Episode 59 — The Karrigan Effect, BLAST Rivals Review & The Ultimate Astana vs. Atlanta Preview

[BanKs] what's going on everybody and welcome to another episode of the all about counter-strike podcast it's episode 59 it is the 3rd of may 2026 and right now it is 11 32 in the in the evening for me not the morning

[BanKs] It's nearly the morning of the next day.

[BanKs] But for Devil Walk, it's the morning.

[BanKs] It's actually the 4th of May for Devil Walk.

[Devilwalk] Yes.

[BanKs] And it is 32 minutes past the midnight.

[BanKs] So you're up at the crack of this all starting out because we've obviously had...

[BanKs] Vitality dominate once again when it comes to everything Counter-Strike, when it comes to just how phenomenal they can play Counter-Strike as a unit.

[BanKs] So it will be another episode of glazing these guys once again.

[BanKs] We've got a lot to go through in this episode.

[BanKs] There's a lot of news.

[BanKs] There's a job change.

[BanKs] There's the Blast Rivals review.

[BanKs] Then...

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] after the news we've got two previews to do because there's atlanta which is like the smaller event right now and then astana where more of the big teams are going but they've also got their own storylines and opportunities in there so a lot to go through but um first of all dw what have you been going through on this week how has your week been

[Devilwalk] Week has been good.

[Devilwalk] I mean, it's been pretty good.

[BanKs] He's lying.

[BanKs] He's just straight lying.

[Devilwalk] Honestly.

[Devilwalk] I mean, no, it's actually been trash, but...

[BanKs] See, there we go.

[BanKs] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] but for like job wise and everything it's been good but I've been doing some you know fucking tax shit and it's just stressing me out and I'm not good with it um

[BanKs] Be honest.

[BanKs] no one's good with tax no one actually says like i'm good with tax like it's a thing we must go through and do yeah

[Devilwalk] It's such a special thing for... You know, if I'm a normal worker in Sweden, everything is kind of done for you.

[Devilwalk] You just get a form and you say...

[Devilwalk] Is this what you have earned this year?

[Devilwalk] Yes or no?

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] And you just press yes and you've done your taxes, right?

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] But in esports, you have to kind of file in all these kind of documents, invoices, everything around it.

[Devilwalk] Have you had any expenses?

[Devilwalk] Blah, blah, blah.

[Devilwalk] It's just, it's going over my head.

[Devilwalk] And that shit stressed me out.

[BanKs] It is a stress.

[Devilwalk] So, yeah.

[BanKs] I just remembered.

[BanKs] I did just ping our little guy that's our recording.

[BanKs] We're now recording in Discord as well as all the programs we're using.

[BanKs] We changed program last episode.

[BanKs] So that's why me and Devwalk's face just went a bit crazy.

[BanKs] My week's been pretty cool.

[Devilwalk] That should be right, yeah.

[BanKs] I've just been chilling with baby.

[BanKs] I've been watching a lot of Counter-Strike.

[BanKs] I'll say my son is now on his...

[BanKs] think it's his second final he's watched of navi already if i'm correct because we did rotterdam when he was we did rotterdam when he was born

[BanKs] Yeah, and they didn't get finals in Rio.

[BanKs] And then they just watched.

[BanKs] So he's a true Na'Vi fan in the fact that he actually lost twice now already and got to suffer.

[BanKs] And then at one point, we were barfing him while we were watching the final and he peed on me.

[BanKs] So I got peed on and we lost the final.

[BanKs] That's just a great evening for me.

[Devilwalk] Was it a clutch moment or?

[BanKs] No, he was just normal round.

[BanKs] I think it was a moment where Vitalik was just dominating in the beginning part of...

[BanKs] I'm going to say Anubis.

[BanKs] Yeah, Anubis is the second map, right?

[BanKs] Yeah, Anubis.

[BanKs] So anyway, we've got a lot to go through.

[BanKs] My week's been pretty good.

[BanKs] I can't complain about anything.

[BanKs] Just been doing dad life.

[BanKs] Good news is soon we're traveling back for events, getting back on the road again and doing it all.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] But one thing we need to talk about with you is...

[BanKs] I got a message from Jaffa.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] And Jaffa actually watches the stream.

[BanKs] I'm going to bring this up on my phone because this made me laugh.

[BanKs] Where is it?

[BanKs] Devil Walk.

[BanKs] So I sent it to you.

[BanKs] Jaffa decided to say, is Devil still going to be as he is coaching Algo?

[BanKs] Now, I love this because he could have added you, but instead he adds me like I'm your manager and I decide everything.

[Devilwalk] But I still don't understand what that means.

[Devilwalk] Ever since you sent it, is Devilwalk going to be as he is?

[BanKs] I think he means like coaching the team.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Like I think he's trying to understand if you will be coaching the team, but you're not coaching the team, which is even funnier.

[Devilwalk] But...

[BanKs] But maybe does he mean like you're still going to do the podcast, which is yes, obviously you're still going to do the podcast.

[BanKs] That doesn't eat into it.

[Devilwalk] But to me, to me, it sounds almost like is Devil Walk really just going to be as he is with that team?

[Devilwalk] It's like, we understand what I'm saying.

[BanKs] is he fine being this no so so let me let me yeah yeah so let's bring this up we'll bring up the tweet algo put out there right because some people might look at this and think why the hell is devil coaching what seems to be quite a low down team if i'm being fair right i'm being honest this is the way we talk about anyone else

[Devilwalk] To me,

[BanKs] And it says, Algo Esports.

[Devilwalk] No.

[BanKs] Jonathan Devwalk Lundberg is joining Algo Esports as head of CS.

[BanKs] So he's not joining as a coach.

[BanKs] He's going for a different role.

[BanKs] This is the first time you'll be doing it.

[BanKs] And your comment, your quote here, Devwalk.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] I'm going to do my best Devwalk impression.

[BanKs] Joining Algo is a new professional chapter for me, a fresh challenge where I can bring all my experience from competing, coaching, and working with some of the best in esports.

[BanKs] Did you use ChatGPT to write this for you?

[Devilwalk] No, I wrote it myself.

[BanKs] Okay, it's pretty good.

[BanKs] It's pretty good.

[BanKs] My goal is to build Algo's CS division into a place players, coaches, and staff want to be part of, a healthy environment for growth with strong support and to help the team move forward in the VRS rankings.

[BanKs] So...

[BanKs] First of all, just tell me what you're doing.

[BanKs] And I guess people thought that you're coaching because you've been sat in on the games, right?

[Devilwalk] I have been, yes.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Hands on.

[BanKs] Hands on head of esports.

[BanKs] Let's go.

[BanKs] So how did this opportunity come about?

[BanKs] What's the crack of it all?

[BanKs] How many players are you kicking and removing to actually find it?

[Devilwalk] It was actually... You know, I got a tweet from one of the players there.

[BanKs] Oh.

[Devilwalk] Like a DM.

[Devilwalk] It was Nukia.

[BanKs] Please don't kick me.

[Devilwalk] I've coached him in the past when we were in No Chance before he went to...

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah.

[BanKs] Battle?

[Devilwalk] no no no he went to what what's that hell hell hell hell racers yeah

[BanKs] Okay.

[BanKs] Cow Rises?

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] He went to Hellraisers for a time there, coached them for a couple of months, maybe six months, something along those lines before he went there.

[BanKs] Solid.

[Devilwalk] And yeah, he just reached out and said that Algo was looking for this position and if I would be interested to, you know, having an interview with their owner.

[Devilwalk] So that's essentially how it went down.

[Devilwalk] Now what I do, basically I'm there to restructure.

[Devilwalk] I came into a team that only had three players.

[BanKs] Oh.

[Devilwalk] and it was a little bit chaotic and everything so for my job it's been to stabilize the roster first of all talk with players make sure we get the roster functioning

[Devilwalk] And then essentially everything around the CS team is my responsibility.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] If that is coaching staff, other support staff members that are needed, looking at LAN events that we want to attend for VRS and just making sure that everything is...

[Devilwalk] you know, run in a way that

[Devilwalk] It's beneficial for everyone.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] I have my way of coaching and maybe philosophical beliefs of how I want the team to function and stuff like that.

[Devilwalk] And I can help the team with my expertise and the...

[Devilwalk] You know, maybe problem solve a lot of times because that's what... At the end of the day, that's what CS teams kind of do every single day.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] It's just problem solving.

[Devilwalk] So for me, just seeing if everything is what it is and if there is, you know...

[Devilwalk] Other opportunities.

[Devilwalk] Be prepared for other opportunities.

[Devilwalk] Everything around what a CS team essentially is.

[Devilwalk] It's my job.

[BanKs] there's a lot of weight on your shoulder with this one mate damn and it's a ukrainian organization or the owner's ukrainian yep

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] But it's fun also.

[Devilwalk] Well, the owner is Ukrainian, but I think it is technically maybe not a Ukrainian org.

[Devilwalk] I don't know really how to categorize that.

[BanKs] okay where they're registered where they're set up all right well good luck mate you get to have yourself some fun time with that one it's a new challenge something else to do you know you're getting older you should move on from just being a coach you know i just want to see you're still coaching

[Devilwalk] That's not really up to me.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[Devilwalk] yeah even though the itches do get to me when when i sit there and look at the players and and you know hear all the discussions i kind of just want to jump in and say my my piece um but it's been fun

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] You have to hold your tongue.

[BanKs] You find yourself having to bite your tongue a little bit.

[Devilwalk] I do, I do, because I also know like I shouldn't be imposing too much because there's another coach who wants it in his way and, you know, yeah, I don't want to be, I probably already have, but yeah, it is what it is.

[BanKs] Yeah, don't step on his toes.

[BanKs] All right.

[BanKs] Well, give us a little... I've got to go close the door so the baby can actually not hear my voice and sleep.

[BanKs] So we're going to be doing Blast Rivals Review as our first thing before we get into news reference.

[BanKs] So go down just...

[BanKs] Your overall quick thoughts, because I'll still hear you with my wonderful wireless headset here.

[BanKs] Yeah, go down your thoughts just on what you thought of Blast Rivals as a whole, mate.

[Devilwalk] As a whole?

[Devilwalk] Oh, wow.

[BanKs] Yeah, overall, overarching.

[BanKs] No, just quickly.

[BanKs] Don't go into details and stuff yet.

[Devilwalk] Okay, I'm buying your time.

[BanKs] You're buying me time.

[Devilwalk] So Blast Rivals was, to me, like an interesting tournament.

[Devilwalk] I think it ended up being more interesting than maybe I originally even thought a lot of that had to do with, you know...

[Devilwalk] Foot kind of playing with their coach and not having long stares.

[Devilwalk] But there were still some very, very exciting games.

[Devilwalk] We saw kind of a resurgence of a gamer legion.

[Devilwalk] So there were a lot of interesting elements.

[Devilwalk] As for the tournament as a whole, I thought maybe the audience could have stepped up a little bit there in Texas.

[BanKs] massively finally 360 for blast

[Devilwalk] I was slightly disappointed about how empty it looked there.

[Devilwalk] With a beautiful stage, beautiful setup, everything was great.

[Devilwalk] Everything looked great from that perspective.

[Devilwalk] You know, you could see players, even BM, a little bit on stage, and, you know, there was...

[Devilwalk] I thought it was set up beautifully.

[Devilwalk] There was nothing wrong with the setup from Blast.

[BanKs] That's to be expected with Blasto, right?

[BanKs] They always have a good setup.

[BanKs] We can't knock them on that.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] But it was sad for me.

[Devilwalk] So that...

[BanKs] Obviously, not just because I wasn't there, but more for the fact that

[BanKs] Obviously, Austin was so good, and I know it's a major, but normally I've done also Dallas, which is ESL, right?

[BanKs] American crowds are normally fire.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] Maybe we got some American audience in the podcast chat.

[BanKs] Maybe you can let us know in the comments.

[BanKs] Where was the Americans for this event?

[BanKs] Why was it such a bad turnout?

[BanKs] Because I looked Friday and thought, okay, you know, it's just bad.

[BanKs] It's Friday.

[BanKs] Saturday, it was a small amount better.

[BanKs] Maybe it was more better for the people in there.

[BanKs] I can always say this as someone who works in the arenas.

[BanKs] Often the stream doesn't do it justice, but like there's so much effort that I think Blast have put into it because there was new graphics and

[BanKs] new stage things, new awesome stuff that was being implemented.

[Devilwalk] I mean...

[BanKs] But then it was just very depressing because even the Sunday was just nothing.

[BanKs] You heard the crowd because Americans can be loud, but it was just so empty, man.

[Devilwalk] The games they did seem to attend was the face game.

[Devilwalk] The face games, they were at least there and loud and cheering and booing, whatever they were doing.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] You could hear them at least.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] I felt it was a little bit lackluster in the rest of the games.

[BanKs] Definitely.

[BanKs] I'll agree with that.

[BanKs] I will also say that like obviously for Blast, because they run this eight team setup, it might be less appealing for people to go for.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] And obviously like your big names were Na'Vi and Vitality.

[BanKs] You missed out a lot of the other big names because it's hard for some of the other teams to get visas.

[BanKs] I'll come on to a bit of that later.

[BanKs] But let's go down initially our predictions, right?

[BanKs] So we had a couple of fails.

[BanKs] We had a couple of wins.

[BanKs] So I said Foot would beat Vitality, but that was before Lowndes was announced to not be there.

[Devilwalk] you're trying to say your prediction was correct really should have been correct

[BanKs] Obviously, I hope he's better and going to be there for Atlanta.

[BanKs] It should have been.

[BanKs] No.

[BanKs] Hey, they pushed vitality.

[BanKs] They pushed vitality.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I said they would take a map, and I said they would push them, but I still thought Vitality would win.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] yeah so vitality obviously they came into this event straight from the beginning saying we've just not practiced they only practiced like a couple of practice games once they got to america so they had time off between rio as they deserve and then going into this event and they still looks crazy

[BanKs] So you were right.

[BanKs] You said Vitality would win.

[BanKs] I said Foot would win.

[BanKs] Whatever.

[BanKs] I'll take the loss on that.

[BanKs] You said Astralis would beat G2.

[BanKs] I said G2.

[BanKs] I got that one right.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] We both said Na'Vi would beat FaZe.

[BanKs] Fair enough.

[BanKs] That went through.

[BanKs] We both said FURIA would beat Game Legion.

[BanKs] This was the disappointing one.

[BanKs] This is so, so sad.

[BanKs] So, so sad.

[BanKs] Like...

[Devilwalk] Yeah, it's... I mean, if we remove, like, kind of... Maybe we should talk about Furia more in depth later, but...

[BanKs] Yeah, we'll go on to it.

[BanKs] Yeah, we'll go on to it.

[BanKs] Because what I want to also talk about some of the other things we said.

[BanKs] So I said foot will move to semis because I'm just a big foot believer.

[BanKs] Obviously, it wasn't that was Vitality.

[BanKs] And then I said G2 and Vitality would go to quarters.

[Devilwalk] I said Vitality and Astralis in the final and Foot going through in the lower bracket.

[BanKs] It didn't happen being that way.

[BanKs] We got Astralis there instead.

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah.

[BanKs] So we were off considering.

[Devilwalk] Which is all kinds of wrong.

[BanKs] We were off because obviously the foot thing happened, right?

[BanKs] But on B, I was pretty close to being right.

[BanKs] I said Na'Vi, Fury, and FaZe were through.

[BanKs] I think I was the only one that said FaZe through, right?

[Devilwalk] Yep, I said gay millennium, which we both...

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] And you said game leasing.

[BanKs] You didn't get game leasing right.

[BanKs] I didn't get phase right.

[BanKs] But we were both wrong about Fury.

[BanKs] By the way, my fantasy team for Blast Rivals was absolutely dog.

[BanKs] I got one point.

[BanKs] I had Fallen and Molidoy because I just thought some magic would happen after Fallen's announcement of retirement.

[BanKs] That didn't work out.

[BanKs] That was depressing at the same time.

[BanKs] Obviously, we both predicted Vitality to win the whole event.

[BanKs] Well, guess what?

[BanKs] There's no surprises there.

[BanKs] This just keeps on happening again and again and again.

[BanKs] So let's just go down our analysis of the teams.

[BanKs] I think for Foot, we just skip because this isn't them, you know?

[BanKs] And even though they played with Coolio, respect him for being able to stand in for Lowndes, they still had competitive games.

[Devilwalk] I mean, he held his own to some degree.

[BanKs] The Astralis one, I'm not even going to count this in the head-to-head.

[BanKs] If I hear people quote this head-to-head when we're talking about how good the head-to-head has been between these two teams, I'm going to keep saying you've got to avoid this one because...

[BanKs] they they played their coach man it's not the same this doesn't count this isn't what i'm going to focus on so let's jump straight to furia because furia was the team in a more than rough spot here

[Devilwalk] No.

[BanKs] I was sure after a fourth place at Rio and Fuller announcing his retirement that this team would have more energy in some ways.

[BanKs] Maybe I was just delusional, but I looked at it as if

[BanKs] furia know the time they've got make the most of it they can go even harder for fallen and pushing forward on what success you can have both games went three maps but like gamer legion okay you win the first map 13-5 molodoy was at his best and i'm sat there going oh okay we're we're really cooking with this

[BanKs] You lose nuke 13, five, which is your pick by the way.

[BanKs] And then you lose mirage to them as well.

[BanKs] I'm not going to say like, I don't know.

[BanKs] I'm not going to say any players on game Legion are bad, but like we've been hyping up PR talking very positively about him, but,

[Devilwalk] No, but I think the problem is that you look at this and you say, okay, FaZe and GamerLeader are probably the two weakest teams at this event going into it, right?

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] And Furia lost to both of them.

[Devilwalk] I think that's kind of the statement where it goes wrong for Furia when you look at this.

[Devilwalk] And yes, they aren't in great shape, but they're still, you know, they're third on HLTV, eighth on VRS.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Mhm.

[Devilwalk] And you're supposed to beat number 41 and 22.

[Devilwalk] I mean, that's just how it is.

[BanKs] You see?

[Devilwalk] And that's why it's such a major kind of letdown from a team like Furia.

[BanKs] But

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I don't know how else to explain it.

[Devilwalk] I mean, phase one is just...

[Devilwalk] We'll go on to that later.

[BanKs] Well, it's also, I'm not going to doubt some of the players that are on FaZe's team, right?

[BanKs] We know what Frozen can do.

[BanKs] Twist, even if he's taken over IGL, he's still one of the elite players, right?

[BanKs] But it's the way the scorelines, the decision-making, like how off FURIA felt now.

[BanKs] I know they were saying that they had some people stay a bit longer in Rio.

[BanKs] I heard on one interview, right?

[BanKs] And then obviously traveling here, Fulham went to Miami rather than staying in Rio.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] So I'm wondering maybe their practice wasn't that good.

[BanKs] but it does put them in a worrying spot now, not for anything of their major hopes, but it just, to me, shows that they are a team that's now out of title contention.

[BanKs] This isn't a team I'm looking at who can be title contenders as of right now, even if they were at the end of last year.

