: He also has pretty rough pieces to play with when everyone knows that the lineup is dead from the very get-go of the tournament.

Jonatan: So huge respect.

James: The report we have here from now, so G2 to bench Snax, Hunter to take over IGL role, interest for ex-Kaspersky, or Kaspersky.

James: Here is my report.

James: Following the departures of Niko and Munnessy in April, G2 have been left in a tricky situation ever since in the midst of rebuilding.

James: Taz was already let go.

James: They got Sniper Sumpass and Saw as the coach.

James: According to sources, G2 has decided to continue its evolution and should hand over the IGL role to Hunter.

James: As a result, the current leader of the roster, Snax, should be removed with G2, the pole one, blah, blah, blah.

James: We know that.

James: To replace him, various are on the list, but another pole seems to be at the top of the list, X Kaspersky, 18-year-old player from Finland, has very good performances overall.

James: We need to see him there, but it says the pole isn't the only player on the list.

James: However, as there are other possibilities over the G2, nothing's been finalized yet.

James: I like Hunter going to IGL role.

James: He has turned it down.

James: He said this on a long interview we did on my personal YouTube channel.

James: Yeah, back in the, I think it was Copenhagen Major, we filmed it.

James: But he said G2 asked him multiple times to be IGL, and he said no.

James: Now he's looking to take it over.

James: Finally, if that's the case, if the reports are true, and that will give them his ability and experience.

James: He's been calling CT sides since Niko left anyway, and been much more vocal.

James: We've seen that.

James: It's a good chance for him, it's a good opportunity, but like they need to hit some results quite early on.

James: And like for me, they have a potential star players, like Malps has great potential, we know what he can do.

James: Some players when he's on form is great, but I'm still missing an X factor player.

James: And maybe this X Kapursky guy can be it.

Jonatan: Yeah, I mean, if I go back to the in-game leader part of Hunter, I think it's actually probably one of the better moves they can do.

Jonatan: Because I think in combination with Saw coming in, it's going to be, you know, a complete revamp of how they play, how they approach the game.

Jonatan: I think Saw is going to come with a lot of his own kind of influence of how the game is run.

Jonatan: So I think in that sense, comparably to having maybe Taz as the coach, it's going to be a lot easier for Hunter to kind of take that reign with having Saw as a coach from what I know of how he operates.

Jonatan: So I think it's a good move.

Jonatan: I think Hunter, first of all, he's always been super capable of being an in-game leader.

Jonatan: I think he has a lot of leadership abilities, you know, just as a person, personality-wise.

Jonatan: He's super calm.

Jonatan: He's a great guy.

Jonatan: He's someone you listen to.

Jonatan: He, yeah, I think he's just great, you know?

Jonatan: And I think this is a role that will suit him.

Jonatan: And I think that he can do a lot of good with it.

Jonatan: And especially with growing into that in-game leading role with Saw, I think it's perfect for him.

Jonatan: And then bringing in some more pyro power, like, I don't know much about ex-Kaspersky or how do you pronounce it?

James: Ex-Kaspersky?

James: I don't know how you say it.

James: It's not like that.

James: Kaspersky used to be an internet thing.

James: Used to be an internet antivirus or something.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: No one could even pronounce it like that.

Jonatan: But, yeah, I think if they find one of these players that can do it, and let's say even if this project and influence might, you know, not work out, maybe they could make magic, who knows?

Jonatan: Let's see in-game leader.

James: Not sure I'm ready for that one yet, but we'll have to see.

Jonatan: There's always a plan B in case, but I do think it will work with him as an in-game leader.

Jonatan: And I think we're going to see a lot different G2, but I'm excited for it.

Jonatan: I think it's going to be a lot better.

James: I'm just trying to get where it is.

James: Because we've got to get on the Na'Vi one as well.

Jonatan: The Na'Vi one?

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: So the rumors out there is...

Jonatan: I don't know who actually had this rumor.

Jonatan: Is this rumor on HLTV as well?

Jonatan: The JLIM?

James: There's a lot of different places to start to talk about it.

Jonatan: Or is this like some Reddit post?

James: No, it's from KRL, the French streamer.

James: I before said Lucky doesn't get too many accurate, but he had had some more that had come up recently.

James: But I'm just going to check.

James: We've got so many tabs open now.

James: So it said...

James: It was a whole Cloud 9 move, and then the Navi CEO, so the Academy team, yeah.

James: Oh, that was it, it wasn't even the Navi CEO.

James: So it's on HLTV.

James: So basically Cloud 9 CEO shuts down Navi Junior.

James: So supposedly Cloud 9, according to KRL, said in his stream that Navi Junior was going to be sold to Cloud 9.

James: But he came out, the CEO, and said, this is a false rumor, the CEO himself.

James: He said, that's not happening.

James: So cool, they're not coming back to Counter-Strike yet.

James: They're not ready for that.

James: And I also think Navi would never sell their whole junior roster.

James: They've been building this stuff for ages and they got a lot of good players that keep coming up from it.

James: But Casely, like everyone keeps talking about, the Kosovo player, right?

James: But then also KRL did say about Navi players.

James: And he said, Navi considering benching IM and JL, Macazi is a possible option.

James: I'll just say this, from what I know, and this is not from inside Navi, because I like these players, I'm friends with these players.

James: I wasn't going to touch on any roster moves with them.

James: It's a horrible thing that they all need to go through, right?

James: That's what Blade is going to look at.

James: Alexi himself said in the interview, he doesn't even know if he's safe when we did the exit one.

James: So I asked him, would you like to stay?

James: And he was like, yeah, he wants to stay.

James: I don't think you're getting rid of Alexi.

James: Blade would not get rid of Alexi when they've been working well together all this time and look at the success they have.

James: Bit is safe, no matter if he has bad performance.

James: I think Bit would have to, I don't know, he'd have to purposely throw games before he gets kicked.

James: Like, it's not happening.

James: He is the standout player for the team.

