“I don’t know who’s going to win it, but I don’t think it’s going to be Vitality”: YNk on Vitality, Furia, FaZe & more going into the Budapest Major
The StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 starts on November 24, with 32 teams vying for Counter-Strike’s biggest prize.
In contrast to the inevitable Vitality victory at the BLAST.tv Austin Major, the picture going into Budapest is a complex one with several teams showing potential to lift the trophy.
Esports News UK spoke to Janko ‘YNk’ Paunović to gather his thoughts on how teams are shaping up coming into the climactic season-ending event.
YNk gave his insights into all the big players coming into the Budapest Major, including FaZe, Natus Vincere, Falcons, Furia, and Vitality.
This interview is the second part of Esports News UK’s interview with YNk.
In Part 1, YNk discusses how desk analysis has changed, his dream desk segment, working with Richard Lewis & Thorin, and missing both Counter-Strike Majors in 2025.
Esports News UK Interviews YNk ahead of the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025
How are you feeling about FaZe going into Stage 1?
I think with FaZe, even in their heyday, they never went 3-0, it was always through the lower brackets, it was always the hard way, so I don’t expect it to be clean this time around.
I think the bigger problem is I would guess is the mental side of things, because they benched rain going into Pro League, then, ‘Oh shit, we actually need Rain, we can’t play without him.’
rain flies in, they lose the first match by default, they lose the second game when he flew in on the same day, they’re 0-2. They go on to make the playoffs, beat Spirit in the quarter finals and then lose to Vitality and take a map away from Vitality in the semi-final, which is the best result FaZe has had all year long outside of making the playoffs of the Major, I feel like.
‘Well, thank you, rain, thank you for your service, back to the bench you go. All right jcobbb, it’s your time.”
They go to China, granted travel on the same day, it’s tough, they played with rain, they lose to NaVi Academy two times basically, then from there they go to Chengdu, they lose to Virtus.Pro.
So it’s not just the results that you have, it’s the teams that you’re losing to, with all the extenuating circumstances taken into account.
Especially because we know it was the org that initiated those decisions, not necessarily the players, so now those guys are thinking ‘we could have just kept rain on the roster.’
The most puzzling thing is that they would have had five veteran players, and they would be ready to win now; they don’t need to promote anyone or develop any player.
Instead, they have jcobbb in, and now they’re losing games. How is this kid supposed to succeed in that sort of an environment and build any confidence? So that’s the problematic point.
I think for FaZe in the Major, it’s all about momentum; if they catch fire, they could make the playoffs even.
It’s also going to be dependent a lot on broky’s performance in this tournament because he’s been really poor in these two events with jcobbb in the lineup.
I’m not gonna say they’re not gonna make stage two, I think that’s a given, really, but I could see them fail in stage two if things go wrong.
You have to remember these damn best of ones, it’s all it takes is one bad day.
We saw what happened to the Falcons in Austin, right? You go, you lose some of those Bo1s, and then it’s a tough road.
All the pressure is on you, the expectations are super high, and you’re playing against teams that are, to some extent, just happy to be there, and they have nothing to lose going up against you. That’s the toughest opponent to play against.
So FaZe, I think everyone’s eyes will be on them. They’re one of those box of chocolate teams, you never know what you’re gonna get.
Do you think FaZe could have ‘won now’ with rain?
Yeah, absolutely, and I think so because they have players who’ve done it before.
They have a core of four players from the team that won the Major and the Intel Grand Slam and Kato and Cologne, and they have Frozen instead of ropz.
I would argue not a significant downgrade. ropz is still probably more productive in that role and in the highest-pressure games, but you could get there or be close to it with Frozen too, so you have a known quantity, and instead you’re going for something more unknown.
There’s a lot of good teams out there. I’m not saying they would be a favourite to win these events, but I think they would have a better chance than they have with this roster.
Could Legacy make it all the way to the playoffs?
Yeah, I think that’s going to be tricky because they start in Stage 1.
Again, we shouldn’t underestimate the stumble potential for these teams when you take into account best of ones in MR12.
I mean, they should be a thing of the past; it’s just a travesty that we still have best of ones at what’s supposed to be the most prestigious tournament of the season.
I think they have playoff potential.
They’ve definitely had gaps in their game, especially somewhat connected to the map pool, but they’ve also had a couple of weeks or multiple weeks where they were able to just practice and work on those.