[Devilwalk] Okay, so I have a question on one of the statements you said, which was they announced Fallen's retirement and that they would come with a little bit more energy now.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] If you're in a team...

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Imagine the biggest leader, the biggest star has announced he is going to leave within a seven-month period.

[BanKs] Mm hmm.

[Devilwalk] Do you take that as a positive thing?

[Devilwalk] Or a negative.

[Devilwalk] Like, in my shoes, I just see it as like, fuck, you know, it doesn't matter what we do because in seven months, this isn't the team kind of deal.

[BanKs] i understand your thinking but what i'm i'm maybe i'm reading again too much into the emotional or the personal side but the way i looked at it was like monodoy was almost crying when he knew fordham was going right uh case of our and yuri respect him um your kinder looks up to him right and speaks so positive about him in interviews

[Devilwalk] Sure.

[BanKs] So now it's time where they look at it and say, we are doing this for him, his legacy, his ending.

[BanKs] But that's like, I could take it that way.

[Devilwalk] In a perfect world.

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Devilwalk] I think...

[Devilwalk] If they were in like a momentum period like they were last year where they just kind of steamrolled people, they looked better and better every tournament they played...

[BanKs] Mm hmm.

[Devilwalk] but if I was like Molodoy and I kind of credit a lot of what's going on in my career for the past one year to that person and he announcing he's leaving

[Devilwalk] That would be devastating for me as if I just look into Moldoy's shoes, you know.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Fallen gave me my career to a certain degree.

[Devilwalk] He scouted me, he wanted to put me in, he believed in me.

[Devilwalk] And in seven months, that's over.

[Devilwalk] I think everyone wants to do what you're saying, but I think the emotional impact can be different.

[BanKs] yeah and obviously also depends on their emotional intelligence with it all and how they can all handle it as a team they might well they probably knew before anyone else as well but i would say maybe they all maybe they're all thinking about who is going to replace him what's the next steps maybe their minds not actually focused on what it should be

[Devilwalk] They probably haven't even digested it fully yet.

[BanKs] We won't know unless I just ask him and try and find out.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] But I mean, this looked bad and it has to be a course correct.

[BanKs] There has to be some wake up now because we're getting closer to the last couple of events before the major.

[Devilwalk] I will say, though, Gamer Legion and FaZe, both in this tournament, play way beyond their rankings and what they have been looking like on paper for the past couple of months.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] They played great, and it wasn't just Furia who got shocked by their performance.

[BanKs] Mhm.

[Devilwalk] the quality that Gamer Legion and FaZe kind of showed up with.

[Devilwalk] So in that sense...

[Devilwalk] if you look at it from like a perspective of now the tournament has ended we see what they have actually done both gamer legion and face is it as disappointing looking at furia now compared to you know initially in the group stage

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] I think it's hard to say an event like this and I'm taking a lot of these results with a pinch of salt because all you had to do was win one game to make playoffs.

[Devilwalk] We'll wait and see.

[BanKs] When we're talking about this top eight, top six being in playoffs, rivals is such a, obviously it's all changing in blast for next year, right?

[BanKs] They've learned from this.

[BanKs] All the format changes, all the way they're doing things, but this is such an anomaly event that it doesn't compare right now, even though it has the good prize money, it doesn't compare to a Rio or an Astana or a Cluj or something like that, you know?

[Devilwalk] Yeah, yeah.

[BanKs] Because the wiggle room to do good or bad is like, it's not Swiss system.

[BanKs] It's not playing through the Bucol system.

[BanKs] You know, it's nothing.

[BanKs] It's a group A, B. You win one game, you're through.

[BanKs] You lose two games, you're out.

[BanKs] And you can be saved by just having like a good one-off day, you know?

[Devilwalk] True, that makes it even worse.

[BanKs] yeah but it makes it worse on both sides it also makes it hard for me to quantify like this game of legion run how many times have we seen game legion go to like a pgl event yeah and they suffer because it's the um three games to go through and they can't handle it you know

[BanKs] That's my thinking when it comes to this.

[BanKs] G2 is who I want to look at next because G2, I feel like this is a positive.

[Devilwalk] They should have won.

[BanKs] I'm still impressed by some of what I'm seeing here, and I'm liking it, but...

[BanKs] They almost had Vitality 2-0.

[BanKs] That 2-0 was right there for the... Well, they did lose the first half 10-2, but it's the way they came back into the second half.

[BanKs] do the same to him and then it was getting like it's the it's the crazy streak of rounds so when g2 had theirs right on their t side it was a couple of odd rounds

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] One player I'll point out as well is Son Pius.

[BanKs] Still, even though he's not leading now and even though Hunter's back, still very positive.

[BanKs] I'm still seeing a Son Pius that is like, he's back.

[BanKs] It wasn't a one tournament wonder last time around when Hunter wasn't there and he was just calling for himself.

[BanKs] Like something has been figured out a bit better here for him.

[BanKs] um but i will say once vitality got to overtime boy that was there was a different there was no chance for g2 because those last couple of rounds right they had vitality on the ropes they had vitality on low economy um

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] They had Vitality pressured as well.

[BanKs] Like, it was theirs.

[BanKs] It was really theirs.

[BanKs] And then you win over Pass as well.

[BanKs] Dust2, by the way, was a map that G2 were picking at some points.

[BanKs] Like, it was a good map for G2.

[BanKs] And they got absolutely battered in the end as well.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, but Vitality's Dust 2 is just next level.

[Devilwalk] It is really, really next level.

[Devilwalk] I don't know what their stat... Oh, they've lost it once, and it's against foot.

[Devilwalk] it is their paramount like kind of first pick it is incredibly good it's one of those maps with vitality where they have everything figured out how they want to be aggressive how they want to like in different ways it's beautiful to watch and there's constant pressure

[Devilwalk] So I understand why when you go against Vitality, Dust2 isn't really... Maybe you're okay with it as a last.

[Devilwalk] Maybe, but they would never... No one in their right mind picks Dust2 against Vitality.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] And then the sad part is going to come for them, losing to FaZe on the quarterfinals.

[BanKs] Now, we can say, yeah, FaZe had the power behind them of the crowd and stuff.

[BanKs] But for me, I'll ignore the first two maps.

[BanKs] Like, FaZe picked us two against G2.

[BanKs] And again, I'm going to keep saying...

[BanKs] G2's Dust2 was, in general, looking pretty good.

[BanKs] Sunpires, again, had a phenomenal map here.

[BanKs] It was a lot of clutches going the way of FaZe, which obviously benefited them.

[BanKs] Then G2 win their pick of Ancient.

[BanKs] I wouldn't say it was any real problems.

[Devilwalk] But I think that this game, this game was the best game in the entire tournament.

[BanKs] This Mirage.

[BanKs] Oof.

[Devilwalk] The G2 phase game, hands down, hands down the most exciting game.

[BanKs] Most excited.

[Devilwalk] It was craziness happening on the server.

[Devilwalk] It was...

[BanKs] craziness i'm gonna i'm gonna quote shock shock said because i love that the fact that she dropped the dragon ball reference during the broadcast she said frozen went super saiyan and he actually did this guy was doing i don't know there was a moment did you do you remember the moment where it was like do you remember the moment where it was um twists and frozen retaking from ct spawn

[Devilwalk] Did you see that?

[BanKs] And they just clean up everyone in a matter of seconds.

[BanKs] And it's like, bro, they were just, they hit that point.

[Devilwalk] Oh yes, yes, yes, yes.

[BanKs] And that was one of those rounds where if it had gone G2's way, I feel like G2 win that game.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I agree, I agree.

[BanKs] That would have been there.

[BanKs] Because it was like a tech nine round, like heavy got pushed through the smoke and pushed in.

[Devilwalk] Was it 2v4 or something?

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[BanKs] It was super incredible.

[BanKs] Super incredible.

[Devilwalk] But it's also like, you know, some of the resident sleepers, like Broky, fantastic tournament from him.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] And this game, he was fantastic.

[Devilwalk] He had pretty low rating, but I think frag-wise, he had a lot of impact.

[Devilwalk] He was 51 and 40.

[Devilwalk] With a 104 rating.

[Devilwalk] So it's a pretty low rating compared to his kill-death ratio.

[BanKs] But his impact, and he also had the 1.29 round swing.

[BanKs] So, like, he was impactful in the rounds he was getting.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] And that's like... And I also like this nature guy.

[Devilwalk] He did some really, really important stuff.

[BanKs] Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] Was it the G2 Mirage game?

[Devilwalk] I think it was the Mirage game where he was like kind of dancing around the B boxes on site in that 1v2.

[BanKs] yeah the timing the time yeah it was like a cat and mouse mm-hmm yep he played with nerds yeah he played with nerds on that

[Devilwalk] Because he was boosted on top of box first, and then he kind of killed the planter coming from short, and he dropped down.

[Devilwalk] He kind of played around with him for like 12, 13 seconds and just won it by the...

[BanKs] The thing is here, when you look at this for G2, G2 as a team and the time they've been together should be doing way better than this phase.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] And they should be more than able to handle this.

[BanKs] I don't think there's anyone's like so much I'm going to put blame on here, but I'm just going to put this is another part where it just makes me think that G2 are kind of just a middling team, you know?

[BanKs] Like to not take these kind of games over the line is a problem for them.

[Devilwalk] Hmm.

[BanKs] A big problem.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I mean, 100%.

[Devilwalk] FaZe, you know, we heard, I think, Alexi B even talking about it after they played FaZe that they probably had like 10 days of practice with this lineup, if even that.

[BanKs] Cook.

[Devilwalk] So, for G2 to lose against this face is... I mean, it's kind of embarrassing for all teams.

[Devilwalk] Furia, as well as G2.

[Devilwalk] But FaZe was strong.

[BanKs] Cook.

[Devilwalk] They were unpredictable.

[Devilwalk] They felt like they were on point individually.

[Devilwalk] Something we haven't seen in a while from them.

[BanKs] But how like looking at that, you said unpredictable.

[Devilwalk] But it's...

[BanKs] A lot of their plays was very gamble heavy, very rush heavy, very all in.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Is that something that you can build upon?

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] Or is this just like a early part where we look at and say, okay, it's working for now, but could we, is that sustainable?

[Devilwalk] I don't think that that's their approach to everything.

[Devilwalk] I just think that they found a way to start playing together and they found a simplified version of Counter-Strike where they can use their skill, they can create chaos and they play a high speed kind of

[BanKs] mhm mhm

[Devilwalk] Counter-Strike with high pressure, which is something that FaZe has always been good at, but it's been more on an individual basis, more defaulty in the past.

[Devilwalk] Now it's more explosive and unpredictable.

[Devilwalk] So I think in that sense, they've just done the best they can in the situation they're in.

[Devilwalk] I don't think we're going to see FaZe be exactly the same in all the tournaments going forward with this lineup.

[Devilwalk] I think they're definitely going to have to...

[Devilwalk] develop something else because that stuff is easily read with today's programs like Skybox or whatever when you watch people's patterns or behaviors.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] It's pretty easy to shut that stuff down.

[Devilwalk] But it's good to have in your playbook to throw in every once in a while.

[Devilwalk] But I'm expecting a more developed phase as time moves on.

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

[BanKs] So away from G2 then, we can move to Astralis.

[BanKs] Astralis also obviously super positive when we look at where they got to at EPL finals into Bucharest.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[BanKs] Here they lose to G2.

[BanKs] It's the way they lost to G2, which was kind of sad, especially on their pick of overpass.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] I just expect more from Astralis, especially from what we've seen from them.

[BanKs] then they beat foot but this is a beating foot where it's the coach standing so okay and then again they lose overpass this time to gamer legion rez had a fantastic time but so did snacks and i gotta credit this

[Devilwalk] PR was back.

[BanKs] PR's been back and I think someone touched on it in one of the interviews with PR that like, since Snacks came in, he's not been the same player, right?

[BanKs] It'd been a long time of not seeing PR at the same level.

[BanKs] But whatever's happened, whatever changes come in, he's found his groove again.

[BanKs] He's found his form.

[BanKs] And that's the PR that I honestly didn't think would be staying on Game of Legion because someone would come and snap him up.

[BanKs] So maybe we're back on that train again.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] But also, like, Game of Legion were 9-3 down.

[BanKs] 9-3 down on Inferno and win 16-14.

[BanKs] Like.

[BanKs] I'm not saying that it's only.

[Devilwalk] It was worse than 9.3.

[Devilwalk] I watched it today.

[Devilwalk] Sorry, my voice is... Yeah, it's like dry throat.

[BanKs] Mm hmm.

[BanKs] You're dying.

[Devilwalk] It was way worse.

[Devilwalk] It was 12.4.

[BanKs] Because this was the last map.

[BanKs] This was the last map.

[BanKs] It was late, late, late.

[BanKs] So I don't remember everything.

[BanKs] You keep drinking.

[BanKs] That's fine.

[BanKs] Snacks was a beast on this map as well.

[BanKs] He was pulling them.

[BanKs] Like, the thing is, Snacks is the gift that keeps on giving, man.

[BanKs] Snacks, like...

[BanKs] People wanted to count him out after a stint with G2 and say he wasn't going to do it again.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] But I'm still saying he's got it, man.

[BanKs] He's still got it.

[BanKs] And he can lead the team.

[BanKs] If they believe in him, he can lead the team.

[Devilwalk] No, he was really good in this game.

[Devilwalk] He had some really, really snappy moments.

[Devilwalk] He's the reason they actually made this comeback on Inferno.

[Devilwalk] He had so many important kills, he picked up the pistol round on CT side.

[Devilwalk] They did lose afterwards in the anti-eco scenario, but he was immense in this game.

[Devilwalk] Him and Ress were the powerhouse on Inferno.

[Devilwalk] And, I mean, we're talking about Astralis here.

[BanKs] Flip-flopping.

[Devilwalk] And for me, I see Astralis as someone who can wake up on the right side of bed and they can play a great game on Counter-Strike.

[Devilwalk] We see it every single tournament.

[Devilwalk] It's almost like they're like, I don't know, like floppy.

[Devilwalk] They're flip-flopping.

[Devilwalk] Because it's one good game, one bad game, one good game, one bad game.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] And it's always like this.

[Devilwalk] I mean, I can look back at other tournaments where they've played where I've been impressed, disappointed.

[Devilwalk] Impressed, disappointed.

[Devilwalk] It just keeps happening that they can't figure out a way to have that stability.

[Devilwalk] I mean, the one tournament they had was obviously PGL Bucharest.

[Devilwalk] But if you look at other tournaments, it's kind of flip-floppy depending on the day.

[Devilwalk] And it's like you say, first game, Astralis G2, they don't really stand a chance, but I'd still consider, you know, Astralis to be in the same kind of category as G2.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah, but that's what I would agree.

[Devilwalk] They should be able to match up, you know, it should be close.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] You expect that to be more competitive, more competitive.

[Devilwalk] Yes, it should be a third mapper.

[Devilwalk] It should be tight.

[Devilwalk] It should be... Yeah.

[Devilwalk] And as you say, the foot game, we can't really count it.

[Devilwalk] It's a good game for Astralis, but can we really count it in the same way?

[BanKs] no it's not one that's a bit harsh but i know what you mean yeah yeah no i know what you mean yep

[Devilwalk] And then it's just...

[Devilwalk] But then if we kind of summarize Astralis tournament, they came to the quarterfinals winning zero games.

[Devilwalk] That's how it is.

[Devilwalk] That's how it is.

[Devilwalk] If we can't count... Yeah, but if we can't count the foot game...

[Devilwalk] They just lost their way to the quarters and lost.

[Devilwalk] You know, like, it's weird.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] So they have one win and it's against foot in this tournament and losing the quarterfinals.

[Devilwalk] I don't think it was good enough.

[Devilwalk] I think this is where they should be pushing a gamer legion.

[Devilwalk] They should be overpowering a gamer legion.

[Devilwalk] They should definitely be making it much closer against the G2.

[BanKs] yeah um and they're going to some of the smaller events are going to atlanta which we'll cover later on as well but that's one where they should have more well i would say on paper a better chance to thrive as well

[BanKs] Looking next at FaZe, who I think we're pleasantly surprised by, considering Nature's just standing in for these guys at the moment.

[BanKs] Do you want a fun fact?

[BanKs] The first practice game that FaZe played was against Falcons with Kerrigan.

[Devilwalk] yeah sure ah I saw that yeah slightly awkward you don't have to accept them

[BanKs] Obviously, by the way, for people who don't know, you have to accept these games, right?

[BanKs] So, like, you put the games out there, you go on to the thing that gives them.

[BanKs] No, I mean, you have to choose to accept them, yeah?

[BanKs] Both teams agreed to this.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] That's what's brilliant.

[Devilwalk] It's not random.

[BanKs] It's not like you just put a time slot and you get a random team.

[BanKs] No, this was something they agreed on.

[BanKs] I do hear that Falcons did win that practice game, but it is just a practice game, whatever.

[BanKs] That was day one of practice for Falcons with Kerrigan as well.

[BanKs] That's an interesting zinger one in there.

[BanKs] But looking at this, since Budapest, this is the best performance for FaZe Clan.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] twist is igl they're kind of worried in the back of their minds that is frozen even going to want to stay with this team now yeah or how long until maybe frozen gets pulled into falcons after if tessus doesn't make it you know i don't know anything that could happen in that that world of speculation um

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] But this phase, they played with some heart.

[BanKs] They played with some confidence.

[BanKs] They lost to Na'Vi twice 2-0.

[BanKs] But they beat FURIA.

[BanKs] They beat G2.

[BanKs] I...

[Devilwalk] I'd argue even that this is the best performance.

[Devilwalk] If we remove the Budapest Majors over a year ago, we've seen a face even as competent as this performance.

[BanKs] Mega D run.

[BanKs] Let me look at that.

[BanKs] Yeah, EPL 22, right?

[BanKs] Fourth place.

[Devilwalk] 22?

[Devilwalk] Oh, oh, yeah.

[BanKs] Before that.

[BanKs] Season 22.

[BanKs] Season 22, not 2022.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I was like, wow, that's not that long ago.

[BanKs] No, no, season 22.

[Devilwalk] It's not that far back, I'm thinking.

[BanKs] Season 22.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] That was fourth place for them and then everything else after that was pretty terrible.

[BanKs] Outside of Budapest, obviously.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, it's a long time ago.

[BanKs] So yeah.

[BanKs] again okay you only win two games but you beat a furio you beat a g2 the g2 one is like the big legit one for me um fair enough you're not able to challenge navi and it kind of both just goes the same way but it's like

[Devilwalk] Still didn't play badly.

[BanKs] No, and both times on Ancient it was close, considering that's, like, the Makazi special map as well.

[BanKs] I'll say that, like, it's respectable considering Na'Vi is, like, the second best team in the world right now.

[BanKs] and it's something they can be proud of.

[BanKs] Also, NKJ, Frozen spoke about him, very structured, how he's doing all these things.

[BanKs] He has all that structure, right?