Jonatan: Even when he hasn't been strong as much.

Jonatan: Yes.

Jonatan: So, how would you say, okay, you might not know this, but I'll ask you anyway.

Jonatan: So would you say that Bit is the type of player that would need like a good environment when he plays to play good?

Jonatan: Or would you say it doesn't really affect him that much?

James: I don't think it affects him because he spent his beginning part of his main career on full Navi and like, it must have been horrible for him, bro.

James: Like, he survived main Navi, the breakup of main Navi into rebuilding Navi into an English speaking team and changing language.

James: So I think for him, it's about just playing the game.

James: I just feel like from what we've heard from all the players, yeah, and what we've seen on the screens is that the current Navi doesn't have that same enjoyment playing anymore.

James: And something has to change now to almost humble them.

James: And we've spoke about this, right, about them getting humbled with all these losses to find their way again.

James: But it seems like they're not on the same page anymore.

Jonatan: But okay, but just to back up back a little bit as well.

Jonatan: So it's way easier.

Jonatan: It doesn't matter how toxic an environment is.

Jonatan: If all the superstar players that you watched when you were younger were playing in that team, you can accept that.

James: Okay.

Jonatan: But when new players come in and you get the same environment, you will not accept it because you are now the star of that old team and new players are coming in.

Jonatan: You will have a completely different kind of foundation of how you want things to be.

James: He's used to the Blast system.

James: So he knows that they, like for me, how many times I've said about Na'Vi is when they're following the system and the individuals are all sticking to the plan.

James: It works when someone deviates or makes a mistake or a misstep, then the system falls.

James: It may be very easy to read Blade and read the calls and read the system, but it's still about dealing with the system.

James: And how many times does Blade say in interviews, okay, we stopped following the system at this point.

James: We got ahead of ourselves.

James: We didn't do this, you know?

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: It's hard without us knowing exactly every detail of the system.

James: Like Apex says, nothing changed in Na'Vi since he faced them nearly a year ago to where he played them today.

James: They might think they've changed some things, but he still understands what he's supposed to do and what he needs to do.

James: But he says it's very hard to play against.

Jonatan: Sometimes that can happen in teams.

Jonatan: I'm not going to say who or what, but I've had players where for over four or five months, they still didn't know the Insta smokes for Mirage window.

James: Yeah, that's not acceptable.

Jonatan: And it's just like, you always have to go back and waste time to kind of fix that, fix that, fix that, fix that.

Jonatan: And that can kind of make your progress much slower if you're constantly fixing problems that you thought are solved.

Jonatan: And I think that Navi is kind of in that spiral where like, okay, but we haven't even made the system work yet.

Jonatan: You're still fucking up on this, this, this, this.

Jonatan: And then you're so focused on this that you're not doing the next steps, right?

Jonatan: So that's probably what kind of, you know, bad circle or what do you call it?

Jonatan: It was a death spiral, but a bad spiral.

Jonatan: They're in this bad spiral essentially, of consistently fixing small things and gaps in the system, and they can't really move the system upwards.

James: And also, they're not getting the same individual output from the players they had, right?

James: Like, we've seen it on cameras, they're not enjoying the way they were playing with each other as much anymore.

James: There's more of this disconnect, and that's why probably why the CT side is struggling more, you know?

James: We need to play for each other a bit more.

James: But like KRL said that it's considering benching IAM and JL, yeah?

James: I...

Jonatan: You see JL's tweet, by the way?

James: I don't know what he tweeted.

Jonatan: I think he tweeted himself in a face jersey.

James: He loves to troll, and he knows how to get interactions.

James: By the way, whenever he's done being a player, yeah?

James: This guy is going to fucking farm stream content, everything else.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: But you see, he posted...

Jonatan: Did you see the tweet 18 hours ago?

James: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James: Even the face jersey, like that.

James: Nice edit.

James: No sponsors on there, so he doesn't get in trouble with Na'Vi, but a good edit.

James: Very smart.

James: But I'll say this, right?

James: Ima is not the one that I've heard behind the scenes as a name that could be being replaced.

James: I don't know.

James: There could be maybe a jail change.

James: He might even want that himself.

James: But I know for a fact that, like, the one they were looking at is one.

Jonatan: But who would they?

Jonatan: OK, let's say it is.

James: Remember, they can still bring Simple back.

James: They can still bring Simple back.

Jonatan: They could, yeah.

James: There is still no one can buy Simple right now.

James: If FaZe wanted to, I'm not sure how much that would be, but it's going to be very expensive.

James: Wonderful for me is the one who is most like the most likely change.

James: But remember, they can only change two players to keep this VRS points they have.

James: Now, this is like wonderful goes.

James: Let's just say that first one.

James: Then you need to find the second player in there.

James: It's not going to be bit.

James: I hadn't heard of him or her, so could it be Alexey in jail?

James: By the way, I have not heard anything of anyone say it's jail or Alexey, but it's more likely the jail could be because you bring that Mikazikid in.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: I mean, it's going to be interesting.

Jonatan: Obviously, I do think Na'Vi needs two changes.

Jonatan: I don't know.

Jonatan: Most of it isn't even because of how they play.

Jonatan: I just feel like they're just...

James: They need some new energy, man.

James: They need some new energy.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: They look deflated and they have been for the entire year, essentially.

James: And we're still at the very beginning of all this, by the way.

James: We are still all in the beginning of this.

James: I'm just laughing.

James: My dog is just on camera.

Jonatan: Dog time.

Jonatan: This is the dog segment part of the podcast.

James: Oh, Snowy.

Jonatan: She had a whole month.

Jonatan: We should do this like with the two bowls.

Jonatan: Who is leaving?

Jonatan: JL or Alexi?

James: He's in my face now.

James: Hello.

James: Hello.

James: Daddy's doing podcast.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Look.

James: Podcast.

Jonatan: Everyone's going to love this segment.

Jonatan: This is going to be everyone's favorite part of the whole podcast.