So I think for them to make the playoffs, it’s going to depend on that: Have they widened their map pool and perhaps a little bit on the match-ups if they get to Stage 3, and if they can get some good matchups in terms of the map pool.
But in terms of the talent and how they’ve been playing Counter-Strike, I think they’re definitely one of the better teams in this stage, one of the teams from Stage 1 that can definitely make it to Stage 3.
They are the opposite of, say, Astralis in that they really look like a team. Like you can feel the togetherness when they play. They’re just so resilient, never out of a game.
Sometimes when they allow a comeback and give up a big lead, they still are able to close out the game in overtime, which is another sign of a strong mental. They have really good talent.
On the team, I guess whether they make playoffs outside of what I already said will depend, I think, to some extent on how saadzin is going to play, because he is a hit or miss sort of a guy at the moment, right?
He can be a liability for them, but if he can play on a good level, I think that gives Legacy a very good chance to go deep in the tournament.
YNk on FlyQuest
I think that’s probably the best game of the first round is Legacy vs. FlyQuest. I think FlyQuest has also shown some solid improvement.
I think it’s unfortunate when you look a little bit at their run in Bucharest. They didn’t make the playoffs, but their games were against GamerLegion, Fnatic, 3DMAX, Liquid and Legacy.
So they played five very good teams, beat 3DMax, beat Fnatic, lost the other three games, but definitely had a lot of film to review, right?
They could go back and say, ‘All right, these are some of the key things we need to work on.’
They’ve been boot camping in my place for a while now [eNat Bootcamp]. I think from last week, they had all five guys there, but before that, it was just the Aussies, and they were playing online.
So they’ve been grinding, trying to really nail down the preparation for the Major, and I think it’s the best they’ve looked in Bucharest with this lineup. So they’re able to build on that.
For me, they’re a lock to make Stage 2 and maybe, just maybe, they can surprise a couple more teams.
It seems like they’ve worked out how to best use regali, do you think that’s a big factor in their recent growth?
Yeah, I mean, and for him to just get used to playing Tier 1, 1.5 Counter-Strike, then find his confidence.
Also, moving INS to more active positions and roles is proving to be a good call, right?
You need players who are vocal in those positions, able to make calls, give information to everyone else.
That feels like the change that has given them the biggest bump in performance.
“Every time a new player joins, you have to go through the call-outs with him. He has to learn how you default. He has to learn the basics.
For some of these other players, they’re repeating it for like the fifth time with a new player. So it’s a bit of a hit on motivation.”
– YNk on GamerLegion’s second season struggles
Are there any other teams you want to highlight in Stage 1?
I was disappointed with NIP. I don’t know what happened to them in Bucharest. They went 0-3.
I know they had problems preparing for the tournament. Snappi got his second kid, I believe, and all of that.
They couldn’t complete their practice, but still, they don’t get many opportunities, and they had to do more. So that was disappointing.
I think GamerLegion is definitely one that I would also have as a lock going into Stage 2. It’s going to be interesting to see how the NA teams do, NRG and M80.
It’s been a little while since we saw them in some of these international tournaments.
“If Legacy was able to reverse sweep and beat them there, they would have changed something after the major. It feels like it would have been the final nail in the coffin for the lineup.”
– YNk on Aurora winning PGL Masters Bucharest
For GamerLegion, what do you think caused their form to dip in the second half of the year, and how are they recovering?
I think to some extent it’s just the constant changes and not having consistency with the lineup, right? Every time a new player joins, you have to go through the call-outs with him. He has to learn how you default. He has to learn the basics.
For some of these other players, they’re repeating it for like the fifth time with a new player. So it’s a bit of a hit on motivation early on.
Also, when you see the players not really developing in a way that you would expect or that you would hope for, it could be frustrating.
I think Tauson definitely stepped up a lot this second half of the year, right? And that’s where the output stays the same. It’s just different players.
You know, he’s contributing more than REZ at the moment. PR has been a bit up and down, but he’s still their best player.
So I think they still have enough firepower to get through this stage.
Also, ash is very well versed in preparing the team at the majors and understanding what are the strengths and weaknesses of his team and how to play towards the strengths and minimise the weaknesses as much as possible.
So I think they’re a team that will make it into Stage 2, but I don’t have a deep run in the cards for them in this tournament.