[BanKs] Obviously, they're playing a bit more gun-ho at the moment, but

[BanKs] This could be a nice balance because it is a bit sad for me when I hear Twist say like, yeah, I'm ready to take over this IGL thing again because he did it in Liquid and I want to see him back to being a star.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] And he was like, look down his ratings in these events.

[BanKs] In general, even when they were doing badly, he was having good events.

[BanKs] Like, he's mainly in the green.

[BanKs] He has a couple of red tournaments in here.

[BanKs] But him and Frozen were the mega carries of that team.

[BanKs] He's obviously going to have to sacrifice some of that.

[BanKs] He even did this event.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] But, I mean...

[BanKs] if he really wants to do this and he's now got nkj who can be that very structured person behind it and also he's now got a point to prove because twist was the one publicly talking about all this stuff with carrigan right and if he's gonna then show up and make this team deliver where carrigan couldn't that's that's got a bit of spice to it

[Devilwalk] It's got a little bit of spice and it's also like, I don't know, it's weird to me that an in-game leader leaves and all of a sudden the team performs better.

[BanKs] Okay.

[BanKs] It's just one event.

[Devilwalk] I don't know.

[BanKs] It's just one event.

[Devilwalk] It is just one event, but... And I'm not saying that this will ever be the case, but it still poses the question in my mind.

[Devilwalk] You know, it's like I go back to... Kiyoshima was the problem, you know, and...

[Devilwalk] And all of this, and you know, I've seen some memes kind of come up on Reddit and Twitter and stuff like that, where it's like, Kerrigan, what's the problem?

[BanKs] as always okay it obviously didn't work you can't even explain it good

[Devilwalk] Or, I don't know, they incorporated his name into like a problem, like, I don't know what they kind of mesh together, but...

[Devilwalk] Someone's tried something, it didn't really stick.

[Devilwalk] No, no.

[Devilwalk] But it poses me the question, it makes me so interested, like even more interested to see what Falcons eventually is going to be.

[Devilwalk] When they have their debut.

[Devilwalk] And for me, it also applies a lot more pressure on a Falcons debut with Kerrigan.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Because I think people kind of look at this event, they look at Faze's performance like, oh, they're revitalized.

[Devilwalk] They are, you know, they're back again and Kerrigan isn't there.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] I think the next, you know, they see face and next is like, where's Falcons?

[Devilwalk] Where's Falcons?

[Devilwalk] Where's Kerrigan?

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] You know, I think it's just a natural way of, of like being human.

[Devilwalk] You look at this and now I want to see this.

[BanKs] There's gonna be comparison.

[BanKs] Yeah, there's a comparison.

[BanKs] There's always going to be a comparison, right?

[BanKs] Especially with how high profile it is at the same time.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] But I'm never going to jump the gun on this when it comes to face.

[BanKs] But I'll say that this was a positive surprise because I honestly just had them going out in last place.

[BanKs] Like I didn't think they would have any hope in hell chance.

[Devilwalk] It's the best they've played.

[Devilwalk] It's the absolute best they've played for over a year.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] I think even stints during the major, they played way worse than they did in this.

[BanKs] Fort Worth, yeah.

[Devilwalk] And it's fun to see.

[Devilwalk] It's great to see.

[Devilwalk] We need these kinds of excitement, because I think this is the only games where the audience actually were on their feet, screaming, riled up in Fort Worth.

[Devilwalk] fort worth in texas i think this one this one people liked yeah

[BanKs] um all right so that we'll go from phase now into the other third fourth place team game legion game legion's run is legit by the way and they were vrs like i don't know they were vrs 22 before this

[BanKs] Now they're going to be up at 13th, so this is going to help them going forward.

[BanKs] Obviously, a lot will change after major stuff as well, so there'll be a lot more up and downs.

[BanKs] For Gamer Legion, you only lost to Na'Vi and Vitality.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] Now, against Na'Vi, you had a little bit of a chance on Mirage, but then you got dominated.

[BanKs] And against Vitality, you even took them to overtime.

[BanKs] So there's some respect to be earned there, but obviously Vitality stuff we'll come on to later.

[BanKs] You beat FURIA and you beat Astralis.

[BanKs] Being FURIA...

[BanKs] That's fucking impressive.

[BanKs] I'll take that.

[BanKs] Being Astralis is really good as well.

[BanKs] I don't have much negative to say about these guys.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] But is that just because I have my expectations so low on them?

[Devilwalk] I mean, for me, you know, I remember this Gamer Legion side.

[Devilwalk] When they got Hypex, I felt like they finally kind of got all their players.

[BanKs] Finally an oppa.

[Devilwalk] Finally an AWPer they can play with.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] They got everything kind of meshed together in the right way.

[BanKs] Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] And obviously Ashe kind of burned out and the team kind of took a drop from there.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] But this is where I've kind of seen them

[Devilwalk] for a while where they should be they should be like a top 10 to 15 in the world they should be every once in a while in these tournaments making problems for some of the big teams they have such a young exciting squad

[Devilwalk] And with Snacks leading it, it's just getting more exciting.

[Devilwalk] Because even though he's an in-game leader, that man has X-Factor in him.

[BanKs] yeah mm-hmm

[Devilwalk] He radiates X-Factor.

[Devilwalk] Even though he can be like...

[Devilwalk] you know, a badly performing player on the scoreboard, so to speak, he still has those crazy moments.

[Devilwalk] He still has that snacksiness in it.

[BanKs] Definitely, definitely.

[BanKs] You mentioned Hypex though, and I'm not going to discredit him of having like, he was the worst performing player for Game of Legion.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] He might have been the worst performing player in the playoffs.

[Devilwalk] It's a good game against furia

[BanKs] Yeah, he was the worst.

[BanKs] Oh, Ryo was worse than him by 0.1.

[BanKs] So he was one of the worst rated performers in the playoff side.

[BanKs] Yeah, at the very beginning in groups.

[BanKs] But my thing is...

[BanKs] I feel like the right pieces are together on this.

[BanKs] It's just about understanding how to play off each other.

[BanKs] Because there's moments where I just see glimpses from everyone.

[BanKs] Towson had that crazy play.

[BanKs] I think it was an ace in the end, right, against... Who was it, the ace against that Towson had?

[Devilwalk] It was overpass or what?

[Devilwalk] No?

[BanKs] I remember Inferno.

[Devilwalk] I think it's something else.

[BanKs] I remember Inferno.

[Devilwalk] It was PR I was thinking about.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] But Towson, Towson had, anyway, Towson had a, maybe it was against Fury.

[BanKs] Maybe it was against Fury.

[BanKs] Let me see.

[BanKs] Yeah, Towson ace with 1v4 clutch.

[BanKs] And that was on Inferno.

[BanKs] And they even lost the map.

[BanKs] But there's so many good moments that you see from the individual players at different times.

[BanKs] So if it can all come together, then there's something they can work within there.

[BanKs] They've got the stability now of the same five players.

[Devilwalk] They do?

[BanKs] They've got the stability of the coach now.

[BanKs] They know that Ashe isn't coming back.

[BanKs] This is now something to build upon on the right game plan, the right vision of how they want to be.

[BanKs] Still don't like the new logo.

[BanKs] Go back to the old one.

[BanKs] They've also got the old logo and the new logo on the jersey, which bothers me.

[BanKs] And obviously there's all that.

[BanKs] Yeah, there's the new logos like up here and the old logos here.

[Devilwalk] I'm gonna look at some galleries here.

[BanKs] Yeah, look at this.

[Devilwalk] Wait.

[BanKs] It's got awful.

[BanKs] Like why would you put two logos together?

[BanKs] It feels like they just ran out of sponsors and maybe with the recent drama, they won't be getting any sponsors, but it doesn't make sense.

[BanKs] You see it now?

[Devilwalk] Oh, they do!

[BanKs] Yeah, it's kind of weird, huh?

[BanKs] You wouldn't really have to do the new logo and the old logo.

[Devilwalk] I still, I don't like this logo.

[BanKs] I said rock band, yeah.

[Devilwalk] To me, this just looks like either a metal band or Diablo.

[Devilwalk] It just looks like a Diablo logo.

[BanKs] the worst thing we can criticize is how stuff is going on behind that's nothing to do with the team right some of the dodgy stuff that came out in the news and then the logo and the jersey stuff like that's the worst things we can say about these guys right now yep

[Devilwalk] If I just...

[Devilwalk] This this is the juicy stuff No, but they're a young exciting team and I'm sure some of these players we are going to see big teams Not too far of a future.

[BanKs] But that's what I wanted to ask you.

[Devilwalk] I

[BanKs] So do you just see this now going to be a feeding team again?

[Devilwalk] 100% I mean it all depends so the only way they don't become a feeding team is if they make the same journey the

[BanKs] So PR still the next to go?

[BanKs] Or does Rez get another shot?

[BanKs] Rez is how old now?

[BanKs] He is 28.

[Devilwalk] Gambit youngsters, the foot of this world where they make a meteoric rise from this position.

[BanKs] Okay.

[Devilwalk] I don't see that happening with GamerLegion.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] I don't see them being like a top five team this year.

[Devilwalk] And all of a sudden, you know, being one of the most scary teams to play against.

[Devilwalk] I still think they can do damage.

[BanKs] Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] And I think they can beat some top teams.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] But I don't see them making that straight up jump.

[BanKs] Fair.

[BanKs] Fair, fair, fair.

[BanKs] All right, and then we come on to second place.

[BanKs] Na'Vi, once again, silver medals in hand.

[BanKs] actually there's no medals at blast but silver trophy whatever silver place second place they beat phase they beat game lesion they beat phase again and then they get three zeroed against vitality i'm still very positive

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] around wonderful mikazi the individuals people stepping up like emma even had a good tournament despite what people want to say bit is actually still kind of on the cusp obviously within his role

[BanKs] but just he's not at the heights of what he used to be.

[BanKs] Na'Vi are so close.

[BanKs] They are so close.

[BanKs] If we just don't look at the fact that they can't win a map, they're still breaking in some moments.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] They actually mentally held their ground better than I expected after losing the first map, considering they had that map in their hands.

[Devilwalk] I thought it was screwed after that map honestly like it's such a it's such a blunder and such an opportunity and I can almost feel them

[BanKs] Yeah, I... I know.

[Devilwalk] As I was watching, I was watching Wonderful after the game, and it was just like... He's still shell-shocked at what just transpired.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] And it just got worse, right?

[BanKs] So do you know how many clutches were in this game, by the way?

[BanKs] To put this in there, there was Nuke.

[BanKs] Four clutches each side, so eight clutches total.

[BanKs] Obviously, Na'Vi winning the majority in the beginning part of the game, and then Vitality winning the second part of the game into overtime, which Na'Vi didn't stand a chance in.

[Devilwalk] It was 11 Vitality ones.

[BanKs] Then there was four...

[BanKs] in anubis but three were in favor of vitality so really navi should have had a chance of taking that anubis and then we get to dust two and it's just four for vitality none for navi and people can say oh navi is so bad bro so many teams have been already three zeroed or

[BanKs] three wand or whatever been dominated by nav by vitality over and over again like we are witnessing the greatest team in counter-strike history right now um navi are close and navi are playing better i actually saw blade cheering and smiling i was like okay we're cooking and

[Devilwalk] That was when it was like 10-0 up on...

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah, you know, you would be.

[BanKs] If you're in his situation, you would be.

[BanKs] Probably the comms were flowing so well.

[BanKs] But what I'll look at this is, before we were so praising McCarthy, and obviously the fact he was doing better and better,

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] But we need to start giving Wonderful some credit as well.

[BanKs] He's still having some of these moments where he loses it a bit or he struggles in clutches, which he's always done.

[BanKs] But he's becoming back to that beast level we saw at Budapest.

[BanKs] That's what I'm starting to see again.

[BanKs] That's being found.

[BanKs] Something they can rely on.

[Devilwalk] I think Na'Vi needs a major every three months so Wonderful wakes up in that span and it just continues the whole year.

[BanKs] So you need four majors a year, yeah?

[Devilwalk] Because I feel like that's kind of Wonderful, right?

[BanKs] Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] Coming up to the Major, that's when Wonderful awakens.

[Devilwalk] That's when he shows his best work.

[Devilwalk] But yeah, I think overall for Na'Vi, this was probably the best tournament I've seen from them.

[Devilwalk] I think they were really unlucky in this game to not pick up obviously Nuke.

[Devilwalk] I thought they had a great chance on Anubis.

[BanKs] No.

[Devilwalk] I felt like they fought back in a way, you know, in the mid-run.

[Devilwalk] Because if we look at Anubis, they didn't really start their way.

[Devilwalk] It was like 5-1 or something for Vitality.

[Devilwalk] They were on the T side.

[Devilwalk] To climb back and bring five rounds back in a row on CT side Anubis, that's not very easy.

[Devilwalk] So for me, I think there's more ingredients to Na'Vi right now instead of in previous tournaments it's been Makasa only.

[Devilwalk] And now we're starting to see the entire team kind of

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] level up a little bit where we see bit in wonderful all having great games i mean i think alexa b always like positionally he's really really good this vitality game wasn't really his game but it still has impact yeah yeah

[BanKs] He had some highlights on Nuke at the beginning half.

[BanKs] He had some highlight individual holes.

[Devilwalk] But I think it was one of the better playing Navis I've seen.

[Devilwalk] And for me, just every time I watch them, it feels like they have taken...

[Devilwalk] a step in the right direction they have taken you know one inch closer towards vitality I feel like they're playing a little bit of catch up and catching up a little bit

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] obviously there's still a huge gap it's not like you know we can talk about Vitality's excuses that they didn't practice and all that they're still the best team in the world um

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] And I'm sad Na'Vi didn't win a map because I think they actually deserved it in this series.

[BanKs] Yeah, more so than previously when we saw in Rotterdam, right?

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] There was more of a fight in it.

[BanKs] There was them taking control of games.

[BanKs] There was them coming.

[BanKs] The fact for me that they were so far down on Anubis and they came back into the game showed such a positive turnaround for Na'Vi, which was not there of old.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] That's a big one.

[BanKs] That was not what they were capable of doing.

[BanKs] And...

[Devilwalk] Yeah, 100%.

[BanKs] I can't ever say they deserve to get a map, because that's the ultimate fanboy in me.

[BanKs] But it's like they played like they could get a map.

[BanKs] Actually, it looks like it's possible.

[BanKs] It looked like it was something we could believe in.

[BanKs] Ultimately, it didn't go that way, and that's what will be seen at the end of it all.

[BanKs] And...

[BanKs] i don't want to just push on like mikazi we speak so positively about right but he struggles against vitality if you look down the numbers he has against vitality his style of play his way of playing doesn't work it works against all the other teams they're playing right now yeah

[BanKs] So he has to, same as his Inferno learning, he has to individually learn some of that as well because you're never going to get to play Ancient against Vitality.

[BanKs] So you best find out another way of doing it, you know?

[BanKs] you best find another way of of finding some individual success against them because if you do have that he played a phenomenal on an ubis but imagine if he played up to the normal mikazi levels on nuke they would 100 have secured that map and bit

[Devilwalk] But isn't that just playing the best team in the world?

[Devilwalk] I mean... Is it really him playing bad, but just having Ropz, Flamese, Messi, Saevu kind of in your crosshairs?

[BanKs] Okay, but then there's the other side of it.

[Devilwalk] He gets one and dies instantly?

[BanKs] But he was losing to Apex in so many duels.

[Devilwalk] That's...

[BanKs] Go look at the head-to-head.

[Devilwalk] Apex ain't bad, man.

[Devilwalk] He's like, he's one of the hardest hitting people right now.

[BanKs] He's not bad.

[BanKs] But... But Mukazi, if he... Yeah.

[Devilwalk] I saw a post about Apex.

[Devilwalk] He had like a 130 rating the last three months on CT sites.

[BanKs] Oh, he's back again.

[BanKs] He's back again.

[BanKs] But this is on T-Side, by the way.

[BanKs] He was also doing this.

[BanKs] He was hammering Mikazi because it felt like... So, for example, Mikazi would do like a smoke spam on Yard, yeah?

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] And then Apex will just play the timing perfectly and he's kind of in the open or reloading in the open.

[BanKs] Or then there'd be a smoke and the moment that Mikazi is expecting him to come from one side, it'll poke out another.

[BanKs] It's just he needs to learn to be a bit more aware.

[BanKs] That's why I gave the Inferno example of just getting used to that.

[BanKs] Because it felt like they always had his number.

[BanKs] On Anubis, I don't know what he ended the stats with on Anubis, because he was top fragging for the server.

[BanKs] He did incredibly well.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] But the other person I've got to point out is B1t.

[BanKs] now bit doesn't have the most glorious roles yeah but the bit of old was so dominant the bit of old was the headshot machine be able to lock it down time and time again and i know yeah

[Devilwalk] You sound like an old Manchester United fan thinking about the glory days.

[BanKs] but he's still so young bro he's 23 and his overall ratings at events is not bad right he's always in the green but i don't know i don't know if it's mentality i don't know if he just falls down sometimes

[BanKs] But I just, it's what you know these people are capable of.

[BanKs] Maybe I'm being too harsh.

[BanKs] Maybe it's just a Na'vi fan in me, but those little inches would have given us the map.

[Devilwalk] It's 100%.

[Devilwalk] It's 100% you're Na'Vi fan right now.

[Devilwalk] I'm just going to let you do it, but it is 100%.

[BanKs] You know what?

[BanKs] I'm just hurting, man.

[Devilwalk] the Na'Vi fanboy right now.

[BanKs] I'm hurting, man.

[Devilwalk] It's like, oh, if we just had Bit from 2022, then we would have taken both Nuke and Nubis.

[BanKs] I'll say this right I had to watch Na'vi lose and my son peed on me at the same time it was just a bad time it was a bad time everything all at once they are bonding experiences but

[Devilwalk] Bonding experience.

[BanKs] navi is definitely the second best team in the world but it's going to get more interesting when we see them in a field where the falcons and the spirits and the mouses are there as well right because that was the case in rio it was different story in rio though right because they didn't meet any of them so they yeah they didn't meet any of the top dogs there they only lost to vitality and furia

[BanKs] And vice versa, it was just the first playoff game they had.

[BanKs] So the next event they'll have where they'll actually link up will be the Major.

[BanKs] where they have the chance to go against the big team.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] So that's also Na'Vi needing to be ready for those kind of guys again, because we're in this weird world of how TOs are and teams going to different events, where Astana, Atlanta, this event, you know, people are skipping because of the American events.

[Devilwalk] But it makes it more exciting.

[Devilwalk] I swear to you, it makes it more exciting.

[Devilwalk] Because now I'm just like, oh, Falcons wasn't here.

[Devilwalk] Their next event, when are they going to play?

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Devilwalk] You get these storylines where I actually get excited.

[BanKs] Mate, Astana.

[Devilwalk] I get awoken, whereas a fan, I need to check this tournament out.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Before it was just like, I don't know, this was a random round.

[BanKs] Everyone's going again.

[Devilwalk] But yeah, it's just like, same old, same old.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] It's like same 16, same, same, just different tournament name, you know.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] It doesn't matter if it was ESL Blast or if it was PGL.