James: She's just been sleeping up here.

James: She's waiting for mommy to come home.

James: But she's missed us for a month.

James: Do you want to do a bowl segment?

James: So now we put two treats in the bowl and you have to choose one.

James: Unless the players get it.

James: That would be fun.

James: We'd like.

Jonatan: Honestly, next major, let's do a bowl segment pick-ems.

James: Oh, bro.

James: That could be diamond coin insta.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: Because obviously we don't have the sauce, man.

Jonatan: We don't have it in us.

James: It didn't work anymore, man.

James: Is there any other roster?

James: Oh yeah.

James: Just to finalize on the Na'Vi thing.

James: Yes, Na'Vi need changes.

James: I'm 100% sure they are making changes from the information I've heard behind the scenes.

James: It's wonderful.

James: And then maybe someone else.

James: Do you think they need two changes or would you just do one?

Jonatan: 100% to I think it's very hard to change the mood of entire team.

Jonatan: We're making one change.

Jonatan: I think that's just like putting blame.

Jonatan: Every blame on one player and that never works because you're all part of it.

Jonatan: But changing to it's you're going to change a lot.

Jonatan: Like it's 40% of your team.

Jonatan: A lot of different dynamics going to come in.

Jonatan: I think a lot of people are going to show their best when two new players come in comparably to one where kind of just settles into the new team and how it was.

Jonatan: So I'd say they definitely need two changes if they want to progress, I guess.

James: And MacCazzie would fit role for role right with Jail?

Jonatan: I haven't actually watched that much.

Jonatan: Navi Jr.

Jonatan: I have to admit.

Jonatan: But he seems to be a full on entry fragger.

Jonatan: So I guess so.

James: Yeah, that could be.

James: And then like, because I don't, why do people think him is a bad player?

James: Why did he, I want to know why his name came up, like he's going to be the one that's going to be kicked.

James: Let's look at stats from the major.

Jonatan: I mean, I think in like very systematic ways of playing with structure, the ones that's going to make the most mistakes and deviate from the structure is probably going to be an entry fragger who plays a lot on the gut feeling and doing it at the wrong time and getting a bad flow of it.

Jonatan: It makes sense that it could be JL, but at the same time, this is impossible to know if you don't talk to people inside.

James: All right, so we just got done filming episode 18.

James: We clicked end episode.

James: I think it's great.

James: That was fun.

James: Then you go and look at HLTV and you see Twitter as well, and you see Flammus has been removed from Virtus.Pro.

James: Then we then take a bit more time, and all of a sudden, Perfecto joins.

James: Now this changes a lot of things.

James: People have realized, just to understand the mathematics of this all, we're now putting this part of the episode in backwards of another part of an episode, and then at some point when we finish this conversation about Virtus.Pro, Flammus and Perfecto, it'll go to Dupree, and it might seem like a weird segue, because we are just filming this at another time to make sure we covered it.

James: If any more announcements come after this, it doesn't matter.

James: Right now, it is the 26th of June 2025, and it is 20 minutes past midnight for me in Ukraine, which means it's 11.19 for you, Mr.

James: Devilwalk, and you're actually still in the 25th, so we're back on different days now.

Jonatan: Yeah, and I'm in a face-it game, probably gonna get kicked soon, but we have to do what we have to do, right?

James: Exactly, we can't miss this.

James: So let's talk about this first of all.

James: Flamus certainly wasn't a bad player for his team.

James: Yeah, no one's blaming him for not being good or something like that.

James: I've said this on this podcast many times.

James: He was used really well to his style in Game of Legion.

James: On VP, it didn't seem like he was getting used that way.

James: This is a shock move for me because he's a young player with talent, and I feel like he was set up to fail and he didn't think he possibly could.

James: I don't agree with this move.

James: Then the other thing we have to add is before we get to the perfecto conversation, Overdrive did also tweet just a few hours ago, or sorry, 17 hours ago.

James: Flit and Fame can move to ParaVision.

James: Can, that's not anything that's just a rumor.

James: Organizations are in talks.

James: Flit doesn't want to play for VP.

James: Now, they can remove Flammas and Flit and keep their three for the VRS points, but they can't remove Fame, Electron, and Grisey that way.

James: This is kind of crazy, but do you now change your viewpoint on this Flammas move, the fact that they get perfecto and he goes for free?

James: They didn't have to pay anything for him.

James: He was a free agent.

Jonatan: Yeah, I mean, I don't know exactly what shape perfecto actually is in.

Jonatan: Last time I saw him, he didn't look like his old self, so to speak.

Jonatan: So I don't know if it's really an upgrade.

Jonatan: I'm sure it's an upgrade in terms of experience, knowing how electronic calls, they have a better understanding with each other.

Jonatan: But in terms of firepower and potential, I don't really know at what level perfecto is.

Jonatan: Obviously, he has a great experience or a great, you know, career in Navi and everything behind him.

Jonatan: So I'm sure he'll be able to get up there.

Jonatan: But how fast is that going to be?

Jonatan: I can't tell.

Jonatan: But this feels like more of a move that, you know, tried to make electronic happy, tried to have a little bit of more of a wingman with him to make sure that, you know, people follow the calls, that, you know, the structure works around him.

Jonatan: And he has another person that understands his vision of the game.

James: Well, and this is it, right?

James: There's all good having this relationship.

James: Even on Cloud 9, there were still moments where I looked at Perfecto and said, yeah, he's still got it.

James: But now, if I look at his last event, he was on Cloud 9, Zee Sports World Cup Closed Qualifier 2024.

James: So he's had over a year off from like actual good competition.

Jonatan: Yep.

James: That's a bit of a problem.

James: I am changing for the last real event he was at, and that took place in April, 2024.

James: So it's over a year of not playing on a pro team, not playing at a high level.

James: I'm sure he's still active.

James: He's obviously still smart.

James: He's still playing, but he's not playing on this level of competition.

James: It's a bit of a risk.