Will Aurora’s PGL Masters Bucharest victory be enough to push them to the next level?
Yeah. You’d hope so, right? Because for them also, the main problem feels psychological and mental, where they just let the frustration seep through.
Then they start doubting MAJ3R and his calls, and everyone thinks they know best, and then everyone’s frustrated, and people start making mental mistakes.
Then, MAJ3R sees that the team has lost confidence in him a little bit, and that puts him in a spiral where he loses confidence in himself and in his calls, and that’s no way to play Counter-Strike.
I always say, a bad call executed with high confidence will work more often than a good call executed with low confidence.
You never know whether you’re right or wrong, but if you just are decisive and execute with belief, that can go a long way in helping you win rounds and convert rounds.
The feeling that you could see on their faces was relief more than anything else when they ended up lifting that trophy.
I’ll just say, if Legacy was able to reverse sweep and beat them there, they would have changed something after the major. It feels like it would have been the final nail in the coffin for the lineup.
But that’s another team that will have a lot of eyes on them, because we’re all waiting to see exactly that.
Was that trophy lift in Bucharest enough for this Aurora? Did they finally break through their glass ceiling, right? Or once we come back, it’s going to be more of the same.
They’re another team that has had, will have like 4 weeks even, something like that, three to four weeks from when they last played unofficial, so they would have had finally time to work on some of those issues.
They have a map pool problem. Ever since Anubis got removed, they haven’t found a signature map. They were picking four or five different maps, even.
For them, you do feel like they have to be really good on Train and Overpass, that if they’re going to beat some of these better teams, they can’t compete with Vitality on Inferno, can’t compete with some of the best teams on Mirage, right?
And that was why they were good before; They were the best Anubis team in the world, and they always had that available to them.
So we’ll see how deep they can go.
When you’re talking about having faith in MAJ3R, if you’re picking Train you’re often going to start 0-5, 0-7 on T-side. Can they keep that mental strength in those scenarios and get those three or four T rounds they need?
Yeah, it’s definitely not easy, but that’s what separates the elite teams on a map, especially when we talk about maps that are somewhat more CT-sided, your Overpass, your Train.
That’s why Furia is the best team on it, because you could tell when they play, and you could see it in them. They just know they will be able to win those two or three rounds that you’re talking about, right?
No matter how poorly it goes. They started one game 5-0 down on T-side. Their coach didn’t even take a timeout at 0-5.
That’s how much confidence they have in their T-side, that they will be able to find an answer eventually.
That’s not easy, to reach that level of confidence and comfortability on a map. It’s rare, and that’s what makes them the best team in the world on the map.
So for Aurora, they have to find the map like that. It’s not just about the calling and having faith in the call. It’s like the players feeling good on the map on an individual level, right?
With their moves, with their setups, with their opening plays, with how they take space and how they understand the map, the rotations of the opponent, what’s the most likely thing to happen.
They need to be able to predict those things to be able to play on a high level.
Who else do you think could be interesting in Stage 2?
I think Liquid could be an interesting team to keep an eye on now that they’ve also had some extra time to practice, and with flashie being able to more and more instil that structure that he is bringing in there.
They are an insane mirage team. One of the world’s best teams on the map, which is interesting because flashie comes from NaVi and B1ad3’s School, who are also one of the best Mirage teams in the world.
So I think they could surprise, they could be a dark horse to make the playoffs.
3DMAX, I don’t know, man. I’m always sort of against them in a way. I don’t see that much.
Somehow, when I do their games, they play badly, and then they go to another tournament, and I might not be working, and they make the Grand Final, right? And then they play good CS.
I think they suffered from burnout, absolutely. Like they went to China and back like three times in the span of one and a half or two months, which is just crazy, and they played so many tournaments.
So it would be perhaps somewhat unfair to judge them based on the last couple of tournaments.
We’ll see, now that they’ve had significant time with Graviti as the IGL, what it’s going to look like.
I definitely put them above, you know, the likes of Tyloo, MIBR, Passion UA, Astralis, so-and-so.
It’s more so because Astralis just seems kind of broken at the moment.
If they get on A roll, then sure. We saw even in Chengdu, they were able to make the playoffs, but it’s just that too often they have control of games, and they let it slip.
Like they should have won a lot more games than they did, but they just let them slip by making some basic mistakes.