[Devilwalk] I like this, I like this

[BanKs] um so let's go on to the inevitable the dominant it's not even close we can't glaze them any further they are on their fifth tournament win in a row once again um the streak is continuing they only fail at bounty so they're staying

[BanKs] Krakow.

[Devilwalk] They still need that one.

[BanKs] Yes, if it's for you, they still need this blast banner.

[BanKs] I don't think they care.

[BanKs] But it's five tournament trophies in a row.

[BanKs] I think I'll say this now.

[BanKs] I think Vitality are going to do better this year than they did in 2025.

[BanKs] Look at your face.

[Devilwalk] You think?

[BanKs] I think because they didn't, and I know you're going to hate this, but they said they didn't practice before this tournament.

[BanKs] Their practice started when they arrived at the event in America, yeah?

[BanKs] And they still handled everyone.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, but why didn't they practice?

[Devilwalk] Why didn't they practice, Banks?

[BanKs] They need to time off.

[Devilwalk] They needed time off.

[BanKs] Yeah, but they're going to, because they're doing so many events, they're winning so much.

[Devilwalk] Because... It's the tired, Banks.

[Devilwalk] They're tired.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] But let me just look.

[Devilwalk] They had the same... They had the same...

[BanKs] No, no, no, no, no.

[BanKs] This doesn't work, Devorg.

[BanKs] This doesn't work.

[BanKs] Look at this, right?

[BanKs] They're going to go to Atlanta where it's literally other than Na'Vi, there's no teams there that can be super competitive against them.

[BanKs] So it's an even easier tournament than what they've just entered.

[Devilwalk] Which makes it harder because they want...

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Okay.

[BanKs] Okay, they're going to win Atlanta.

[BanKs] I'm just putting it out here now.

[BanKs] They're not going to CAC.

[BanKs] So then they're off from the 17th of May until the 11th of June.

[BanKs] Their schedule's fine.

[BanKs] They won't be tired when it comes to the major, mate.

[BanKs] Obviously, they need to come back to practice instead of it.

[Devilwalk] We're talking about a whole year here.

[Devilwalk] We're not just skipping... I think they're going to win the major too, but to say they're going to have a better year than last year...

[BanKs] Okay, I'm saying they've mastered the schedule.

[BanKs] They've mastered the schedule.

[BanKs] They are going to win Atlanta.

[BanKs] They are probably going to win the major, unless Falcons and Kerrigan do some magic in there.

[BanKs] So there we go.

[BanKs] Remember how bad 2025 second half of the year was until they won the major?

[Devilwalk] How bad!

[BanKs] No, no.

[BanKs] The second half, the second half of that year was, yeah.

[BanKs] I feel like they'll do better this next time around.

[Devilwalk] Then the best year in Counter-Strike.

[BanKs] Exactly.

[BanKs] I'm feeling it.

[Devilwalk] Okay.

[BanKs] I'm feeling it for them, man.

[Devilwalk] I mean, it's not impossible.

[Devilwalk] I'm just saying it's unlikely.

[BanKs] It's going to happen.

[Devilwalk] All right, let's do it.

[BanKs] I'm just putting it out there.

[BanKs] The bank's prediction is thrown out to the wild.

[Devilwalk] So the Na'Vi fanboy is essentially saying that Na'Vi won't be making any trophies this year from this point onwards.

[Devilwalk] Is that what you're saying?

[BanKs] I'll just say this.

[BanKs] There is a member of Vitality.

[Devilwalk] Don't say it.

[BanKs] No, there's a member of Vitality using my mousepad.

[Devilwalk] Say it.

[BanKs] There is not a member of Na'Vi using my mousepad.

[BanKs] Maybe when Vitality... Well, maybe when Messi doesn't use my mousepad and then we'll know.

[BanKs] I'm on full cope.

[BanKs] No, I will say, I don't think Na'Vi will, unless Vitality aren't at the tournament, then yeah.

[BanKs] And by the way, the next half of the year, there's many people skipping tournaments and doing all craziness again.

[Devilwalk] All right.

[BanKs] So there will be that chance for an EPL win for Na'Vi or, I don't know, a smaller event win for Na'Vi, one of the smaller ESL events.

[BanKs] It's definitely possible.

[BanKs] So let's look at Vitality's run.

[BanKs] 2-1 foot, 2-1 G2.

[BanKs] By the way, definitely could have lost the G2 game as we already touched on.

[BanKs] But they were just kind of learning.

[BanKs] So Flamesy said it on the interview at the desk, right?

[BanKs] That like...

[BanKs] All this update had happened.

[BanKs] We spoke to players on the podcast.

[BanKs] I messaged them and got feedback on the new update, the Animagraph update.

[BanKs] Flamesy's like, it's not really that big of a change.

[BanKs] There's some things, but he didn't think it was so huge.

[BanKs] Obviously, I'm paraphrasing here.

[BanKs] But they did have to kind of jump back into CS, get used to it again, and they saw some struggles.

[BanKs] So even with that level of game, they took down foot with a coach, obviously.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] It didn't look as bad as when you look at it this way, right?

[BanKs] But obviously, they beat them on Mirage.

[BanKs] They started off...

[BanKs] really strong on nuke and couldn't finish it at the end they did lose their dust too right two foot um another map of losing of streaks as well but and not not at any point

[BanKs] Did I feel worried that Vitality wouldn't win the tournament?

[BanKs] You know, if that makes sense.

[BanKs] They can drop a map.

[BanKs] They can come back into games.

[BanKs] They can be down against Na'Vi like they were in the finals, but they weren't losing.

[Devilwalk] They were definitely rusty, and you could see, you know...

[BanKs] This is just where they're at.

[Devilwalk] you know, Xtas and Apex kind of yelling at the boys, trying to get everyone to get, you know, into more team play and play off each other a little bit more.

[BanKs] Focused up.

[Devilwalk] Because there's definitely a situation where they got caught off guard, which was very un-vitality.

[Devilwalk] Um...

[Devilwalk] But in the end, they grew from every game and kind of got back into a level they needed to be at.

[BanKs] Yeah, and it's another ZywOo MVP.

[BanKs] I do love the ZywOo interview where he said, like, for once, I'll say I robbed my teammates because he said Ropz robbed one from him.

[BanKs] And then now he robbed one from Ropz because Ropz played so amazing in that final.

[BanKs] By the way, what was his rating at the end of that final?

[BanKs] Let me see.

[BanKs] Because I know Rops was just like the mega carry.

[BanKs] All those clutches.

[BanKs] 1-5-5 rating in the final.

[Devilwalk] Let me see.

[BanKs] 1-5-5.

[BanKs] 60 for 39.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] He had so many clutches.

[BanKs] His 5-7 plays.

[BanKs] Bro, his 5-7.

[BanKs] It was wonderful.

[BanKs] Holding Pillar on B-side.

[BanKs] It's in a 1v1.

[BanKs] Wonderful's got the AK.

[BanKs] This is a round on Anubis that probably would have secured the map for or given them a fighting chance in the map because nothing's secured against Vitality.

[BanKs] It was just the perfect two shots and finished him off with that 5-7.

[BanKs] Rops read it perfectly.

[Devilwalk] It's kind of weird that Ropz didn't win it.

[BanKs] Rupps did win it.

[BanKs] Oh, I thought you meant the clutch.

[BanKs] You meant the MVP.

[Devilwalk] The MVP.

[Devilwalk] Because wasn't the last tournament, like, Saivuu because of his great final?

[BanKs] So... I...

[BanKs] Yes.

[BanKs] Let's compare the difference.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] ROPS had a 1.16 for ROPS, but an insane final, and then a 1.34 for ZywOo.

[Devilwalk] Complair.

[BanKs] The difference is substantial.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] Zyra also had a good final.

[BanKs] Flames is in the middle of these two, by the way.

[BanKs] 1.21 rating across all of it, but obviously didn't have such the impact on the final.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] What event was this at?

[BanKs] It was at Rotterdam, right, where we last had this up in arms confusion about it all.

[BanKs] So if I now go to Rotterdam...

[BanKs] rotterdam it was again against navi drops was 1.56 zaira was 1.22 this is final drops was 1.55 zara was 1.29 but if you go to rotterdam and you look down how actually close it was

[Devilwalk] yeah.

[BanKs] Zyra is 147, but Ropz is 132.

[BanKs] So what's that?

[BanKs] A 0.15 difference?

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] And then the overall difference in rivals was a... Yeah, it's too high.

[Devilwalk] yeah I guess 128 what are these numbers man

[BanKs] yeah it's like a one one two eight i don't know the money to work sound the ratings so where is that

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I understand.

[Devilwalk] But why are you saying 1, 2, 8?

[Devilwalk] What's the difference?

[Devilwalk] 18.

[BanKs] The difference is 0.18.

[BanKs] Yeah, 0.18.

[BanKs] It's not that huge.

[BanKs] Bro, I can't work out HLTV's numbers with this.

[BanKs] I can't at all.

[Devilwalk] I don't know.

[Devilwalk] I thought from the last one, the finals were more important than the group stage.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] It didn't really matter that much.

[Devilwalk] So in my head, I just see it like it doesn't matter if Rob says a bad group stage.

[Devilwalk] Because it won't count as badly as a good rating and a good group stage, if that makes sense.

[BanKs] The one that Rops won, he was 0.15 behind.

[BanKs] This time he was 0.18 behind.

[BanKs] How was his other matches?

[BanKs] How was Rops' other matches in playoffs as well?

[BanKs] Because you need to look at all his playoff matches, right?

[Devilwalk] Playoffs are the most important.

[BanKs] So he did really well against game leads in 1.21, 1.36.

[BanKs] He did.

[BanKs] That's it.

[BanKs] That's all his playoff matches.

[Devilwalk] Ah, yeah.

[Devilwalk] That's true.

[BanKs] So he did have some bad games against G2 and some bad games against foot in group stage.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Whatever.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] I mean, all three of them are the servant of an MVP to some extent, eventually.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] yeah definitely definitely all right so that is our wrap on everything blast rivals so someone if you are american maybe if you attended the event let us know what you thought of it overall and maybe why it wasn't more packed out um than that considering it is also still three days of like great

[BanKs] playing great teams but i guess it could be just down to the team list which maybe atlanta will also struggle with in there but atlanta is also inside a dream hack right dream hack

[BanKs] Yeah, so they benefit from having the DreamHack party at the same time.

[BanKs] So you'll get more people come in the same way Dallas was.

[Devilwalk] All right.

[BanKs] So that's a different thing if you compare it.

[BanKs] But I will stand by that the American crowds are always normally really good.

[BanKs] I do enjoy them.

[BanKs] This one was just very lacking of people and was a bit of a shame, especially considering the new style.

[Devilwalk] Maybe it was because Furia wasn't in the playoff.

[BanKs] Not in Brazil, bro.

[Devilwalk] No, but what do you mean?

[Devilwalk] It's... You don't think Brazilians pack up American arenas?

[BanKs] They could, but also, they would have bought the tickets before anyone even knew what was happening.

[Devilwalk] They're fucking packing up Europe arenas.

[Devilwalk] Well, that's true.

[BanKs] Something doesn't add up here.

[BanKs] Something doesn't add up here.

[BanKs] If it was just the teams, maybe.

[Devilwalk] Maybe they just, fuck it.

[Devilwalk] We're not going now.

[BanKs] Yeah, maybe it's the fact that both events are so close together, Atlanta and Fort Worth.

[BanKs] And then obviously Atlanta probably offers more value to a spectator because then you get to go to the DreamHack stuff as well.

[BanKs] I'm a big fan of the DreamHack ones because when we always used to do Dallas,

[BanKs] I used to finish work and I'd still be able to go into the exhibition area and there'd be anime stalls, there'd be some street fire going on, some tech and like there was a lot of other stuff we could do, you know, so.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] Maybe that plays a factor.

[BanKs] Someone can let us know in the comments either way, but we will get on to some of our recent news.

[BanKs] While all of this was going on, it was already teased, but Valve has released an update with a new cash rework.

[BanKs] I haven't played any of it, mate.

[BanKs] So you're going to be the one that has to fill me in here.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] It's obviously only in the competitive, casual, deathmatch, retake modes.

[BanKs] But this is a map that I personally have fond memories of.

[BanKs] I love the map.

[BanKs] I don't know about you, your thoughts on cash overall.

[BanKs] Did you like cash and cobblestone or did you prefer one or the other?

[Devilwalk] I hate it, Kobo.

[Devilwalk] I like cash.

[BanKs] I liked Cobble from even 1.6 days.

[BanKs] Very seated-sided map back then.

[BanKs] But I like both of them.

[BanKs] I'm a fan of Cache.

[BanKs] I just always enjoy playing it.

[BanKs] I'm happy to see it back.

[BanKs] And I think, I hope, this means that... Valve, please, someone, if you're ever watching this podcast,

[Devilwalk] before the grand final hype the crowd with a valve releases map

[BanKs] announce on the grand finals of the major because you already tell the players and teams before they already tell the players and teams like they know that the maps come in if you're at the major days but just on the grand final before the grand final the announcement will stand on stage and we'll be like

[BanKs] Cash is going to be in the competitive map from tomorrow.

[BanKs] All the teams will be practicing it.

[Devilwalk] That would be sick.

[BanKs] It's there for the VRS.

[BanKs] Boom.

[BanKs] That would be phenomenal.

[BanKs] That would be so good.

[BanKs] But yeah, you've been on it.

[Devilwalk] So, I haven't played the map.

[BanKs] Okay.

[Devilwalk] I haven't played it.

[Devilwalk] I haven't played a competitive game on it, but I've looked around on it.

[BanKs] Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] Looks good.

[Devilwalk] I think it looks pretty clean.

[BanKs] It's not green.

[BanKs] It's not green anymore.

[BanKs] That's good.

[Devilwalk] I like the aesthetic a lot more than the original.

[BanKs] The green version.

[Devilwalk] It's not original.

[BanKs] Yeah, the one that was before this, right, where it was all just green and low FPS.

[Devilwalk] Middle version.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Looks clean, looks good, looks like they fought about nade usage, flashes, you know.

[Devilwalk] I think it's going to be a little bit interesting, like on B site, there's like a pipe blocking

[Devilwalk] the window but would still flash players playing on the B site and stuff like that so you can kind of run with flashes as you run in so

[BanKs] Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] It looks like they fought about a lot of this stuff and it's going to be interesting to see how it actually plays.

[Devilwalk] They obviously kept the wallbang area from when you rotate around Underheaven for CT side if they take the vent room.

[BanKs] nice oh the one you hated the little jump up to it yeah well that's good then that's good it's gone

[Devilwalk] They've removed that damn window in mid-mirage, mid-cache CT side, which I absolutely found disturbing to many levels.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, it's great.

[BanKs] Perfect.

[Devilwalk] But yeah, I like it.

[Devilwalk] I think it's going to be interesting to see.

[Devilwalk] I remember how it was played at the end of the competitive map pool.

[Devilwalk] So maybe I'll go on a little bit of a rant of how it used to be played.

[Devilwalk] And maybe if you guys spot something when you're watching cash actually being played or when you play it yourself, right?

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Biggest issue for Cityside, you kind of had to smoke all three parts of the map.

[Devilwalk] so you smoked A main you smoked mid and you smoked B

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] You didn't want mostly them to take mid control, because that gave them access to vents, drop down, you can split, you can fake.

[Devilwalk] So you kind of wanted to have that central area a lot, but it was kind of impossible to hold all the time.

[Devilwalk] But essentially it meant that CTs had very little utility to play with.

[Devilwalk] So double AWPing is great.

[Devilwalk] Being aggressive into A main is great because then you can kind of funnel the smokes into mid again and playing deep in the cover or deep into A main so that you kind of keep some control and can leave them there.

[Devilwalk] um but it ended up being a competitive kind of place where tees just waited waited waited waited they waited for the smokes to kind of be used from the cities they let them take space

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] And the map became really, really slow at the end of the competitive scene.

[Devilwalk] So I'm worried we'll see a very, very slow-paced style on Cache again as we move into it.

[Devilwalk] But once I think in the beginning, you probably never start off that way.

[Devilwalk] People are going to test the limits a little bit more.

[BanKs] Mm hmm.

[Devilwalk] So I hope to get that kind of

[Devilwalk] Very, very aggressive boosting, flashing out mid, taking spades, dropping vents, a lot of this flashy, fast-paced plays that you can do on this map.

[Devilwalk] And also feature a lot of great executes, like spawn smokes and all that kind of good stuff.

[BanKs] Did they remove symbols graffiti?

[Devilwalk] Well, they had all the Fnatic ones back then.

[BanKs] Ooh.

[BanKs] They should add that back.

[BanKs] Don't remove graffitis, man.

[BanKs] Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

[BanKs] Add everything back.

[BanKs] I don't want to see graffitis gone.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] I think you should have all graffitis on.

[BanKs] It's legacy of our game.

[BanKs] yeah don't take them away don't take them away um cool well i'm looking forward to playing a little bit i'll probably play some in astana before i head there um or when i head there that's probably my best time to be able to do it next thing this is kind of crazy did you ever play with boris or meet him or yeah

[Devilwalk] I did.

[Devilwalk] So I played a Kinguin Cup at one point where me and Mikelele won against S1mple.

[BanKs] Okay.

[BanKs] Is this the one you and Michael Ailey won?

[BanKs] I remember this.

[Devilwalk] When S1mple was in his prime, I might add.

[BanKs] This is actually Prime.

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Devilwalk] This is Prime Simple.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] And this is two retired Swedes who... I'm not sure.

[BanKs] I worked one of these.

[BanKs] I don't know if I worked the one you won or not.

[Devilwalk] But I remember it was me and Michael Ehle and we were like, oh, it's Kinguin Cup.

[BanKs] yeah yeah the polish one right

[Devilwalk] We should just ask people who played in Kinguin.

[Devilwalk] So we asked Rallen and I think we played Masinu, maybe.

[Devilwalk] And then we said, okay, now we have the old people.

[Devilwalk] Now we need someone that can really shoot.

[Devilwalk] And yeah, then we picked up Boris for this.

[Devilwalk] And damn, he was shooting hard, man.

[BanKs] You're flashing for him, you're doing everything.

[Devilwalk] This kid had an insane, like one of the most insane kind of mechanical skill I've seen in Counter-Strike.

[Devilwalk] It was so easy to call.

[Devilwalk] I basically said, Boros,

[Devilwalk] You go calm.

[Devilwalk] We're gonna do this, this, this, this, this, this, this.

[Devilwalk] You go calm.

[Devilwalk] And he's like, okay.

[Devilwalk] That's all he said.

[Devilwalk] And he just went and killed people.

[Devilwalk] And I absolutely loved it.

[Devilwalk] It was so easy to be a caller in that game.

[Devilwalk] Everything I said Boris to do, he just destroyed everyone he saw.

[BanKs] Okay, so Algo plus Boros when?

[Devilwalk] No.

[Devilwalk] I think this is a long time ago.

[Devilwalk] I was a big fan of Boros, but obviously recent behavior is...