Jonatan: It is a risk.

Jonatan: And also like he's probably going to have to grind a lot during the summer break.

Jonatan: And I'm sure he is.

Jonatan: But how positive that actually is, I don't know, considering, you know, I've seen players do this before where they just grind through an entire break time.

Jonatan: They're just coming back.

Jonatan: They think they're going to smash everyone because they've kind of preemptively grinded.

Jonatan: And they kind of lose their mental in some sense, because some players are not going to be grinding as much as him.

Jonatan: And he's going to be on a level or more prepared early on and have higher expectations than other people.

Jonatan: So we'll see how that goes if it becomes this thing where, you know, he rages a lot more because of that, or isn't as well rested as the other guys has to go into the season.

Jonatan: I don't know.

Jonatan: But that's just me, like, kind of spiraling away in my thoughts of how things could end up being.

James: It's not like I think he's old because 25 is not old.

James: And it's not like I think he's a bad player.

James: But I feel like, yeah, you get Perfecto for free.

James: Great.

James: But Flamers is a player you'd want to mold more or play with more for the future of the skills you've got, the mechanics you've seen him have.

James: And that's my issue with this is like you, I'm not sure if he's the right player you want to drop.

James: Flit and Fame, okay, they want a Major VP, they're long life VP players.

James: But if Flit really wants to go, then, yeah, imagine if Flit goes and they just, what, they bring Flamers back from the bench?

James: Or maybe they made this move to make people happy and then we'll say like, yeah, this is the team we want to stay with.

James: This is kind of crazy.

Jonatan: I don't know.

Jonatan: Maybe it's just like, let's see how it is.

Jonatan: We still have Flamers.

Jonatan: Maybe they don't have an intention of selling him.

Jonatan: Maybe he gets to work a little bit on his mental because he's clearly affected by his five months in VP and performance-wise.

Jonatan: So maybe he needs a break from it as well.

Jonatan: Who knows?

Jonatan: So it could be a thing where it works out in both ends.

Jonatan: And maybe they also, in case something happens, they can still put Flamers in and keep the VRS points.

Jonatan: You know, in years of flit and fame.

James: You don't have to start questioning things on poor Flamers, how he'd feel, but obviously we don't know what's going to happen.

James: Maybe nothing bad will happen for the rest of the team.

James: I want to also say on Perfecto, he just had a kid, his first kid, I believe.

James: So he's probably extra mega motivated.

James: You know, that could be a positive thing.

James: There are some positives, but it really relies on what active version Perfecto we get.

James: Is he going to come back and be beast mode?

James: Is he going to come back in better shape than we saw him in Cloud 9 times?

James: Can he quickly level up?

James: Because they will still have invites because they're placing as a team.

James: It's a big event.

James: So he'll need to shine very early on.

James: And the only positive factor I can see straight off the bat is just the fact that he and Perfecto play together.

James: The rest is still got to wait.

Jonatan: It's a bit different.

Jonatan: I don't know if it's a positive or a negative yet.

Jonatan: We'll see how it is.

Jonatan: But yeah, he's like electronic Perfecto.

James: They go hand in hand.

James: Yeah, they're coming together hand in hand.

James: Electronics hand on the Perfecto drill, because Perfecto's name is to do some drill, some shit that he decided with all that.

James: Either way, we came back just to film this special part.

James: Devil can go back to Faceit, and you guys can enjoy us talking about Dupreeh.

James: So one more thing on roster moves we'll get to before we talk about some tournament stuff is Dupreeh announced his retirement from competition during the major.

James: And like Dupreeh is a full legend.

James: It's great to have him on the desk, by the way, he's been doing fantastic work there.

James: He's obviously had two kids now as well.

James: He'll end with his last team being the little Falcon Stint he had, obviously at the moment on pre-Z before that as well.

James: His Falcon Stint was only a year or just over a year, should I say.

James: It was less than a year actually in terms of actually playing.

James: He was on the bench for quite a long time.

James: But this is a guy who won the most majors of all time, five majors.

James: Never MVP, but a consistently good player, great role player.

James: It's a huge loss to the community.

James: There's so many players that want to chase what he's doing.

James: Only Apex has got more notable trophies than him now with this major win.

Jonatan: Yeah, I think he's an absolute legend.

Jonatan: I think he's been such a good player for such a long time.

Jonatan: I even remember competing against him myself.

Jonatan: Always been that aggressive player willing to go first, but having, you know, all kinds of things.

Jonatan: Always a nice guy, super pleasant guy to be around.

James: Even awped at one point.

Jonatan: Even awped at one point.

Jonatan: I'm not sure that is what he will be remembered for.

James: Bro, look at the consistency as well in the top 20.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: 18th, 2013, 16th, 2014, 12th, 2015, 10th, 2017, 5th, 2018, 16th, 2019, 9th, 2020.

Jonatan: I remember when he was dubbed, you know, with Devise, the Double Ds.

James: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: There was a super strong duo, the Double Ds.

James: Oh, yeah.

James: So he never had a major MVP, but he's still got ESL Pro League Season 7 finals MVP and a Blast Pro Series Global Final MVP.

James: That's solid.

Jonatan: He did have a Devise in his team.

James: Yeah.

James: It's kind of hard at that point, right?

Jonatan: It's like saying, you know, Messi never had a major MVP.

James: Hey, don't say it.

James: It could happen.

Jonatan: I'm not saying it won't happen.

Jonatan: I'm just saying, Zywul and Robsler are there.

James: Yeah, yeah, that's true.

James: Robsler's gunning for MVP.

James: He's just sat behind Zywul saying, come on, have a bad tournament.

James: Drop this one for us, please.

James: But obviously, the fact he won a CS, he won the last CSGO major, I think is very beautiful in that sense, you know.

James: Yeah, five majors all in CSGO.

James: Four of Astralis, one with Vitality, all with Zonic.

James: It's crazy.

James: What a career.