NaVi, I think they will make Stage 3, but I don’t have high hopes for them. I think they’re definitely a team that’s changing the roster after the major.
They feel like a team that needs to change two players to become a contender again.
Do you have any insight into why NaVi didn’t make more changes after the first half of the year?
I think they were looking into making other/more changes, but just the market wasn’t really there for it, and they felt, ‘Okay, we can definitely want to promote Makazze from the academy team because they needed to sell the academy team’ at that point.
So they ended up just doing that and seeing if that’s going to be enough of a spark.
In the worst case, it gives them a season to sort of play into Tier 1 and get used to the system.
But they need to figure it out. It’s hard to know from the outside, right?
Because even last year, they’re a team that overperformed really. When you look at the composition of the roster, you would not have expected them to have the success that they did. But they played like more than the sum of their powers.
They were incredibly resilient, had a super strong mental, and ultimately, in a lot of these tournaments that they won, players did step up on an individual level at key moments.
Like jL was their most impactful player last year, him and then b1t.
When you talk about big moments in games and big rounds, Copenhagen major against G2 in the semi-final, like absolutely nuts. b1t in the Grand Final on Inferno, beat FaZe on his own, in a way.
Obviously, jL isn’t there anymore, and even this year, before he was on the bench, he didn’t play on that high of a level, b1t similarly.
It’s hard to know from the outside what the reason is. Have they lost confidence? Is that cohesion isn’t there anymore that made them more than the sum of their powers?
Now they are just the sum of their powers, and their ceiling is lower because of it. That’s hard to know.
I think we will know once they make some changes and we see, all right, that’s who they felt was the problem and perhaps holding the team back somewhat.
Do you have a clear idea of which of the players they should change?
Not really. For me, when I look at that roster, the one player that I think is definitely championship calibre, and you don’t want to replace his b1t. Everyone else can be replaced depending on your budget and ability and opportunity and whatnot.
Makazze is probably safe, too, because they just promoted him. He’s a young player. He’s played well for them early on.
Then it comes down to the things we don’t know. Like how is aleksi doing in B1ad3’s eyes? Is the calling the issue for him, or is it players meddling too much in the calling? People not executing their role well enough?
Do they want to improve in the AWPing department and get someone instead of w0nderful? Where is iM, all of that?
Those are all questions that it’s difficult to get answers to from the outside.
They’ve lost a lot of advantaged positions this year.
Yeah, that’s communication too, right? Like people may be trying to play hero CS too much instead of being more patient and playing with their teammate. Like everyone’s super eager to make a play.
I’m just surprised about B1ad3 talking in one of the interviews like, ‘Oh yeah, we need a lot more time. Our map pool is not great.’
I mean, you have four of the five players you had for the whole of last year. You changed one guy.
I understand, some of the other players’ positions have changed a little bit because of that, but how can your map pool be so lost?
Like that doesn’t make much sense to me. And it’s also one of the reasons why they’re struggling.
They were 2-0 up against Furia in that Grand Final and beat them 13-6, 13-9 on the first two maps, and then it was 13-8, 13-5, 13-1 for Furia. It just got progressively worse.
You just knew that from the maps that were remaining that this was really going to be in Furia’s favour after Navi was unable to secure Nuke.
It’s just a lot of these issues that it’s hard to tell from the outside what’s causing them.
“NiKo underperforming like that cannot be understated. His rating in Grand Finals, I think this year is below 1.00, which is absolutely atrocious for a player like NiKo”
– YNk on NiKo’s Grand Finals fall off
When it comes to Falcons, do you think these five players will be the five going forward? Also, NiKo has underperformed in Grand Finals. Is that a concern?
I think this is the five going forward. I mean, I think Niko will become IGL inevitably, right? I’ve always said, like, I think that’s when he’ll start winning the most trophies, but it’s clear that at the moment that he doesn’t want to make that switch.
Similarly, like G2 asked Hunter an X amount of times, and he didn’t want to. So I don’t think kyxsan’s seat is in peril or anything like that.
I really feel like this is the lineup that they are satisfied with and feel like they can win with, and that it’s more team things that are holding them back.
Of course, NiKo underperforming like that cannot be understated. His rating in Grand Finals, I think this year is below 1.00, which is absolutely atrocious for a player like NiKo. Definitely not good enough.