[BanKs] Bro, I don't even understand, man.

[BanKs] Like...

[BanKs] I agree with you.

[BanKs] I heard from just not even people, just not even pro players.

[BanKs] I mean, just people playing high level face it.

[BanKs] Boris is so good.

[BanKs] Boris is so like individually, mechanically, super skilled players, right?

[Devilwalk] It's one of the most wasted talents.

[BanKs] And he comes from a region.

[BanKs] He's from Jordan, right?

[BanKs] Yeah, it's the Middle East.

[BanKs] It's like you've got no hope.

[BanKs] You have no hope in terms of Counter-Strike from that country.

[BanKs] And this guy is living the dream and he actually has the skills to back it up.

[BanKs] he's been on all these mixed teams like his team roster history is crazy right from nasa no no if i'm gonna go from the beginning from nasa which is middle eastern team endpoint monty falcons into the breach and then after that it's all terrible right

[Devilwalk] He was, he was in Falcons.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] And it must be his attitude or his ego.

[BanKs] Because I've done interviews with him.

[BanKs] I've spoken to him.

[BanKs] I had a nice conversation at one major with him.

[BanKs] What was his first major?

[BanKs] Paris major.

[BanKs] Paris Major.

[BanKs] And there was an RMR as well.

[Devilwalk] Okay, it was Paris.

[BanKs] There was a PGL RMR as well.

[BanKs] It was Antwerp.

[BanKs] And actually, there was one time we were on the same floor of the hotel and I bumped into him.

[BanKs] I just got chatting to him for ages outside my door.

[BanKs] And I thought, this kid's all right, actually.

[BanKs] Like, pretty well spoken, yeah?

[BanKs] Understands the game.

[BanKs] He's got something about him.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] Maybe he can do well.

[BanKs] And obviously, he has the meme with Falcons changing his mouse and Sonic not being happy with it, whatever else.

[BanKs] But, like...

[BanKs] It's so sad to see where he's got because for people who don't understand what we're talking about, he is barred from the ACL.

[BanKs] I don't even know what the ACL is.

[BanKs] 2026 over discriminatory language.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] So Hero Esports has announced that alter ego star Boros will not be allowed to participate in the Asia Champions League.

[BanKs] So he's in Asia right now over the use of racially discriminatory language during the preparation time of the event.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] it's a clip so he has apologized he's put a video up apologizing he's tweeted he said my recent words were inappropriate and come across as racist that wasn't my intention he said i apologize to those affected especially my fellow chinese friends and i'll be more mindful about how i communicate moving forward now obviously we cannot accept any of this right that's for sure

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] but i mean he's someone who should know better because i i remember hearing things like him complaining about people being racist towards him from where he's from so he understands what it's like you know to be on that side of things

[Devilwalk] It's...

[BanKs] And the thing is, that team he's on, Alter Ego, right?

[BanKs] It's him, Gratisfaction, Pokemon, the Pakistani kid who people hyped up for a long time.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] He might be older now.

[BanKs] He's 28.

[BanKs] I don't know.

[BanKs] He's just farming in that lower down tiers anyway.

[BanKs] Gratisfaction's there.

[BanKs] Bentet.

[BanKs] So it's like they're not going to be a super elite team, but they could do very well within the Asia region.

[BanKs] They could qualify for some of these things, right?

[BanKs] There's definitely potential in there.

[BanKs] But they are literally from all over the world.

[BanKs] You've got a Ukrainian, a Jordanian, a Pakistani, a New Zealander, and an Indonesian.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] That's a mix and a half, man.

[BanKs] That's a mix.

[BanKs] But I don't know how you get out of this now.

[BanKs] Surely he's done.

[Devilwalk] No, and I even saw some other tweet about it.

[Devilwalk] I was trying to find it as you were talking about it, but basically it wasn't just because of him being, you know...

[BanKs] Hmm.

[Devilwalk] disrespecting in matchmaker or anything he actually used that language in like a tournament setting to admins which obviously is completely disgraceful it's not okay it's not what we want the game to be about I mean

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] not in a professional sense you're always going to have trolls and people who talk badly in matchmaking and all this kind of stuff because it is a

[Devilwalk] infuriating game when you lose and sometimes you suck but this is not the way it's sad to see because he was such a talent such a talent and it's just gone downhill and it's

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I'm sad to see it.

[Devilwalk] I thought he could be the next big thing, if I'm honest, with his capacity.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Mm-hmm.

[BanKs] And probably it puts a big thorn in the side for the rest of his teammates as well, considering they were trying to grind up.

[Devilwalk] Sorry, my throat.

[BanKs] They actually, in the closed qualifier, they made it to the main event through not even just his performance, like Ben Tech was still popping off in those things.

[BanKs] And like I said, in that region, they could potentially have done well.

[BanKs] so maybe they need to look for a new member we don't know what the update is of right now but um just because it's boris i thought we would touch on it a little bit um from boros to someone we can only talk positively about is ash and it's finally out there ash parts way with game legion game legions announced their parts ways with ash bringing the 35 year olds um

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] over five years stint five years of the organization to an end obviously he wanted to put himself um out of the equation i saw it was co-streaming and stuff as well he's obviously i don't know let's look at his youtube numbers i think his youtube does very well

[Devilwalk] Yeah, probably.

[BanKs] Ash's playbook yeah he's always getting like 53k views 37k views like he so he's a smart man on knowing CS obviously we learned he even played CS with Mezzy um

[Devilwalk] Hello, I am Buraz.

[Devilwalk] I want to apologize.

[BanKs] This guy's always been good with being well-spoken, always been praised very highly as a coach.

[BanKs] I wanted to see him go to FaZe and they got NKJ.

[BanKs] So maybe he himself doesn't want to go anywhere just yet, but now he's free.

[BanKs] I doubt he will stay free long if he does want to go back to coaching.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I'm sure he's going to weigh up his options and see how he's feeling and if he's ready to take the same step again.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] But an incredible talent within coaching in Counter-Strike, and we obviously want to see him back as soon as possible.

[Devilwalk] I don't know, there's plenty of good options for him.

[Devilwalk] I think people kind of just want to wait and see if when he feels good, they're ready to offer him a job, basically.

[BanKs] Yeah, but he was rumored to have many offers before when Game Legion were going on the up and didn't take him because he wanted to stay with Game Legion.

[BanKs] And then now to have this, it's kind of tough.

[BanKs] We'll have to keep an eye on where he could go in the future.

[BanKs] But I just think if he's already co-streaming, doing all this other stuff and the content,

[BanKs] Maybe after the major, he will be up.

[BanKs] Maybe that's when we'll see him get joined on.

[BanKs] But for now, I've not heard of anything.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] And the next one.

[BanKs] So this is getting wild, man.

[BanKs] And I'm not sure what to do with BC game anymore.

[BanKs] Because...

[BanKs] BC Game have taken Senzu on loan.

[BanKs] So Senzu left Passion UA.

[BanKs] Obviously, he couldn't even hang.

[BanKs] He wasn't able to put up with the Passion UA boys.

[BanKs] He couldn't hang in there any longer.

[BanKs] Maybe they didn't want him.

[BanKs] But I mean, he was the standout player for that team.

[BanKs] That's for sure.

[BanKs] um and now he joins bc games so you've got simple electronics senzu and crazy they still don't have an igl by the looks of it um i don't know man

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] It's hard for me to know.

[BanKs] I listened to or I watched some of the clips that get posted from the general manager stream.

[BanKs] He's obviously taking it very seriously.

[BanKs] Their plan is to obviously be spoken about, especially it's beneficial for BC game and the people they are, the background of the company.

[BanKs] But like they bought in the Portuguese lot, which was not going to be cheap.

[BanKs] They're now down on, where are they?

[BanKs] 77th in the VRS rankings.

[BanKs] They're luckily still going to Atlanta.

[BanKs] I'm guessing as many teams said no.

[BanKs] But they're bringing Senzu and we still don't know who their fifth is.

[Devilwalk] Ahem.

[BanKs] Like, I just want to know, because you've got Taz, you've got S1mple, you've now taken Senzu.

[BanKs] Crazy is obviously still there, still believed in him.

[BanKs] They want to try to keep this core together.

[BanKs] Is this a team you can take seriously anymore?

[BanKs] Is this a team we should focus on?

[BanKs] It's like, what is going on?

[Devilwalk] I don't know.

[Devilwalk] I mean, I don't really know what to make of this.

[Devilwalk] I think it's a weird move from Sensu to join this team, first of all.

[Devilwalk] I don't think that this is... Well, that's weird.

[BanKs] Maybe he doesn't have many offers.

[Devilwalk] I mean, I feel like he should have.

[Devilwalk] Plenty of opportunities.

[Devilwalk] But, yeah.

[Devilwalk] I don't know what to say.

[Devilwalk] I feel like this team is just...

[BanKs] Mm hmm.

[Devilwalk] I feel like BC Game is the kind of team that will never live up to the expectations we've put on them.

[Devilwalk] And a lot of that is because of S1mple, but a lot of that is also with S1mple, how absolute...

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] shit they've been if we're completely honest they've had multiple opportunities they bought their way to get those opportunities they assembled this team and it just got worse and worse from every time I saw them the first event was probably the best event I've saw of them

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] um and i'm just wondering is this you know gonna work is this gonna

[BanKs] It's also like, what's the loan conditions, you know?

[BanKs] Like, is it more if Senzu's happy, if it's how they gel together?

[BanKs] Like, what are they looking at here as how they find the perfect pieces for them?

[BanKs] Because Senzu as an individual player is going to be great.

[BanKs] But is he going to be used to this style of playing?

[BanKs] Is he going to be used to what these players want, you know?

[Devilwalk] this environment yeah

[BanKs] Yeah, the environment, which we always have to talk about with these guys.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I don't know really what to say.

[Devilwalk] I feel like for me, yes, it's going to be interesting to see their game-ish, but I'm not expecting much.

[Devilwalk] I would have rather seen Senzu kind of play it out with passion, if I'm honest.

[BanKs] yeah and he was performing well i'm looking down his ratings and it's big it's like big numbers pretty much all the time you cannot knock him on it yeah

[Devilwalk] But this to me is just like, what?

[Devilwalk] What's happening?

[Devilwalk] What's going on?

[Devilwalk] Why is this constellation of players being put together right now?

[Devilwalk] I don't understand a thing.

[Devilwalk] And like you say, they don't have an in-game leader.

[Devilwalk] Who are they practicing with?

[Devilwalk] What are they doing?

[Devilwalk] Are they wasting time?

[Devilwalk] Do they have a five-man lineup?

[Devilwalk] They must have.

[Devilwalk] Do they have a fucking game coming up?

[BanKs] yeah thing is they're doing they're doing like i read taz's tweets and he's hopeful and he's positive about it right and what he wants to build the team chemistry and go forward he's obviously trying to set the identity with it all

[Devilwalk] What's going on?

[BanKs] But as of right now, when you keep changing so much, you're not going to have identity.

[BanKs] I don't know.

[BanKs] Let's see who they can get as their fifth.

[BanKs] And obviously then they got to... Remember, every time they're bringing new players in and out as well, they start to rebuild that VRS standing with that lineup.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] And then they have to reset again and reset again.

[BanKs] So, I don't know, man.

[BanKs] It's strange.

[BanKs] We'll have to wait and see who their fifth is going to be.

[BanKs] Obviously, the sub they already made public for Atlanta was supposed to be...

[Devilwalk] Oh, yeah.

[BanKs] no cries right and it's scrap scrunk yes so scrunk is igl i even though we spoke about this last episode it's one in the morning here no scrunk is igl playing

[Devilwalk] Analyst, what?

[BanKs] playing IGL and then he's got to make all the pieces work together for this Atlanta event so I guess he's just there for this tournament

[Devilwalk] Okay.

[BanKs] And their first game is against Vitality, by the way.

[Devilwalk] It almost makes it even weirder.

[BanKs] Yeah, I forgot about it.

[BanKs] Because I even made the crazy tweet.

[BanKs] I don't know.

[BanKs] You probably didn't see it.

[BanKs] I made the tweet.

[BanKs] My tweet was, where is it?

[BanKs] I said, Skrunk is about to go crazy.

[BanKs] IGL Brain will be going electronic while trying to keep things simple because he knows this ride's going to have him needing a senzu bean.

[BanKs] I fit in every player's name.

[BanKs] That was the 27th of April.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[BanKs] It's a long, long day it's been since then.

[BanKs] But yeah, Skrank obviously was not on a loan situation, so he's just there for Atlanta by the looks of it.

[BanKs] luck to him as well good luck to him yeah all right we got two event previews to do next so let's move on into that the first one being the smaller of the two events that are taking place um it's atlanta

[Devilwalk] Good luck, man.

[BanKs] So obviously with Atlanta being an American event, a lot less teams are going from the big, big teams.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[BanKs] But literally of the top 10 teams, it's only Vitality, Na'Vi and Foot and Astralis.

[BanKs] And everything else is like dripping all the way down to like 77th in the VRS.

[BanKs] bc game and his passion sinners like it's a really kind of four teams to look at maybe phase can have some fun run here but it's not impressive i actually spoke to vitality as well and vitality's kind of mindset here i just want to make sure i quote this correctly because i was just checking exactly

[BanKs] what it would be um so obviously esl has that thing with the revenue share right so if you skip too many esl events you uh don't get taken part into it so they couldn't skip this one but also in case of the grand slam if they didn't win it in rio

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[BanKs] than they needed to have it in Atlanta, you know?

[BanKs] So that's why they didn't go Astana, where most of the best teams went to Astana.

[BanKs] So a lot of the teams in Astana are just going to be happy Vitality's not there.

[BanKs] It's going to be a much more open event, where Atlanta's kind of like...

[BanKs] The short end of the stick tournament, not that exciting.

[BanKs] We can just look at a few teams that we've taken part in the major and seeing what they can do here.

[BanKs] But to give the team list rundown, we've got Vitality, Na'Vi, Foot, Astralis, Legacy, Bait, FaZe, Betboom, M80, Liquid,

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] pain energy game legion sinners passion and bc game so obviously we just spoke about bc game they are the lowest uh ranked team in the tournament where would you considering how many also other low teams there are

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] And I do rate Skrunk as being a smart man about Counter-Strike.

[BanKs] Not sure about his playing ability, but as an IGL.

[BanKs] Where would you be hoping they could go?

[BanKs] Where's the thought process from?

[BanKs] How far could they have a run in this tournament?

[Devilwalk] uh they could i think win a lower bracket round no

[BanKs] No playoff chance.

[BanKs] Okay, no playoff chance.

[BanKs] Then you've got Passion.

[BanKs] They're going to be playing with SDY.

[BanKs] So SDY is coming in to replace Senzu.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] I don't think he's going to have the same firepower output for sure.

[BanKs] But Senzu is an experienced, knowledgeable player.

[BanKs] Two Ukrainians in the lineup.

[BanKs] Kvam is still there with SDY now.

[BanKs] for passion like this is this is an important event to have a run in if possible hmm

[Devilwalk] Yeah, and I mean, they were definitely building something with Senzu.

[Devilwalk] I don't know what happened.

[Devilwalk] A PC game kind of came in and just swooped in on the deal.

[Devilwalk] Or what was up.

[Devilwalk] So this kind of staggers their...

[Devilwalk] development a little bit and their plans for this season.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I don't really know what to think of Passions.

[Devilwalk] now that they don't have sensu i still think they can be in like middle of the pack they can beat some teams they can make some rumbles but i don't think they're a playoff team in this tournament yeah six teams

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] How many teams are you getting in playoff with this?

[BanKs] Oh, it's going to be two straight through the semis and then four in quarters.

[BanKs] So it's still a six-team...

[BanKs] Six teams again, which is sad, but that's all changing.

[BanKs] Just got to keep focusing on what's going to happen in 2027.

[BanKs] After Passion, we've got Sinners.

[BanKs] Sinners, obviously, they made the major, right?

[Devilwalk] Yes, I think so.

[BanKs] Let me double check.

[BanKs] Oh, I just say completely wrong.

[BanKs] Yeah, Sinners made the major.

[BanKs] There we go.

[BanKs] Sinners made the major.

[BanKs] So Sinners, they were not even at this tournament.

[BanKs] They replaced BetM.

[BanKs] I guess BetM being Russian team didn't get visas.

[BanKs] So Senna's got to come.

[BanKs] They got themselves in order.

[BanKs] They were able to play.

[BanKs] That's an exciting team in this lineup who have a chance to punch above where they're at and gives them a lot of experience before going to the major.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I'd actually put Sinners as at least a top 8 team in this tournament.

[BanKs] Ooh, okay.

[Devilwalk] I think they're much better.

[BanKs] Potential of making playoffs.

[Devilwalk] Honestly, I think I could see them beating NRG, Pain, Liquid, M80, Betboom even.

[Devilwalk] I think they're around that phase Betboom mark, if I'm honest.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] They won that Star Ladder ranking season one event as well.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, but they're definitely a team with a lot of firepower.

[Devilwalk] They...

[Devilwalk] playing interesting I've seen Modo he obviously played in that nine team in the past can have incredibly high octane games where he's just like full throttle 35 bombing

[BanKs] Yes.

[BanKs] Yes.

[Devilwalk] but it's a bit inconsistent but he's a very very exciting player to watch but yeah I'm looking forward to watching Sinners yeah

[BanKs] That's a team that I'm excited to see play before we get to the major.

[BanKs] Game of Legion, they're in next.

[BanKs] Obviously also in the same stage, stage one of the major as Sinners.

[BanKs] They're playing Sinners in the first game.

[BanKs] After what Game of Legion showed us, and the fact I'm guessing they're going to stay in America, right?

[BanKs] They're not going to go home in between this.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] Even though Atlanta doesn't start for like another, what's it?

[BanKs] five six days they'll still stay in america you're not going to go home in between that right so keep practicing america go for it from there stay adjusted game lesion is the team that i will be looking now at saying okay you made playoffs of a very small event in terms of the amount of teams it's just almost guaranteed to go through you just win one let's see if you can do it here

[Devilwalk] yeah i agree i want to see some stability from gamer legion be able to kind of be a little bit of a gatekeeper to the playoff spots to to some degree uh and maybe maybe clinch one but um yeah

[BanKs] That should be their expectations.

[BanKs] Definitely potential.

[BanKs] Oh, next one's interesting.

[BanKs] NRG.

[Devilwalk] I've been kind of disappointed with the Grimm addition of NRG.

[BanKs] Because we were so...

[BanKs] Yeah, we liked them.

[BanKs] We liked them.

[BanKs] We hyped up the Grim Edition as well, saying what it could bring.

[BanKs] And they've even struggled at that Frag 20 event, which was just a local American event in Las Vegas.

[BanKs] They finished fifth to eighth there.

[BanKs] Oof.

[Devilwalk] yeah not no I think they're in a pretty rough position right now if I'm honest

[BanKs] Oof.

[BanKs] I wouldn't put them going playoffs.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] It's all about what they can show going forward, you know?

[BanKs] If they can show themselves of like they've leveled up a bit, then sure, there's potential with it.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] But I mean, it's probably a lot to ask for.