James: And bro, when he was on stage and he was crying, I wish Freya hugged him.

James: I wanted to hug him.

James: I was watching that and I'm thinking, oh no, like he's getting me, he was getting me emotional, man.

Jonatan: Yeah, I saw the clip.

James: It was hard for him.

James: Yeah, it was so hard.

James: And also you're doing it in front of all them people.

James: He was getting lovely cheers from the crowd and support as well.

Jonatan: Oh, beautiful moment.

Jonatan: Absolute legend of the game.

James: And he'll be able to spend some more time on the desk now, which is good.

Jonatan: I remember, actually, I met him.

Jonatan: I can't remember which ESL Pro League.

Jonatan: It was EMS, I think.

Jonatan: One of them.

Jonatan: And we started talking to each other.

Jonatan: And he just spoke Danish and I spoke Swedish.

Jonatan: We're talking to each other for like, let's say, four minutes together.

Jonatan: And every time one of us would say a sentence, someone said like, what?

Jonatan: What did you say?

Jonatan: Like, repeat it?

Jonatan: Because we couldn't quite understand each other.

Jonatan: And then he just said, fuck it, why are we doing this to ourselves?

Jonatan: Let's just speak English.

James: Yeah, that makes more sense.

James: Definitely for you guys.

James: Oh, man.

Jonatan: Lovely memory of the pre.

James: But I wish him the best of luck going forward and in the future.

James: The next thing to look at, which is away from roster news now, we're going into a bit of tournament news.

James: The first part of Blast Open Tournaments are now moved to online.

James: This has some implications, and I'm still not sure how we got here or why we got here.

James: Blast Bounty already last year, which was awesome, right?

James: We enjoyed the format.

James: We like what we saw there.

James: But that was already online, and then the eight teams who make it in this crazy single elimination, best of threes, go to the finals.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Then that's in the studio.

James: That studio now is Malta.

James: They got a new deal with gaming Malta.

James: We already left Malta with ESL, and now we've come back with Blast in a different way.

James: But the thing that's crazy is last time Open Lisbon was in the studio in Denmark, and then we all went including the players on flights from Denmark to Portugal.

James: This one would be from Denmark to London.

James: They've changed Open and the tournaments will be held online.

James: Now, this has massive VRS implications because these are not LAN matches.

James: That makes it more of a risk.

James: Now, there are obviously deals where teams have said we will go to your events and you get...

James: What is it?

James: I'm just going to make sure I read it correctly.

James: The Blast are frequent flyer program.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: But this isn't positive for teams who might say...

Jonatan: They have to grind in online events.

James: Yeah.

James: Online Open is wild.

James: I'm wondering if there's a possibility they can change it, but that's not a good sign.

James: Because do you want to risk it going to this Blast Open online, which is still going to be tough?

James: Let me see.

James: How many teams are there for the online?

Jonatan: I wonder if the tournament...

Jonatan: Is it phrased the way...

Jonatan: Because an online cup, to me, is different compared to an event.

Jonatan: Does that make sense?

James: Yeah, so this would be, right?

James: Online, looking at it, there is 16 teams and eight...

James: No, six go to the LAN finals, not eight.

Jonatan: I hate that.

James: So only six teams go to London.

James: So ten teams wouldn't make it there.

Jonatan: I don't like there's two semi-finalists and two quarterfinals set up.

Jonatan: I think it's so bad.

Jonatan: I don't like that at all.

James: Is Lisbon the same?

Jonatan: I think all Blast.

James: Yeah, Lisbon was the same.

James: And then, by the way, this would mean that if there are not these other contracts behind, you know, where teams are signing up to go to Blast, go to ESL events, it's good for a team, in some cases, to go to the Fisher LAN for 1.5 million prize pool.

James: The PGL LAN for 1.25 million prize pool, because it's all on LAN.

James: But I'm sorry, Fisher is only 1 million, I told 1.5 million next year.

Jonatan: And the online cap doesn't even matter if you do well in it, because it doesn't have any prize money, right?

James: Yeah, well, there's some prize money.

Jonatan: Even on the online stuff?

James: Yeah, because the teams that don't make it would get prize money.

James: Okay, so the online open part would be after LAN finals, 7 to 8 get 10,000, 9 to 12 get 7,500, 13 to 16 get 5,000.

James: So the money will help with that, but it's not solving the problem.

James: So that is a bit of a risk, because you've opened up like this Fisher and the other PGL events.

James: People will be more interested in attending.

James: Oh, well, kind of crazy.

James: So Messioso said, teams knew for a while now, but Blast hit it in the barely.

James: Blast Open Tournament now is group stage online.

James: This means Blast has removed 24 LAN matches from the Canada, leaving only five playoff matches.

James: This likely destroys the VRS value of the tournament, as HLTV should now make the groups essentially an online closed qualifier, meaning it loses the prize money modifier from the group matches alongside the LAN value.

Jonatan: Oh, yeah, that's bad.

James: And then this other guy, just his game's Jesper Larsson says, Yeah, the frequent fire program better be very lucrative, and events VRS impact is a direct function of a number of LAN matches offered much more so than the prize pool, which is the way also worse in Blast events.

James: This change only devalues their own VRS relevance and increases the value of events.

James: Blast events are now close to irrelevant for VRS gain and should be on top of the list of tournaments to skip for top teams if the strategic decision is to secure a Blast stage 3 qualifier for the Major.

Jonatan: That's actually insane.

James: And then Messios said, please delete this, I don't need other teams knowing this.

James: Oh my lord.

James: Summer Blast must be making this a change now.

James: They must like, there's got to be, I'm confused.

James: I'm hella confused.

Jonatan: They probably don't even know how much this actually impacted their VRS.

James: Surely they do.

James: Messios said they've spoken to teams like, so they must, these guys must be talking or am I giving them too much credit?

Jonatan: But then what, it doesn't really make sense.