[BanKs] Payne next.

[BanKs] Oh, Payne.

[BanKs] Payne's with no NQZ.

[BanKs] Safe is in now.

[BanKs] because he needs some time off i'm still not sure who they're playing the major with was it was safe or not let me check he's been around a long time man it's been around a long time um

[Devilwalk] It's crazy safe as 31.

[BanKs] After the circuit excellence in time, that's fine.

[Devilwalk] Either way, I like Safe.

[Devilwalk] I like him as an AWPer.

[Devilwalk] He's a little bit more of a... Trying to play a more consistent AWPing style.

[BanKs] It seems like you're playing at the major.

[Devilwalk] Can be... Yeah.

[BanKs] Seems like you're playing at the major.

[Devilwalk] But yeah, I like Pain, but they're kind of in also a little bit of a rebuild again, again.

[BanKs] Free fall.

[BanKs] Free fall, man.

[Devilwalk] NQC was obviously a big star in this team and

[Devilwalk] But they've been doing really good in the Brazilian region with like they won Betboom Circuit X. Fergie in-house came third.

[Devilwalk] So they have been leveling up as of late and could be an exciting team to kind of watch.

[Devilwalk] Obviously safe, this is the first tournament the player was safe.

[BanKs] first yeah yeah exactly so let's see let's see what he can do um oh my oh no oh rio was bad

[Devilwalk] Liquid.

[Devilwalk] What do you say about Liquid?

[BanKs] They struggle even when they go to tier two events.

[BanKs] They just about made the major.

[BanKs] Here is the golden opportunity to farm some lower down teams based on the name value you have, but actually play up to what is expected of you.

[BanKs] Maybe Malbz is going to be a bit more settled in the team.

[BanKs] Elige, obviously, you can still be praising.

[BanKs] Naf has had a better resurgence.

[BanKs] We're still just looking at Shuhei and Ultimate.

[BanKs] that's that's it every time for me just looking directly at him yeah

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment.

[Devilwalk] I mean, obviously, they should be punching way above.

[Devilwalk] They have some really, really strong players in that team.

[Devilwalk] I'm worried for them because if I look...

[Devilwalk] Sorry.

[Devilwalk] My voice.

[BanKs] Bro you need more water.

[Devilwalk] My voice.

[Devilwalk] I need more water.

[Devilwalk] I'm going to run and get water straight after I finish this sentence.

[BanKs] Yeah yeah.

[Devilwalk] But Liquid for me, I'm worried because when I look at the format, am I looking at this saying Liquid will have a playoff spot?

[Devilwalk] I see all the teams above.

[Devilwalk] I see the form that some of these teams are in.

[Devilwalk] And I'm saying no.

[BanKs] Because it's 16 playoffs, yeah.

[Devilwalk] I don't... Yeah, I don't think Liquid can squeeze in a place in playoff.

[Devilwalk] And I think that's worrisome for them because I don't think anything else is acceptable in their situation either.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] So it's a scary tournament for them.

[BanKs] It is very scary to him.

[BanKs] They need to do well, but there's just so many other teams I might put above him right now.

[BanKs] All right, you grab water and I'll start dealing onto my M80.

[BanKs] See how fast you can be.

[BanKs] So M80 next, I would put above Team Liquid.

[BanKs] He didn't leave his headset on, so he can't hear me.

[BanKs] This guy.

[BanKs] See, look, when I walk away, I keep my headset on.

[BanKs] So I can hear what he's talking about and I know what he's talking about.

[BanKs] So this will be my ultimate time to troll him.

[BanKs] DevWalk is a moron.

[BanKs] He has a wireless headset, but he takes it off.

[BanKs] It's not very smart.

[BanKs] He did come back very quickly.

[BanKs] But as you all know, DevWalk is an idiot.

[BanKs] Because you have a wireless headset.

[BanKs] It says you're muted.

[BanKs] You have a wireless headset.

[BanKs] You could hear me when I'm talking about it.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, but then I have to change everything.

[BanKs] Oh, terrible, terrible.

[BanKs] I need to connect you up properly.

[BanKs] So I was going to say M80, I put their chances way above Liquid of making playoffs.

[BanKs] I actually have them as a team that could make playoffs.

[BanKs] They could do some damage.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I agree on that.

[BanKs] People might look at it and think, oh, but they still only came 58 for that Frag event.

[BanKs] But they're competitive at some of these tier two LAN tournaments in Europe and stuff like that.

[BanKs] So I'm actually, I'll be quite positive around that.

[BanKs] The whole team of, yeah.

[Devilwalk] Dude, I love watching M80.

[Devilwalk] I think they're a great team to watch.

[Devilwalk] And I think that they thrive in scenarios where people underestimate them, you know?

[Devilwalk] When I watch them play, you know, yeah, which is a lot, but when I watch them play and have played, especially at events like this, they love every second of it.

[BanKs] Which is a lot.

[Devilwalk] Every single second.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] Doesn't matter if they're playing a Batboom.

[Devilwalk] Doesn't matter if they're playing a Na'Vi.

[Devilwalk] They want to be there and they want to show themselves.

[Devilwalk] And show up in the game.

[Devilwalk] And they will play all out.

[Devilwalk] If it breaks, it breaks.

[Devilwalk] But they at least try.

[Devilwalk] And they at least give it their all.

[Devilwalk] And that's why I love watching them.

[BanKs] Yeah, that's very fair.

[BanKs] Very fair.

[BanKs] I think this is a team that can certainly make the run here.

[BanKs] I think they can certainly do it.

[BanKs] That's a team to look out for, taking one of those spots away.

[BanKs] um next is bet boom but flamus is replacing dildas now it's not that weird because bet boom have already played some tournaments with him like i think it's the

[Devilwalk] It's I think like a whole year almost.

[BanKs] He replaced him for the other ranked event for Ranked Event Episode 1 from Starladder.

[BanKs] Did he do it at the Roman Cup that they won?

[BanKs] Yep, Flammas was playing there.

[Devilwalk] Thomas played since March.

[BanKs] He was top performer in the final.

[BanKs] Flamers has played a lot, so he knows what he's doing in this team.

[BanKs] He knows what he's doing with these players.

[BanKs] This is a team.

[BanKs] There you go.

[BanKs] So this is a team that has a great chance of going far.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[BanKs] BetBoom is a grinding team.

[BanKs] I still credit Boom, which is being a great in-game leader, can handle a lot of tough situations.

[BanKs] It's just sometimes they seem to get blown out of some games where I go, but that's normally when they come to the bigger event, you know, when they've qualified through.

[BanKs] So I feel like here, this is where they can prove themselves.

[BanKs] They should be looking 100% at playoffs here.

[Devilwalk] They have a chance at playoff.

[Devilwalk] Definitely.

[BanKs] It's not going to be easy.

[Devilwalk] They can set their sights to it.

[Devilwalk] And they can have their expectations there.

[Devilwalk] Because... I think the thing with Beth Poom...

[Devilwalk] you can look at is that they've been consistent in the tier that they've played in.

[Devilwalk] They've been very, very consistently gathering wins.

[Devilwalk] They've played consistently against similar ranked teams.

[Devilwalk] So... I think...

[Devilwalk] They can only really punch upwards in this tournament and, you know, a weakened face or a little bit...

[Devilwalk] undisciplined or unstructured at the moment phase as they are in this kind of development form could be you know a target I think bait could be a target they could swing against I think Astralis could be

[Devilwalk] a team when australis has a bad day they could pick up a win i think it's going to be harder against a team like vitality navi and foot i think those i'm pretty much putting them straight into playoffs and it's going to be a fight for those last three spots

[BanKs] Yeah, that's stable.

[BanKs] Yeah, definitely.

[BanKs] FaZe, I think we've spoken enough about them on the podcast already, but they're playing with Nature again.

[BanKs] This is a team that we'll be looking at riding that high, building off the momentum they had, playing off individual strength.

[BanKs] Obviously, they're not going to have too much more time to practice.

[BanKs] It's what we just mentioned.

[BanKs] It's like six days until the tournament begins.

[BanKs] there's a media day in there and then obviously the travel day after this but there's there's still potential for this team like playoffs again look at that how you can roll it at a deeper tournament also

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] If they play to the level we saw at Blast, then this tournament should be one of those ones where they should be saying to themselves, we can lock in this spot.

[BanKs] I expect Nature to play even better against this level of opposition.

[BanKs] This is where he was farming before.

[Devilwalk] I'm looking at the bracket and it's like, oh, if you see opening group A, that's a very, very, very hard group.

[BanKs] Yeah, it's good potential.

[BanKs] They can beat Payne.

[BanKs] Then they play foot.

[BanKs] They lose the foot.

[Devilwalk] He's back for this?

[BanKs] By the way, oh, to say this, could we get on the foot very soon?

[BanKs] I confirmed it.

[BanKs] Lowndes is back.

[BanKs] Yeah, he's back for this.

[Devilwalk] Nice.

[BanKs] Lance is back for this, so it's really positive for them.

[BanKs] Do you think FaZe can make playoffs, though, in that group?

[Devilwalk] It's very difficult for them.

[BanKs] Vitality.

[Devilwalk] Uh...

[Devilwalk] The thing is, I could see them only really getting the lower final.

[BanKs] Foot.

[BanKs] Oof.

[BanKs] I think Foot's too disciplined to be surprised by that.

[Devilwalk] Realistically.

[Devilwalk] But, you know, maybe they can surprise a foot.

[Devilwalk] Maybe.

[Devilwalk] But...

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I think Vitality and Foot are probably guaranteed in this upper final.

[Devilwalk] And the lower final could maybe be a phase bet boom.

[BanKs] Up in the air.

[Devilwalk] Something along those lines.

[BanKs] Obey.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] all right well we'll go next on to bait as i just mentioned them as well they are in a situation where this is a great event for them ahead of the major um obviously rio was pretty bad wasn't wasn't pretty um

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[Devilwalk] Wasn't pretty.

[BanKs] But Sizzy is warming up.

[BanKs] And it's just about understanding how this team wants to play.

[BanKs] And obviously, I've kept saying it for a long time, but I still believe in this Sizzy guy.

[BanKs] I still think he can do well.

[BanKs] And farming this lower tier opponents, I expect him to dominate.

[Devilwalk] It should have plenty of history.

[BanKs] And he's like, what's their opening game?

[BanKs] They're going up against Betboom.

[BanKs] That's a good game.

[BanKs] That's a good game.

[BanKs] They've got a history playing against each other in some lower CCT finals.

[BanKs] They beat him last year.

[BanKs] A year ago.

[BanKs] A year ago.

[BanKs] They've not played in the last year.

[BanKs] Obviously, that was with Hedrick playing back then as well.

[Devilwalk] But it's also a better betboom and a better bait compared to a year ago.

[Devilwalk] It's a very spicy opening.

[BanKs] They've both won some Tier 2 LAN tournaments.

[BanKs] So they're kind of a spicy opening match for these guys.

[BanKs] Yeah, that's what I want to watch.

[BanKs] That's the first opening game that's got me interested.

[Devilwalk] You're not watching Vital DBC game?

[BanKs] You're watching for obvious reasons, but I mean, you're not going to pay too much attention to it, are you?

[Devilwalk] No.

[BanKs] Like you just, you're going to have it on.

[BanKs] You're going to know the result before it happens.

[Devilwalk] Oh, it's 5-0, close tab.

[BanKs] And maybe you get some simple highlights.

[BanKs] You get some nice simple highlight would be great.

[BanKs] Yeah, that's it.

[Devilwalk] No.

[Devilwalk] No.

[BanKs] That's it.

[BanKs] Okay, so maybe not a potential for playoffs, but a potential if they can get that first win over, bet boom obviously goes up quite a lot.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] Legacy next.

[BanKs] Well, they've had a win in South America.

[BanKs] They won the Rush B Summit Season 3.

[BanKs] They did badly at Rio.

[BanKs] So if everything goes as it is, right, do well in their own scene, fail at Bucharest.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] Fail at Rio, do well in their own scene.

[BanKs] So let's see.

[BanKs] Now they've got a point to prove and Atlanta's not difficult.

[BanKs] For the players they have and where we were so good on them last year, like, come on, this, this, not saying a playoff guaranteed, but they should be gunning for playoffs again.

[Devilwalk] They were kind of the foot of last year.

[BanKs] Yeah, not as exciting.

[Devilwalk] They were not as exciting, but still incredibly exciting to watch.

[BanKs] Exciting moments in the game, but they were never as decisive as Foot, you know?

[BanKs] Foot is a very decisive team where Legacy was always up in the air of what was going to happen, whether it was Lux leading or not.

[Devilwalk] yeah it is they got a I think they got a pretty good bracket to be honest they got M80 to start with Liquid Astralis after I can't fucking speak

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Bro, you're done.

[BanKs] You're actually, you're drinking more water, but you are done.

[BanKs] You're a cook.

[BanKs] We've not even gone that long.

[BanKs] We're about to hit the two-hour mark.

[BanKs] Lucky it's not a completely crazy long podcast today.

[BanKs] Lucky we don't have a guest.

[Devilwalk] I'll try.

[BanKs] Survive, survive, survive.

[BanKs] Yeah, Legacy's mindset should be 100% going to playoffs, but it's not going to be easy.

[BanKs] And this will tell us a lot about them.

[BanKs] This will tell us a lot about them and where they're at.

[BanKs] we're still trying to learn about how it is with art because at the beginning we were so positive about it but it's not showing up in the same way um so from legacy to our last four teams we're gonna go with astralis

[Devilwalk] I don't think so.

[BanKs] Is this for you a playoff guaranteed team?

[BanKs] Because I think the first three teams, Vitality, Na'Vi and Futs, like guaranteed.

[BanKs] But Astralis, I'm not saying it's guaranteed at all.

[Devilwalk] I think...

[Devilwalk] They've shown that they can be, but it's been too, like I said earlier, they flip flop, they're not progressing in a way that's consistent.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] 100%.

[Devilwalk] Does that make sense?

[Devilwalk] Like they're not consistently showing up in performances.

[Devilwalk] And that makes me worry for a bracket where you have a lot of teams hungry to kind of get a spot, hungry to play good on a day.

[Devilwalk] that might not be consistent themselves but they end up in a matchup where they have a bad start Astralis and their executes aren't working the calls aren't working their players aren't on point

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] I'd be scared going up against a starved liquid, a legacy who needs to prove themselves in the international scene again after, you know, kind of...

[Devilwalk] failing the expectations to some degree and M80 who has been gone for a long time you have Sinners, Gamer Legion in the group who I could all pretty much all teams in this group I could see beating Astralis in the day

[BanKs] That's scary.

[Devilwalk] And that's a very very scary prospect.

[BanKs] I will say that Liquid should be a comfortable team for them.

[BanKs] My eyes were on Ryu just because he had a bad tournament in Fort Worth and we were so hyped about his individual skill and dominance he showed at the beginning of joining Astralis.

[BanKs] And jl saying like how hard this guy works how much he grinds.

[BanKs] It's like maybe he's overthinking things now So i'm really looking at him to because he's gonna go up against the leisure early on, you know

[BanKs] That's a mechanically gifted and sharp player.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] Let's see if you can shut him down because if he gets hot hands and gets going, that's a problem.

[BanKs] Same for Malbz even.

[BanKs] So if Ryu's going to have to put himself to the test straight away up against that Liquid.

[BanKs] All right, next is Foot.

[BanKs] I feel like now they've got Lowndes back.

[BanKs] This is, like, I'm sure they're flying.

[Devilwalk] It's the upper final white healthy foot.

[Devilwalk] 100%.

[BanKs] I'm sure they flew him out early, by the way, so he's adjusted.

[BanKs] He's good.

[BanKs] His health's good now that he's coming back.

[BanKs] And this is an event where, like, they should be looking at a grand final finish, maybe a top three, top four finish.

[BanKs] There was a third place decider here, so...

[BanKs] Yeah, I'm just obviously all positive about foot.

[Devilwalk] yeah it's gonna be exciting to see Vitality foot again but with let's see if your prediction were correct from the start yeah

[BanKs] yeah yeah we'll actually see the real match the real match um second is navi probably make a grand final again unless they get upset along the way should be a very comfortable game for them as long as they don't take any opponents lightly until they get to vitality you know yeah

[Devilwalk] They've shown consistency and I have no doubts in them, their ability to at least win their Group B.

[BanKs] yeah and then last but not least vitality obviously they should be the overall winners for the event on paper how this all works but it comes into this is such a lesser of an event

[BanKs] of team quality, how did they handle that?

[BanKs] Because now they're going to, I heard it in all the interviews, they're going to chill for a few more days.

[BanKs] Messi and Apex are going to New York for a bit of a chill.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] Flamesy's going walking through some mountains somewhere, you know?

[BanKs] They're not going to be playing CS again, bro.

[BanKs] They're going to be chilling.

[BanKs] They'll come back and play a few days.

[BanKs] They deserve the break.

[BanKs] I'm not doubting that at all.

[BanKs] But they are chilling so hard going into this event that they're going to be bringing their B or C game for those opening group stage games.

[BanKs] They're not going to get upset by a BC game.

[BanKs] I'll say it here now.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] But I do think that...

[BanKs] I would say it's going to be how quickly can they learn to adjust to such lower down teams when you meet them?

[BanKs] Because it's not the same as playing teams you regularly see in the top 16.

[Devilwalk] Well, I mean, for Vitality, I'm not worried.

[Devilwalk] Even if they take these kinds of breaks, not worried.

[BanKs] Okay.

[Devilwalk] It's not the skill of Vitality players that is that scary, it's how well they interconnect and how they are as a team, how fast they respond to situations, how they adjust, how well they play 3v3 situations or xvx.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] that doesn't disappear I think that kind of problem solving still is in them no matter what the only thing you might be able to say is they're not gonna be as sharp individually but yeah

[BanKs] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] I'm sure there's going to be some rust, but at the end of the day, it's Vitality.

[Devilwalk] It's the best team in Counter-Strike history.

[Devilwalk] I don't have any doubts of them.

[Devilwalk] Even if they would lose a game, they'll make playoffs.

[Devilwalk] They'll grind their way into a grand final, and they'll probably win it.

[BanKs] Most likely.

[BanKs] If everything is to go as it's supposed to go, then probably.

[BanKs] Let's go down our predictions because we do have the opening matchups for Atlanta.

[Devilwalk] We went with Vitality.

[BanKs] So first game is Vitality BC game.

[BanKs] Vitality, right?

[BanKs] um bait bet boom i went for bait i believe in the sissy magic you went okay okay um pain phase i think we both chose phase

[Devilwalk] Batboom!

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I was pleasantly surprised what I saw from FaZe.

[Devilwalk] And I think they can kind of snowball with this positive feeling into this event.

[BanKs] NRG foot, double foot, all the feet, all the feet.

[Devilwalk] Double foot.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, we're feet people.

[BanKs] Free feet pics at foot events for the future.

[BanKs] There you go.

[BanKs] Navi passion, Navi Navi.

[Devilwalk] yeah I'm a little bit it's a toss up for me

[BanKs] Now, I'm surprised this one.

[BanKs] I thought you might have gone for Sinners in the game of Legion of Sinners, but you went Game of Legion.

[BanKs] Okay.

[BanKs] Okay.

[BanKs] Yeah, I think it's all about how much we saw from Game of Legion.

[BanKs] I picked Game of Legion as well, but how much we saw from Game of Legion during Fort Worth, how that can carry through and if it's possible.

[BanKs] Oh, Legacy M80.

[BanKs] I went M80.

[Devilwalk] I want legacy.

[BanKs] You think Legacy's clash of styles is then their way of doing it, you know?

[Devilwalk] I don't know.

[Devilwalk] I'm just in love with art being in legacy kind of deal.

[BanKs] Okay.

[BanKs] Okay.

[Devilwalk] I just want to see it work out.

[BanKs] Liquid Astralis.

[Devilwalk] I put Astralis.

[BanKs] up at australis as well an overall winner to win the whole tournament oh hmm foots rv no it's vitality double vitality should we predict who will go through though on the playoffs yeah

[Devilwalk] Fatality for both Let me actually just put up the tournament page again and I will say

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] Vitality in foot through the upper final.

[Devilwalk] Foot loses comes quarter.

[BanKs] Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] And then we have a bet boom.

[Devilwalk] I think it's going to be between FaZe and Batboom in the lower finals.

[Devilwalk] And I will say FaZe.

[BanKs] Okay, I'm going to do exactly the same as you.

[BanKs] I can't even be interesting.

[BanKs] Vitality, semis, foot phase, quarters.

[BanKs] So I'll do Group B first.

[BanKs] I think Na'Vi go through to the semis.

[BanKs] I think Astralis will join them there and end up in the quarters.

[Devilwalk] Really?

[BanKs] But I feel like we will get a M80 joining and getting a little deep run and having the other quarter spot from that lower final.

[Devilwalk] You're big on M80.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] I don't know.

[BanKs] I just feel like they're a team, especially in America, that could do well.

[BanKs] And we also need one American representation for the Atlanta event shortly.

[Devilwalk] Is this just like follows maxing?

[BanKs] Yes, the Americans, of course.

[Devilwalk] Yes, you need Americans.

[Devilwalk] I'm not a big fan of M80, but it's been a long time since I saw them play.

[Devilwalk] I don't really know what to expect.

[BanKs] But I predict them to beat Legacy anyway, right?

[BanKs] So I expect them to beat that.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, that's true.

[BanKs] Then they lose to Astralis and they go through the lower semis and the lower final.

[Devilwalk] I'll say Navi Astralis in the upper.

[BanKs] Mm-hmm.

[Devilwalk] But I think it's going to be Gamer Legion or Sinners on lower.

[Devilwalk] They might even meet each other there because there's swap slides.

[Devilwalk] So the bracket, because of how lower works, I'll say a Sinner's Gamer Legion lower final where Gamer Legion takes it.

[BanKs] Oh, okay.

[BanKs] Believe in another game of Legion Run.

[BanKs] So almost similar to what we saw in Fort Worth.

[BanKs] Bit of recency bias in there as well.

[Devilwalk] Yes, 100%.

[BanKs] But that is the end of our IEM Atlanta preview.

[BanKs] Actually, when we've done this preview, I said it's the lesser of two events, which it is.

[BanKs] There's lesser teams here.

[BanKs] But it is exciting to see some of these teams that will be at the major competing in an event like this, at least.

[BanKs] So that can make it more fun to give us a test.

[BanKs] And there's plenty of games with it as well.

[BanKs] So...

[BanKs] let's see i hope there'll be a lot of people in the arena as well for atlanta to obviously make up for what we saw in fort worth and for the american audience as well and last but certainly not least it is time for the preview of pgl astana we're going back to lovely astana kazakhstan the event last time was phenomenal

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] um i got to stand on stage in that awesome shopan the outfit that i was rocking and wearing um yeah yeah let's well of course i still have i never get rid of any of that stuff i've got every all of these different outfits you've seen me and i still have i'm always prepared for us to come back also

[Devilwalk] Oh yeah, I was about to ask you.

[Devilwalk] Do you still have it?

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] How many extra rooms do you have in your house with just Banks' outfits?

[BanKs] I have more clothes than my wife has.

[BanKs] I have more space for wardrobes than my wife has.

[BanKs] That's for sure.

[BanKs] But think how big my suits are, plus then these other outfits and things, you know?

[Devilwalk] You might have to move your streaming like setup like one inch forward and just cover the back with just your clothes.

[BanKs] Like, it's... And we've now got the babies.

[BanKs] When we go back to Ukraine, like...

[BanKs] i'm gonna have to give up some space somewhere because there's definitely two wardrobes in the baby's room that are full of my clothes right now i'll stop to the side of clothes uh no i got i got i'm cooking i got enough space in mine you've seen the attic right i'm streaming from i should use one side of it to put it all in so

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah, there's a lot to do with it, but I have a lot.

[BanKs] I'll say this.

[BanKs] Obviously, it's my first event.

[BanKs] I'm going to be back.

[BanKs] So all that hype that you saw was missing on stages from recent Counter-Strike events, I am bringing it back with all this energy, with all this dad buff energy all the way because I am...

[BanKs] I've been watching events, right, and I've been thinking, damn, I wish I was there.

[BanKs] Like, you know, you have that, you're missing out.

[BanKs] And obviously, I love the stage so much and bringing all the energy and hype.

[BanKs] Trust me, this has now been building up, building up, and I'm just going to explode when it comes to a start-up because I know how good that crowd was last time.

[BanKs] Also...

[BanKs] the fact with this crowd is like last time around it was like we had me and the guys speaking russian and you know doing it because obviously even though you have the kazakh language they had um russian in the arena because they speak russian as well being x what is i know you call it an ex-russian country would they would they i'm gonna let's make sure i don't guess right yeah

[Devilwalk] USSR?

[Devilwalk] Soviet?

[BanKs] They were part of the USSR, right?

[BanKs] Yes, it was.

[BanKs] Unlucky for them.

[BanKs] So sad times for Kazakhstan, but now they're free, at least.

[BanKs] I...

[BanKs] This time, it's all English.

[BanKs] And I know some people who come to a lot of events, like they're at clones and Katowice's.

[BanKs] They've already messaged me.

[BanKs] They're coming from Europe to Asana because of how good it was and also how good the team list is.

[BanKs] On top of that, it's a $1.6 million prize pool.

[BanKs] that's way beyond what normally pgl and other stuff's doing so astana's cooking man and the team list we've got is actually nuts and with no vitality there this really opens up a lot of it because obviously pgl have the best format they now have the best teams

[BanKs] outside of Vitality and Na'Vi skipping it.

[BanKs] Let me give you the rundown.

[BanKs] Furia, Spirit, Aurora, Falcons of Kerrigan, Mongols, ParaVision, Mouz, G2.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] Look at that top eight already.

[BanKs] Remember, eight teams go to playoffs.

[BanKs] 9Z, Monty, Heroic, Gentlemates, Fisher College.

[BanKs] We'll get onto that later on.

[BanKs] K27, which used to be Kazakhstan team.

[BanKs] There's not a single Kazakhstan player on there.

[BanKs] This just made me sad.

[BanKs] Magic and then the Huns.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] This is epic.

[BanKs] some of the lower down teams like they came through to qualify so they'll see they grind their way for it not not the best teams i'll say but there's some very exciting ones in here um

[BanKs] Obviously, it's got a third place decider.

[BanKs] It's got an eight teams playoff.

[BanKs] Everyone's starting from the quarters, working their way through.

[BanKs] As of when we're doing this episode, the matchups have not been given to us as yet.

[BanKs] PTR always give the matchups very later on.

[Devilwalk] Controllers is back.

[BanKs] So we'll quickly run down some of the teams we have here.

[BanKs] We'll do this a little bit faster.

[BanKs] Like the Huns, for example.

[BanKs] It's like the other Mongolian side.

[BanKs] I last saw them at the Budapest Major.

[BanKs] Obviously, they've been grinding for a lot of these low...

[BanKs] yes controllers is back we get to see good old controllers again me and nine i spoke to him so much during the budapest major um we even talking on instagram a bit now i love this guy he's like a player that like

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] He believes in his team, believes in his own ability and really wants to go far.

[BanKs] So like, this is a team I'm going to have a soft spot on for the whole event.

[BanKs] Obviously, they qualified to here throughout the closed qualifier.

[BanKs] They went through PGL Astana East Asia closed qualifier, PGL Astana Asia closed qualifier.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] They just played one match and then that was it.

[BanKs] I don't know how this works.

[BanKs] There's three teams.

[BanKs] So Ground Zero played another team first, Depo, and then they beat Depo.

[BanKs] Depo was a two Kazakhstan players and three Uzbekistan players.

[Devilwalk] But this might just be what HLTV is covering.

[BanKs] Just covering.

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Devilwalk] It's like the quarterfinals of the open qualifiers or whatever.

[BanKs] True, true, true.

[BanKs] I'll say this.

[BanKs] Huns may be like the lowest ranked place team here, but I don't think they'll be going out in last place.

[BanKs] I believe in none.

[BanKs] That's it.

[Devilwalk] All right.

[BanKs] That's all I got.

[BanKs] That's all I got.

[Devilwalk] Okay.

[BanKs] I don't expect you to have much, but that's it.

[Devilwalk] All right.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] That's it.

[Devilwalk] Sure, you go for it, man.

[BanKs] Next, you got no comments on the Huns, but you know nothing.

[Devilwalk] I mean, I'm excited to see them.

[Devilwalk] I think they always...

[BanKs] It's Mazzini's older brother, man.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, you have Bartek, you have Score, you have Nine, you're obviously watching the IHC lineup.

[BanKs] Bartak, let's go.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] It's an interesting team.

[Devilwalk] I think they always seem to have like a map where they look like they can be a par with some of the big teams or big names.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] But they always seem to fall flat a little bit.

[Devilwalk] So...

[Devilwalk] I think this is kind of a good proving ground for them.

[Devilwalk] It is Swiss format, so they'll at least have, you know, three best of threes.

[Devilwalk] Because they're not doing best of ones, right?

[BanKs] No, of course, there's no better ones than PGL.

[Devilwalk] No.

[BanKs] Never, never, never, never.

[Devilwalk] So that's great.

[Devilwalk] It's great experience for some of these teams, especially in the lower downpool where they can grind, they can face some good opposition, and they get a lot of LAN experience going here, so...

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] Obviously harder to kind of upset.

[Devilwalk] I don't expect the Huns to be making playoff or anything like that.

[Devilwalk] Yes, they can make it past last place like you expect.

[Devilwalk] But I feel like you've been hyping them up a little bit more than just last place dodge.

[BanKs] Wait, we've got Controllers, 9, and Score.

[BanKs] Come on, man.

[BanKs] There's a world where some magic is going to happen here.

[BanKs] I will say something's confusing me.

[BanKs] I'm going to have to check out when I get to the event.

[BanKs] Before 9 was the in-game leader.

[BanKs] Now it says Captain Controllers.

[BanKs] Why would Controllers go and become the in-game leader?

[Devilwalk] He's just stolen all the Mongols' tactics and he's just like, you don't know what I know.

[BanKs] I'm not sure.

[BanKs] He's like, I went through a quarterfinals of a major.

[Devilwalk] What have you done?

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah.

[BanKs] No, the controller is not that guy.

[BanKs] He would never do that.

[Devilwalk] Wow.

[BanKs] But, yeah, I'm going to have to check that out.

[BanKs] I'm going to have to understand how that's all working.

[BanKs] So...

[BanKs] next team magic they qualified through europe closed qualifier now this is what's crazy right the europe closed qualifier was mainly russian teams i will a hundred thieves and then magic magic isn't actually a russian team but it is a bella russian

[Devilwalk] It's kind of Russian.

[BanKs] A Ukrainian, a Russian, a Kazakhstani, and a Russian.

[Devilwalk] I think it's just Russian teams win all the open qualifiers which has been a tradition since the dawn of time

[BanKs] So it kind of is almost, I don't know how that counts as Europe, boys.

[BanKs] You got one Ukrainian in there.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Where was the rest of the teams who came through this qualifier?

[BanKs] How are other European teams not competing in this qualifier to do well?

[Devilwalk] I'm gonna

[BanKs] The amount of teams in these qualifiers, I'm looking at them, the team names are terrible.

[BanKs] What the hell is this?

[BanKs] Inner Circle Academy was in one, not even the main Inner Circle roster.

[BanKs] So this is, yeah, like, eh.

[BanKs] Poor Devices team didn't do well at that point.

[BanKs] This is all the way back in March as well.

[BanKs] So, yeah, I'm going to say Magic could be one of those teams.

[BanKs] It's got AW.

[Devilwalk] Sorry, I lost.

[BanKs] He was on Power Vision before, right?

[BanKs] Am I right?

[BanKs] Was it AW?

[BanKs] Yeah, he was.

[BanKs] What's up?

[BanKs] You lost where we are?

[Devilwalk] Yeah, AW.

[BanKs] Yeah, AW was on PowerVision before.

[Devilwalk] Yep.

[BanKs] Up until December 2025, until this year, and they started winning.

[BanKs] But yeah, the Magic team, probably a 0-3 contender.

[BanKs] Just going to throw it out there.

[Devilwalk] Such a 90s logo and jersey.

[BanKs] Like a basketball jersey, right?

[Devilwalk] Yeah, like... Very, very 90s.

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah.

[BanKs] I saw that.

[BanKs] I saw that.

[BanKs] Bro, and this is K23.

[BanKs] Oh, it's K20.

[BanKs] They're called K27.

[BanKs] K23 is the Kazakhstan team.

[Devilwalk] Ah.

[BanKs] That's why I was getting confused.

[Devilwalk] yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah, K23 is the Kazakhstani organization.

[BanKs] Okay, these guys just stole the name that I don't know where the hell this came from.

[BanKs] But they've got good old Balbina.

[BanKs] He's had a good amount of teams under him as a coach.

[BanKs] Wait, mate, look back at his teams.

[BanKs] Yeah, Amka, he was at Power Vision a long time ago.

[BanKs] He's been around.

[BanKs] So do you know what's crazy?

[BanKs] This K27 team is fame.

[BanKs] And then there's the X5G7V, which is like the Steam ID guy.

[BanKs] Do you remember him?

[BanKs] We used to call him Steam ID.

[Devilwalk] Steam ID, yeah.

[BanKs] Yep.

[BanKs] Zeddo.

[BanKs] Oh, bro.

[BanKs] This team is completely out of left field.

[BanKs] I don't...

[Devilwalk] It's a very... He's on loan.

[BanKs] I don't care if Fame is in-game leader or not.

[BanKs] He is doing the interview with me and we're going to find out how he ended up on this bad position of his career.

[BanKs] Yeah, but this is rough, man.

[Devilwalk] Well, I mean, there's still 37 in the VRS.

[Devilwalk] It's not that bad.

[BanKs] Okay, but what farm?

[BanKs] Did they play some Russian lands?

[BanKs] No?

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] Yeah?

[Devilwalk] I guess.

[Devilwalk] I don't know.

[BanKs] I'm looking at the results.

[Devilwalk] What?

[Devilwalk] Cislan Season 4?

[Devilwalk] That's how I pronounce the... I don't know how to say that.

[Devilwalk] It's M-P-K-B-K C-I-S-L-A-N.

[BanKs] Oh, my God.

[BanKs] Oh, my God.

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah.

[BanKs] Okay, that was fourth place.

[BanKs] It's not going to jump me up that high.

[BanKs] Okay, this bottom part of this, this is why I'm saying the Huns aren't finishing last, man.

[BanKs] They're beating Magic or K27, whoever they may get.

[BanKs] That's no problem.

[Devilwalk] Okay.

[BanKs] That's no problem.

[BanKs] The next one we can come on to, though.

[BanKs] We're skipping past these.

[BanKs] This is like... So I feel weird about starting now because this top is so stacked.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, it's true.

[BanKs] But this bit is like...

[BanKs] How did you get here?

[BanKs] K27, by the way, is a replacement team for who?

[BanKs] Who are they a replacement team for?

[BanKs] It says they're a replacement team, but who are they replacing?

[Devilwalk] I don't know.

[BanKs] They came second.

[BanKs] This makes no sense.

[BanKs] I'm going to have some undercover work to do.

[Devilwalk] But it might be another team that didn't show up.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] Either way, I'll just say that it's good we do have qualifiers for this, but European teams, you need to get to work and qualify for this.

[BanKs] Like this is a $1.6 million event.

[BanKs] Why would you not be trying to qualify?

[BanKs] Why have you allowed this to happen?

[BanKs] Why have you allowed this lower down teams to get this far?

[BanKs] Oh my God.

[BanKs] It's kind of rough, man.

[BanKs] I might be being overly harsh, but yeah.

[Devilwalk] Either way, we have Fisher College, which has Nealon, Thor, Alex, Creepo, and Korn.

[BanKs] Yeah, fish... Well...

[BanKs] Let's... So our producer, he was saying like, oh, Fisher College is like this team with like college people that come through and they like... He was explaining to us.

[BanKs] And me and you both had like some thoughts on this, right?

[BanKs] Because...

[BanKs] I don't know about anyone else in the industry, but both of us had a message.

[BanKs] My first message was October 24th, 2023 from a... I'm not even going to give too much promotion, but it's a Twitter account called Esportian, Esports Scholarships.

[BanKs] Now, bear in mind, 2023...

[BanKs] I was 33 when they sent this message, and they said, Hello, Banks Esports.

[BanKs] We are Esportsian, a company dedicated to managing esports scholarships for studying in the United States.

[Devilwalk] Oh.

[BanKs] We are currently recruiting Valorant players to join major US universities and compete in college esports leagues.

[BanKs] Based on our assessment, your profile appears to align with the requirements for fall 2024.

[BanKs] We would like to inquire if you are interested in receiving more information for us.

[BanKs] These dumb motherfuckers.

[Devilwalk] You wanna hear my message?

[BanKs] First of all...

[BanKs] Yeah, please, just copy and paste.

[BanKs] It's exactly the same, surely.

[Devilwalk] Hey Devilwalk, I'm Mauricio from Esportian.

[Devilwalk] I wanted to reach out because we've been really impressed by your skills in CS.

[Devilwalk] Your gameplay stands out and we'd be thrilled to consider you for our scholarship program.

[Devilwalk] We are dedicated to supporting outstanding players like you in combining competitive esports with a university education.

[Devilwalk] We believe your profile has tremendous potential both in-game and academically.

[BanKs] Mate, they must be getting paid...

[Devilwalk] If you're interested, I'd be happy to connect and walk you through the exciting opportunities we can offer.

[Devilwalk] I basically answered, I am unsure what this really means.

[BanKs] You're too nice.

[BanKs] I cannot tell you what I responded.

[BanKs] I cannot leak what I responded.

[Devilwalk] they said Valorant for you yeah

[BanKs] It's not cancelable, but it's very bad how I responded.