Jonatan: Because, oh man, I think it's just, I mean, to some degree, I mean, I kind of want PGL to feel more important for all teams and all, like, in some sense, just because they're new in the space.

Jonatan: I've always liked them.

Jonatan: They always treated me well.

Jonatan: And all the teams that attended PGL events, worked with PGL at some events.

Jonatan: They've always been really, really good to work with, super chill guys.

Jonatan: So in that sense, for some kind of weird friendship vibe I have with them, I would love for them to have a little bit more of the community.

James: This is crazy because ESL Pro League, remember, the first stage is online.

James: Yeah.

James: So that's gone to online.

James: And then is it stage two?

James: I think it might be, is it just playoffs that are offline now?

James: Might be just playoffs.

Jonatan: Might be, yeah.

Jonatan: Because they're not in Malta anymore.

Jonatan: Or is it completely online?

James: It's not completely online.

Jonatan: Which season are we on?

James: This will be season 22.

Jonatan: 22.

Jonatan: Because they're doing it in stage one?

James: Stockholm.

James: Stage one is online, right?

Jonatan: CES Location, sweet.

James: Is there bringing back a LAN final?

James: Yeah.

James: I think they're bringing back a LAN final, and then it's online for the rest of it.

James: I saw that.

Jonatan: Seems to be group Swiss and Playoff.

Jonatan: I have to check this up.

Jonatan: I don't actually know.

Jonatan: But it says here, if I look at the HLTV page for ESL Pro League Season 22, October 3rd to October 12th, 2025, they're kind of copying the major system.

Jonatan: They have a group Swiss and then the Playoff with quarterfinals, semi-finals and grandfinals.

Jonatan: And it seems to be a 16-team event with eight teams invited through the VRS Global.

Jonatan: And right now, invited are Vitality, Mousespirit, Mongols, Falcons, Aurora, FaZe and Na'Vi.

Jonatan: And then there's eight spots that comes from Stage 1.

Jonatan: And Stage 1 right now has LinVision, Bait, NRG, Fluxo and Rooster.

Jonatan: So this can't even be online.

James: It might be the next season then.

James: It might be the season after that.

Jonatan: Okay, yeah.

James: Because I saw something about it.

James: So if we go to Stage 1.

James: Yeah, look, Stage.

James: Okay, so I'm wrong.

James: You're correct.

James: ESL Pro League Season 22, Stockholm, Sweden.

James: Season 23, first stage online.

James: It says it here on HRTV.

Jonatan: Okay.

James: Second stage online.

James: And then LAN Finals for eight teams.

Jonatan: All right, all right.

James: Starting in quarters.

James: And then even having a third place decider.

James: So that brings a lot of value.

James: It's in the top eight.

James: All on LAN, third place decider.

James: That's a great format.

Jonatan: So actually having third place deciders instead of like show matches or something, it's actually valuable for the weight of the tournament.

James: And VRS.

Jonatan: Yeah, for the VRS, right.

James: But this is crazy, right?

James: So that's more tournaments are going to these online parts.

James: So next year even more online.

James: It's great that ESL Pro League still has qualifiers, but this decision from Blast is like, I don't understand it fully.

James: Especially if this is so, like everyone's clear that this is not a good option.

James: We'll have to wait and see how it goes.

Jonatan: Yeah, it's an interesting one.

Jonatan: But yeah, I hope this is just a, let's say, trend that is short-lived, that more and more is moved to online.

Jonatan: And yeah, I don't want everything to be online.

Jonatan: We're losing the RMRs, we're losing group stage, we're losing so much emotions and feelings.

Jonatan: And, you know, big moments for smaller teams.

Jonatan: I see the doggy in the background walking around.

James: I got more notes on this as well.

James: So that same Jesper guy said, about what you wrote, I can see that Bounty Online is already its own event on HTV and landspots as prize pool.

James: That means it will have minimum event weight of 0.143, which is calculated on Valve's GitHub, as if prize pool is zero dollars.

James: An absolute nightmare risk versus reward wise for higher ranked teams.

James: There is close to no VRS points to gain unless you hit the semis as a top team.

James: It's all risk and almost no reward.

James: Lower ranked teams don't risk much participating, but also have very little reward.

James: If you even upset a big team in the online stage, it will be very low value win in terms of the start ranking gained.

James: You will basically only get the head to head adjustment.

James: And then Graham from Complexity says, yes, that is why I said the open should also move to being split into the same zero dollar close qualifier plus LAN event with full prize.

James: Makes it very interesting event to participate in from a lot of angles.

James: No travel potentially, so less challenging on schedule, risk versus reward, et cetera.

James: Dude, it's so much in there.

Jonatan: So much.

Jonatan: Yeah, there is, we'll see how that goes, but it then looks like PGL might be the most lucrative tournament to actually attempt to get VRS stuff.

James: Other than, obviously, like your clones, your Katowice Majors itself, right?

James: Rivals will still be good, though.

James: Blast Rivals, which goes to Hong Kong.

James: Yeah, which is a cool location.

James: So Blast Rivals would still be.

James: Where's Blast Rivals?

James: So Hong Kong would be eight teams all at LAN.

Jonatan: Okay.

James: Yeah, all at LAN, $350,000 prize money.

James: Doesn't say exactly how the prize money split yet, but they also have so this is crazy.

James: Their one's slightly different.

James: They same as what they did with the previous Rivals, four invited from VRS and then four wild card invites.

James: One EU, one NA, one SA, one Asia.

Jonatan: Is that like, you know how this like locked region stuff has affected some teams?

James: Like, oh yeah.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: So this, this is included with that, right?

Jonatan: They can't just get wild card invites.

James: Yeah.

James: No, the wild card invite would have to be European team.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Then an NA team, then a South American team.

James: And obviously, depending on the team it picks, that could be really beneficial for a team's VRS points going up against these guys if they can get a win on LAN.

Jonatan: So wild card can't get that invite, right?

James: Wild card can't get NA right now, no.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Complexity could.

James: Team Liquid can't.