[BanKs] Like I was not on a good mood when they sent me this.

[BanKs] Because...

[BanKs] Yeah, exactly why.

[BanKs] You can imagine what my response is.

[BanKs] So these messages continue, by the way.

[BanKs] Hello again.

[BanKs] I'm following up to know if you're interested in combining your studies, bachelor or master degrees while working in a North American esports programs, USA and Canada.

[BanKs] I'm wondering if these dumb motherfuckers get paid money for this, right?

[BanKs] To just bring people in.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] and to make stuff happen.

[BanKs] By the way, for everyone watching and just laughing along with this right now, this will all make sense to you in a bit because we're going to tie this into the next team.

[BanKs] These messages continue, by the way.

[BanKs] James, I appreciate your response.

[BanKs] Your profile would not match with this opportunity as you described because I obviously responded with what my age was as well.

[BanKs] Then,

[BanKs] Less than six months later, hello there, friend.

[BanKs] Nice to meet you.

[BanKs] I'm Alejandro, active in Collegiate Esports and Partnerships Manager at, by the way, he can't even spell.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] This is great.

[BanKs] He's onto a bad start.

[BanKs] I didn't even flag this at the time.

[BanKs] I'd really like to explore how we can collaborate and learn from each other.

[BanKs] Would you be free for a bit?

[BanKs] And I obviously didn't respond.

[BanKs] Then we go to 2025.

[BanKs] So we've skipped ahead now.

[BanKs] Hi, James.

[BanKs] I hope you're doing well.

[Devilwalk] There was no exploring.

[BanKs] My name is Attila and I'm a recruiter.

[BanKs] By the way, the only Attila I know is Attila the Hun.

[BanKs] I'm a recruiter for Esportian.

[BanKs] I noticed you were previously in talks with my colleagues about exploring opportunities in gaming and academics.

[BanKs] I was not.

[BanKs] There was no conversation I had with you idiots.

[BanKs] As we continue recruitment for 2025, I was curious to hear how those conversations were and if there's anything I can do to further assist you.

[BanKs] It's like, did you not read the DMs?

[BanKs] The DMs show, like, how can you not see that I already been through all this with you morons?

[BanKs] Yeah?

[BanKs] And then I literally even responded on this one.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] I have laughing faces.

[BanKs] I'm sorry, but who is running this account?

[BanKs] Do you guys just copy and paste message?

[BanKs] I've even replied to you two years ago.

[BanKs] You should have known better than this.

[BanKs] Like, who are you messaging?

[BanKs] What is this?

[BanKs] Are you an AI bot?

[BanKs] Like I literally just...

[BanKs] Then we got another one, DevWalk.

[BanKs] Hi, James.

[BanKs] We've been looking through Counter-Strike profiles today for our 2027 scholarships.

[BanKs] So they're still trying to get me now, DevWalk.

[Devilwalk] This is the one I got after as well.

[BanKs] This is 2026.

[BanKs] So you got the same.

[BanKs] Most players with your dedication to the game...

[BanKs] your dedication to the game don't realize that us universities actually scouting for the exact kind of competitive experience right now we've helped over 200 players turn their grind into 55 to 100 scholarships

[BanKs] i could pay for my education myself you out of curiosity have you ever looked into what your counter-strike stats would qualify you in the us like

[Devilwalk] also what your counter-strike stats in what

[BanKs] What are we doing?

[BanKs] Like, first of all, for any of you people out there, if you get a message like this, this is a scam.

[BanKs] Don't follow this.

[BanKs] This is nothing that you should be doing.

[BanKs] This sounds horrendous.

[BanKs] Whatever college program they're trying to put you in, this is not great.

[BanKs] Yeah, by the way, what stats are they looking at?

[Devilwalk] what's that no but this is like okay so I think I got let's see here I just need to find them again

[BanKs] Because first of all, this is where they're lying because they said about you, right?

[BanKs] Like you don't post your clips.

[BanKs] You're not posting anything on your play.

[BanKs] Other than that, remember that funny clip you had with me where you got like that 1v4 or 1v5?

[BanKs] Oh.

[Devilwalk] Where the fuck did I put them?

[BanKs] I can't man, I can't.

[Devilwalk] Here.

[Devilwalk] So the first message I got was October 10th, 2025.

[Devilwalk] First of all, I barely played CS during that period.

[Devilwalk] So it was a very confusing message to receive.

[Devilwalk] But

[BanKs] They're looking back at 2013, demos of yours.

[Devilwalk] And then the last one was in February.

[BanKs] This year, yeah, the same one I got, yep.

[Devilwalk] Well, I got another one, but this one was, hey, Devilwalk, Zoe from Esportian.

[Devilwalk] I noticed Mauricio messaged you a few months back.

[BanKs] Yep, Zoe.

[Devilwalk] We're starting our final push for 2027 Counter-Strike scholarships.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] I didn't want your profile to get lost in the shuffle from last year.

[Devilwalk] Are you still open to chatting about the US college opportunities?

[BanKs] I don't know someone again Americans you're gonna have to help us out this episode is your is your country that down bad that you're trying to import European old men to come and compete in your college programs because bro I looked on their Twitter and it says we get asked a bit too often

[BanKs] So what do you actually do?

[BanKs] We do the whole package.

[BanKs] Want to start your path to pro?

[BanKs] We got you.

[Devilwalk] Wow.

[BanKs] Want to get a degree and pay for it by gaming?

[BanKs] We got you.

[BanKs] Want to secure your future in esports, Sid?

[BanKs] you guessed it we got you check our bio what can esportium provide for you guaranteed university placement no one can guarantee that by the way these guys are just lying scholarships access both academic and esports based financial support

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] collegiate esports integration, compete for your team's school while earning your degree, dedicated academic support from application through to enrollment, visa support, guidance for international students.

[BanKs] I'm just going to say...

[BanKs] This must be a scam.

[BanKs] These guys sound like scammers.

[BanKs] They're probably getting paid for every person they put in there.

[BanKs] But, like, don't do this.

[BanKs] No good can come from this at all.

[BanKs] Nothing.

[BanKs] No good can come from this.

[BanKs] This is horrendous.

[BanKs] I've never seen anything so bad.

[BanKs] This can't be real.

[BanKs] This has to be someone who's like getting paid something for referrals.

[BanKs] You know, like referral free, you get 5% for every referral.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, I don't know.

[Devilwalk] Very confusing.

[BanKs] Oh.

[Devilwalk] I haven't really... But we should probably move on.

[Devilwalk] Otherwise this episode...

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] So the reason we're linking that into it, we do actually have a team.

[BanKs] I don't know if they're from here.

[BanKs] I'm going to actually message Alex.

[BanKs] We know him and say, did you get picked up from this?

[BanKs] So Fisher College is at a start.

[BanKs] They qualified through the North American Clothes Qualifier.

[BanKs] So...

[BanKs] Yeah, make of that as you will.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] The teams that were competing there is Lag, Farmville, Bossa, like M80 and the likes of that were not there anyway because they're going to Atlanta.

[BanKs] So they cleaned up this spot.

[BanKs] They're going with Nilan as the stand-in, Four, Alex, Creepow, and Korn.

[BanKs] just telling you on the main fisher college team there is one american called corn then it's crepo belgium refuser netherlands alex who we know from sweden and four from iceland

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] alex is 24 so he could still be in uni four is 25 i guess depending on what we're studying he could probably still be there um the rest of them are pretty young anyway so that's fine like they're they're making it but i'm excited to see alex again because you even coached him

[Devilwalk] Yeah, and gamers.

[BanKs] gamers our reality tv show i'm gonna have to ask him how did you go from reality tv show to this did you come through esportian did he come through esportian we need to figure this out um

[BanKs] He had some pretty impressive interviews, he said, for Dust2.us when he was at a recent LAN.

[BanKs] What LAN did Fisher College compete in?

[BanKs] I'll make sure I get this right.

[BanKs] Frag.

[BanKs] Frag one.

[BanKs] And he was saying he doesn't think the difference between them and other teams is going to be that high.

[BanKs] I think for the lower level teams, for sure.

[BanKs] But I don't know, you're probably not going to stand up too strong against the likes of like the 9Zs, Montees, Heroics, Genomates, and then everyone else above that is just going to absolutely obliterate you.

[Devilwalk] If I remember correctly, Alex had a stutter, which

[BanKs] Why are you just outing him?

[Devilwalk] Okay, maybe that was wrong.

[Devilwalk] But I remember he was incredible with it.

[Devilwalk] Because he used to...

[BanKs] Okay, you should have started with that, you know, because the beginning bit sounded really bad and now...

[Devilwalk] Okay, but okay, I will just say he used to call and communicate incredibly well in Counter-Strike.

[Devilwalk] And I was always super impressed with him because of him having a stutter, dealing with that, and still being able to be so well...

[BanKs] To come Yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah Mm-hmm

[Devilwalk] communicative as he was so he's always kind of had like a special kind of you know I remember him so vibrantly because of all of this

[Devilwalk] So I'm really excited to see what he kind of developed into as a player.

[Devilwalk] Maybe I started that sentence off wrong, but it comes from a good place, not shaming.

[BanKs] No, no, now it... The way you kind of put it all together was terrible.

[BanKs] The end part is a much nicer way of doing it.

[Devilwalk] Okay.

[BanKs] You will live and learn on this.

[BanKs] You are still Swedish, so it's fine.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] You get away with these things.

[BanKs] What you actually said is really complimentary.

[BanKs] And, like, obviously when you do have these...

[BanKs] things that can hinder you especially in a game like counter-strike you can overcome it that on its own is impressive but i think i get to get a nice message from alex and um he said he was looking forward to seeing me again i said bloody oh it's been so long so yeah nilan's gonna be their fifth obviously nilan is a local kazakhstani representative as well so

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] I'm not going to say they're going to have much hope of getting through to the arenas.

[BanKs] But I mean, he's going to get some love and support anyway from just being from Kazakhstan.

[BanKs] So after that, we start going to more like the bigger teams.

[BanKs] We literally jump up from here, by the way, from...

[BanKs] We were down at 97th in the VRS and now we're jumping to 38 and it only gets higher from here.

[BanKs] That's when we started talking about the big teams coming in.

[BanKs] Gentlemen, this is something where they've been invited, they got accepted,

[BanKs] They've been falling down on the VRS.

[BanKs] They struggled massively at Rio, but this is a chance for them to

[BanKs] show us a bit more of what they can do and also like they don't have a coach right now i don't know who they're coming to this event with as a coach maybe they'll try someone out here so we'll get to learn that but we were before the major we actually had some hope for them before budapest major

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] And then now it's, I think it's my expectations slowed down a lot, but they are still Martinez, super exciting.

[BanKs] Like Martinez would be the person I would have said, if Sampias kept trailing, you'd replace Sampias with Martinez, do a swap.

[BanKs] But no, this is great.

[Devilwalk] I think he definitely, out of all the players in Gentlemates, I think Martinez is the one that has the potential to play in Tier 1 Counter-Strike.

[Devilwalk] He's flashy, he's good, he has X-Factor, he's good with rifles and AWPing.

[Devilwalk] But it's as you say, Gentle Mates have been kind of a rocky trend.

[Devilwalk] They looked great before that Budapest Major.

[Devilwalk] I think they were up at rank.

[BanKs] Yep.

[Devilwalk] Let me see here, actually.

[Devilwalk] They were around... Where are they, actually?

[Devilwalk] Where am I trying to look here?

[Devilwalk] Here.

[Devilwalk] They were around the 20 mark in VRS, and then kind of had a little bit of a downtrend, uptrend after that, and then massively downtrend again.

[Devilwalk] Now in 2026, dropping to 35, where they've been kind of hovering around the top 20 mark, so...

[BanKs] Mm hmm.

[Devilwalk] For them, this is a huge opportunity, huge tournament to kind of turn this ship around and prove to everyone at home, everyone watching, their fans and ourselves that they have what it takes.

[Devilwalk] They're not just going to be good for a month and then drop off again.

[Devilwalk] They have what it takes to beat some of these, you know, Heroics, Monty, 9Cs.

[BanKs] By the way, I just saw it.

[BanKs] K27 is attending PGL Astana because foot withdrew.

[BanKs] I wish it was another team from the... So they came because it was a qualifier.

[Devilwalk] Ah.

[BanKs] They replaced...

[BanKs] K27 came second so sadly they wouldn't normally be here but remember Foote double dipped in both events and then because they got their visas for America they went to they made the wrong decision they should have gone to Astana it's better teams they're better for the VRS but they can obviously do well in terms of prize winning stuff from Atlanta um

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] But also, I wish they just invited another team from higher up on the BRS rankings.

[BanKs] That would have been better.

[BanKs] I don't know how it fully works, to be honest.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] You know, the next team we get to come on to, Heroic.

[BanKs] Bro, we're in Kazakhstan and Al-Kharen's still not here.

[Devilwalk] Interesting.

[BanKs] So we just know he's done for, right?

[BanKs] That's it.

[BanKs] He's never coming back to this team.

[BanKs] Yeah, yeah.

[Devilwalk] That's insane.

[BanKs] It says right now he's on the bench.

[BanKs] So he has been benched.

[BanKs] I don't know when it happened.

[BanKs] But he's been benched.

[Devilwalk] Is that 100%?

[BanKs] Well, it says on HLTV, Al-Kharen benched.

[BanKs] And he's going to stand in for Cybertroke at Nodwin Clutch S7.

[Devilwalk] Well, if he's not returning to the line of this event, I don't know.

[Devilwalk] It's probably, yeah, like you say, it's probably a goner.

[BanKs] Because they got the major, right?

[BanKs] So why would you... You can't play them in the major.

[BanKs] So I'm pulling up an interview here.

[BanKs] We're still... So this interview, this interview was...

[BanKs] April the 4th.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] And it says, we're still waiting for Alcarin's situation overall.

[BanKs] And until there's news about that, we'll keep playing with Youngster, even though we're playing in Astana.

[BanKs] From a VRS perspective, it doesn't make so much sense only having him for X amount of games, you know.

[BanKs] So we'll hope to have him come back in full force before we can start using him.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] Bro, he's never coming back.

[BanKs] If you can't fix his visa issues for this long, it's not happening.

[BanKs] I can't, like...

[BanKs] You've tanked so many VRS points.

[BanKs] You've actually still managed to stay within the top 20.

[BanKs] It's impressive.

[BanKs] I will give you that.

[BanKs] And you're now going to the major with Youngster.

[BanKs] Just keep Youngster because you're also hindering him.

[BanKs] Bro.

[Devilwalk] But, but, but, but, but, but, but, Youngster isn't an AWPer.

[BanKs] But if they now do him dirty, yeah?

[Devilwalk] I mean, I think Heroic should cut Youngster and get a real AWPer.

[BanKs] And after the major, they're just like, cut him and bring Alcarim back.

[BanKs] I'm just going to flip.

[BanKs] That's fine.

[BanKs] No problem with that.

[BanKs] But don't keep dangling the when and Alcarin comes back thing.

[Devilwalk] No, I think this is poor.

[BanKs] Because like, it's too long now.

[BanKs] This has been a whole season.

[BanKs] This has been six months.

[BanKs] Every event I've been at, the same questions, same shit.

[BanKs] all right such a joke all right like by the way the players the torch you're not a joke no no problem against you guys but the management and the visa issues you had with other players into this it's just a joke this is like unacceptable

[Devilwalk] Yeah, it's just stupid.

[Devilwalk] And it's so sad because I really wanted this heroic with Chrism.

[BanKs] yeah we liked chrism we still like chrism i mean but i mean like give him the chance to do well oh man yeah

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] But to be plagued with these issues and not really know what you're going to do next tournament and next tournament, next tournament...

[Devilwalk] That sucks.

[BanKs] um but they're still trotting along like they win some of these tier two events yeah they're second place at cct global finals beating big and monty then losing to monty in the finals for the ranked um star ladder event

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] They've just been trying to grind through events and points.

[BanKs] They've been playing a hell of a lot of CS.

[BanKs] um next one i'm by the way i'm not just because there's two brits on this team because i don't really know azubu i only know gizmi i'll get to meet azubu more in person at this event um i'm more of a gizmi fan but gizmi and b mass

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] These are my guys.

[BanKs] I've known BMass for so long now as well.

[BanKs] He even hosts me every now and again on stream.

[BanKs] They won CCT Global Finals.

[BanKs] They had a good run at that event.

[BanKs] Second place at Draguland.

[BanKs] This is a team that is exciting.

[BanKs] This is a team that's 18th on the VRS rankings right now.

[BanKs] This is a team that could upset a G2, a ParaVision, a Mongols, maybe even an Aurora or a Maus on any given day.

[BanKs] This is a dark horse team for this event.

[Devilwalk] A weak Furia, whatever.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] Oh, bro, I just didn't even think about that.

[BanKs] Yeah, a Furia could definitely have a struggle against them.

[BanKs] This gets interesting.

[BanKs] This gets very interesting now.

[Devilwalk] I think they could be... I think they're definitely up there in playoff contention.

[BanKs] Yeah.

[BanKs] It's a big event for them.

[BanKs] Really big event for them.

[Devilwalk] But I'm also excited about them.

[Devilwalk] I think they've done so well every time they've shown themselves.

[Devilwalk] They've shown consistency in the tier 2 scene.

[Devilwalk] I think they kind of were a little bit disappointing in EPL.

[Devilwalk] They picked up a map against Na'Vi.

[Devilwalk] Almost beat them in the last map.

[Devilwalk] Lost to Legacy.

[Devilwalk] Lost to FaZe.

[Devilwalk] All closed games, but I hope they've learned something from that and kind of bring that into this.

[Devilwalk] And I think they'll be more ready for this level now.

[BanKs] Yeah, definitely.

[BanKs] Definitely.

[BanKs] I think they're getting so much experience at these different events that this is a team I'm hyped on to see in Astana.

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[BanKs] And I still love the logo.

[BanKs] I just love the logo.

[BanKs] 9z next also a very exciting team especially considering like the fact that some of the players from Argentina I think it was Lutrov we saw many of highlights from him we've spoken about quite a while in general

[Devilwalk] Yeah.

[Devilwalk] Yeah, mayor.

[BanKs] Mayona as well.

[BanKs] Yeah, bro.

[BanKs] There's a DGT we knew from pain days.

[BanKs] Didn't live up to expectations there.

[BanKs] Max has been leading the charge for this team for a long, long time.

[Devilwalk] Thank you.

[BanKs] 9Z right now.

[BanKs] Where exactly is... I think 9Z is an Argentinian organization.

[BanKs] Yes, an Argentinian organization.

[BanKs] And that's where we're going to have a major next year as well.

[BanKs] So it's really good they're on a rise again.

[BanKs] First place in some of the South American events.

[BanKs] Second place in another one.

[BanKs] But they are competing very well against a good South American.

[Devilwalk] They have bit as a coach as well.

[Devilwalk] 10 months ago.

[BanKs] Yeah, Bitt's new coach as well.

[BanKs] When did he join?

[BanKs] He joined...

[Devilwalk] 10 months ago.

[BanKs] Huh?