James: Team Liquid could only get a European one.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: Yeah.

James: All right.

James: From there, that's everything.

James: Just our Q&A.

Jonatan: Just our Q&A.

James: And it's just for us.

Jonatan: It's just for us.

James: All right.

James: Skorga, as always.

James: MVP of questions.

James: He never misses.

James: He says, which team or teams that weren't at the Austin Major do you believe will qualify for the Budapest Major?

James: Fnatic might have a chance.

Jonatan: NiP might have a chance as well.

Jonatan: Should we?

Jonatan: It'll take Fnatic.

Jonatan: I'll say NiP.

Jonatan: I think NiP are in a position where they can finally start grinding some VRS points.

Jonatan: They didn't look bad when we saw them play on LAN.

Jonatan: They looked competitive against some teams.

Jonatan: So I think a little bit more time.

Jonatan: I'm not saying they will be like competing for the title, but I think that if we could get like some of the teams that qualify for this major, I see NiP even right now being stronger than some of the teams that are qualified.

James: Yeah, definitely.

James: Who else is outside of like top 32 that might be interesting?

Jonatan: Okay, which guest?

James: Passion UA could also be an option.

Jonatan: Okay.

James: They could do well.

Jonatan: Yeah.

James: You want to go next question?

James: Next question?

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: Oh, well, Passion UA, 100%.

Jonatan: They won the glitched event as well.

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: So that's a good shout.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: I met TC there for a quick hi.

James: Did you ask him anything?

Jonatan: Honestly, it was such a quick one.

Jonatan: We were talking Swedish and I just saw him and I was like, what the fuck?

Jonatan: Hey, man.

James: Oh, you need to get some insight, man.

James: You don't have your podcast brain on.

Jonatan: Well, I mostly asked him about, because there was these massive delays at the event, like how it affected him and he thought that Fnatic would win if I don't remember because they didn't have to wait so long for the least affected by the delays at least.

Jonatan: Something along those lines, but they won anyways.

Jonatan: Passions, so.

James: All right, next question.

James: Read it out.

Jonatan: OK, which guest was the most interesting, fun or memorable to interview on a podcast?

Jonatan: This is from ShadowhontaDog.

Jonatan: I think it's this is a really tough one, honestly.

Jonatan: I think there's so many.

Jonatan: I mean, how do you even how do you even categorize this?

Jonatan: I mean, I think the biggest or memorable for me was probably like the monocy one.

Jonatan: It was the first one.

Jonatan: I was honestly a little bit starstruck and nervous going into that.

James: I remember you saying that.

Jonatan: Yeah.

Jonatan: So I think that one and also like it was huge for obviously the podcast because we've been grinding a couple of episodes and kind of having that huge hit with a lot of people having the rise on it, listening to it, quoting us and kind of spreading the podcast throughout was super important.

Jonatan: But I'll also say that NQC one was really interesting for me because out of all guests, I already knew some things about them.

Jonatan: NQC for me was very unknown and I got to kind of get to know someone in a new light that I hadn't before.

Jonatan: So I'll probably say those two.

James: For me, I'll just try and give one.

James: Probably Hooksy because I knew most of the Munnessy stuff where I had that close relationship with him anyway.

James: So it was great to do.

James: I love speaking to Munnessy all the time, but it wasn't like new information for me.

James: Only some of it.

James: But Hooksy was eye opening.

James: He was yapping so much.

James: It was just enjoyable to film.

James: I kept being surprised at what he was saying and his thoughts.

James: He's very honest and open.

James: Hooksy, Giga Chad wins massively on that.

James: Zapple then says, what was your favorite episode to record?

James: It's a slightly different question.

James: My favorite episode to record was the very first one, because we didn't have a fucking clue what we were doing.

James: We were just trying.

Jonatan: We just came together.

Jonatan: I remember being so stale.

Jonatan: I don't think I showed that much personality in the first one.

James: It was not the same as you are now.

Jonatan: No, no, no, no.

Jonatan: I think I tried to be a little bit too, like, broadcasty, trying to be like, okay, we have a 20-second segment right now.

Jonatan: You can only, you know, get your point across.

Jonatan: And then it was total silence.

Jonatan: So I think we didn't really get in line the first episode, even though it was very fun.

James: Yeah, it was a lot of learning.

James: It was chaotic.

James: It was new for both of us.

James: It was a bit stressful as well, but it made it the favorite.

James: Oh, next one from Yosh says, what made Devilwalk decide to coach BNE?

Jonatan: So for me, well, Banks raised the question, posed the idea to me.

Jonatan: And I think there was a lot of interesting bits.

Jonatan: I think, especially if we look back in CSGO, they were super aggressive.

Jonatan: I liked playing like spread out aggressive Counter-Strike.

Jonatan: That's what I've been brought up in the in the Fnatic days of old.

Jonatan: So also that in combination with I like the guys, I liked watching them play.

Jonatan: I felt like it was a fun thing for me to do something new, something that would give me a fresh perspective, working with people who speak a different language.

Jonatan: And I still to this day, I think it was amazing to be part of that team.

Jonatan: I love the guys.

Jonatan: I think they are all amazing in their different ways.

Jonatan: And I wish them all the absolute best.

Jonatan: Even though they were a pain in the ass to work with sometimes, I love them.

Jonatan: And I think that they all have the potential to get back there.

Jonatan: They just need to get back on that grindset and do what they did in CSGO.

Jonatan: And kind of lower their expectations of where they are right now.

Jonatan: And they'll be back for sure.

Jonatan: I know.

James: Next question.

James: We're going to say this one for you again.

James: It says, what do you consider your proudest moment and biggest regret from your time as a coach?

James: Oh, that's hard.

Jonatan: Okay.

Jonatan: Biggest regret as a coach.

Jonatan: This is just with a mixed team.

Jonatan: Oh, I remember we were playing in Chaos.

Jonatan: I was coaching.

Jonatan: It was like Plessen, Freddy Frog, Relaxa, and two other guys.

Jonatan: And I remember being one minute too late to checking in to the major qualifier.

James: No!

James: No!

James: Devilwalk!

Jonatan: Yeah, that's my biggest regret.

Jonatan: I even like...

Jonatan: I was on the page, had everything ready, and I missed it by one minute.

Jonatan: On my clock, it was at...

Jonatan: Because you have to check in 30 minutes before.

Jonatan: So, I think it was like 1830 or something.

Jonatan: And we were doing a scrim before, whilst, just to like, when the actual tournament starts, we just jumped into a game.

Jonatan: And at 2030, I go out, I press check in, and it's, I think I was 25 seconds too late to press the button or something like that.

Jonatan: But why did you not check in earlier?

Jonatan: Well, it was only open.

Jonatan: It was only open for a short amount of time.

Jonatan: I can't remember if it was 15 minutes or 30 minutes that you could check in.

Jonatan: Something along those lines.

Jonatan: And I remember messaging, you know, ESEA admin literally a minute after saying like, please, can you guys help me?

Jonatan: I messed up all about it.

Jonatan: Unfortunately, it didn't help me out.

James: Wow.

James: You already want to major as a coach by this point as well, right?

James: Yeah.

Jonatan: It was, oh, I still to this day feel so bad.

James: Dude, I feel bad.

James: I've never heard this story before.

James: I feel bad.

James: This is awful.

Jonatan: Terrible.

James: Oh, I bet you never made that mistake again.

James: Jesus.

James: Let's go.

James: Let's flip that because we got into sadness.

James: What's the proudest one?

Jonatan: I think proudest moment is 100% the first major.

James: You were a player then?

James: You were not a coach then?

James: I was a coach.

James: I got you.

James: I got you.

Jonatan: Well, honestly, my proudest moment is making the changes to, at that time, make Fnatic the best team in the world.

Jonatan: Having the balls to kick myself, putting Krimz and Olof in my spot.

Jonatan: Along with, you know, Schneider leaving.

Jonatan: I thought it was an incredibly tough decision to make.

Jonatan: And I knew that it would gain a result.

Jonatan: And it was at the time where JW wanted to leave for NiP.

Jonatan: Back in those days, I convinced him to stay.

James: You said, I'll bench myself.

James: Just please.

Jonatan: No, I said, I will...

Jonatan: I said, essentially, that in three months, I'll fix you the best team in the world.

James: Well, you did it.

James: Yeah.

James: Well done.

James: Genius moves.

James: By the way, look, you had these great questions.

James: Guess what question I'll get next?

James: From Rico V.

Jonatan: Smash or pass?

James: Smash or pass?

James: Hooksy.

James: Well, Hooksy back in G2 days, pass.

James: Hooksy right now, he's looking good.

James: It's been Jim.

James: Definitely smash.

Jonatan: That's a great question.

James: Don't encourage these people.

James: That's a great question.

James: That's not what we need.

Jonatan: That's a great question.

James: I still answered it, but Jesus.

James: Oh, man.

James: With that, episode 18 is done.

James: We wrapped it.

James: Thank you very much for everyone watching.

James: I didn't tell Devilwalk this at all, by the way.

James: I've not said anything about this.

James: We had so many people in person for the first time at any event.

James: This has never happened.

James: Never.

James: At Austin Major, they were saying, I love the All About Counter-Strike Podcast.

James: I love your podcast with Devilwalk.

James: Like I'm just walking through the hall and they're saying like, we love your podcast.

James: One guy's like, I watch every episode.

James: I listen on Spotify.

James: Dude, that means so much to me because I've never heard that.

James: So there you go.

James: Look, we're even getting love in person at events.

James: It's happening.

Jonatan: Well, that's how you know you made it then, I guess.

Jonatan: That's amazing.

Jonatan: No, but honestly, it's so encouraging.

Jonatan: It means the world to us.

Jonatan: We've been grinding now for about six months, a little bit more than six months, pumping out episodes, staying up late nights.

Jonatan: And I think we would have still done it, even if we had the same viewership as the first episode, but we kind of just want to make it better and better and better and help it grow.

Jonatan: And I mean, you guys are the only part that makes it grow.

Jonatan: So we love you for that.

Jonatan: And thank you so much.

James: Yep.

James: Thank you, everyone, wherever you are in the world for watching.

James: Also, if you watch on YouTube and I can see all the comments, just tell me what country you're watching from, like where you're watching from.

James: I'd love to know.

James: But for everyone, as always, in case you don't know, in case you're watching on a different platform, we are out on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify.

James: Basically, any audio platform that you would listen, we have got you covered.

James: It's out every time.

James: We don't miss on it.

James: You can also go to allaboutcs.gg and get all the latest information, all the latest episodes there.

James: Check out all the options of how you can watch, listen and enjoy the podcast.

James: We've got a very special guest, maybe not on the next episode, but coming real soon.

Jonatan: Also, you know who fixed me a new chair?

James: Oh yeah.

Jonatan: Banks is fixing me a new chair, everybody.

Jonatan: Everyone from the YouTube, this one will be gone on Monday.

James: We have to wait, 100% can't film an episode before Monday now, because Devil has to get his new chair fitted.

James: But yeah, he'll finally be off that, and actually be off since...

Jonatan: I'll not be the laughing stock anymore.

James: Even my players will have the wayhooks he reacted to your chair.

James: Oh, that's amazing.

James: I will miss that.

James: We should just keep it as a relic in the background.

James: I think that would be cool.

James: That would be a good way to do it.

James: But either way, we're done.

James: We're dusted for episode 18.

James: I was already trying to save before Devil walked in about the chair.

James: Not maybe the next episode, if we do a roster episode with all the shuffles, but very soon we're getting a member from Vitality joining us.

James: Can't spoil who it is just yet, but stay tuned.

James: See you on the next episode.

James: Thanks for watching.

James: Bye.