I mean, he is the most experienced and the most veteran player on that team, and sure, he has given up some positions on the T side, but not really on the CT side that much. Some maps, yes. Not all of them, though. He still plays Outside on Nuke. He still plays Connector on Mirage. Right?
He’s still in positions where he can definitely have impact, and if he played marginally better in maybe even Chengdu in Melbourne, let’s say, in some of the maps, some of these Vitality games, they could have definitely had one of those trophies.
But what m0NESY said was taken a bit out of context. In his interview, he said, ‘I didn’t notice NiKo playing badly,’ but he meant that he’s communicating the same at all times. So for him, it didn’t feel like he was different in any way.
Like, of course, he wasn’t getting the kills that which we could see, and he wasn’t able to get the frags, but he had the same demeanor on TeamSpeak and inside the server, which is really important for them as a whole.
But like I mentioned briefly at the beginning, when we talked about Falcons have been getting better with every tournament.
They have this sort of glaring problem with Inferno, which they were also able to funnily enough beat Furia in the Grand Final, right?
Things have to fall into place a little bit more for them, but they can still be competitive on that map. They’re the world’s best team on Ancient. They’re one of the world’s best teams on Nuke.
On paper, they should be really good on Mirage, Dust 2 as well, with the composition of players that they have. Mirage has been a bit shaky. Train has been solid for them. So, considering the changes, they actually have a pretty respectable map pool as well.
We had the issue of losing rounds with advantages early on, in Cologne and whatnot, but that has cleaned up. Then, pistol rounds were the issue at Pro League. They’ve become much better at those.
You know? They’re just working step by step to iron out the issues that they have. Then it was, ‘Okay, the highest pressure games is where our level drops off.’ Then they were able to have a good high-pressure game against Vitality at Rivals, and they were able to do that, too.
Then, in the final, they just went up against a better team. Those games were a couple of details, you know? Furia’s forced buy wins on Train and Nuke were just such great rounds, such great reads that were able to really give them a lot of momentum on those CT sides early.
So I think Falcons are in a good spot. I think if Niko can have a strong tournament… The classic Falcons thing would be NiKo comes into the major, has a great tournament, but now m0NESY sort of goes missing again.
You could see the difference in that Grand Final against Furia in how they look at Inferno T-side when m0NESY is playing like m0NESY.
All of a sudden, their Inferno doesn’t look as bad. Well, because he is finding the frags. Of course, there were a couple of clutches in there, but you can count on him having those in maps. He just excels at clutching, and he’s a great player.
There’s little you can do when your best players are really underperforming and underdelivering.
So we’ll see. I think for Falcons, that’s what it depends on, whether they’re going to be able to go deep or go potentially even all the way in Budapest.
“The one concern for me is who’s going to be the star rifler of that team? Who’s going to take the responsibility in some of these key moments, key rounds to make plays?”
– YNk on G2’s rifling core
For G2, at BLAST London their rifling core seemed so deep and robust, but they haven’t been able to recapture that form. Why do you think that is?
Yeah. I think they definitely peaked at that event. That was them playing their A game.
Also, you look at that Grand Final and Vitality missing those mollys on B [Inferno]. If they don’t do that. They probably end up winning it, whatever.
But yeah, I think for G2, it would have been very surprising if they were able to maintain those sort of results, because it’s just too early.
huNter- just took over IGLing, sAw just joined the team to instil his system. Matys as well.
I think one of the concerns for me is… I think you’re right, it’s not just that they have great riflers, all of their riflers are pretty versatile.
They’ve had to play different roles and positions in the past, so they’re very able to, they’re competent at filling the gaps and understanding like, from all these different POVs how the rounds are looking.
They have a nice veteran presence in SunPayus, who’s also had an uptick in performance.
He was one of the more fun AWPers to watch towards the end of CSGO when he was hitting his peak. Just very smart about his rotations and always putting himself at the right spot.
The one concern for me is who’s going to be the star rifler of that team? Who’s going to take the responsibility in some of these key moments, key rounds to make plays?
Like, who’s going to be the guy? Who’s going to be the ropz? Who’s going to be Kscerato, Spinx, or Xertion, right?
Someone has to be that guy who we’re going to rely on.
Like, sure, in theory, you could always be doing it by committee, and then it depends on the round, and it depends on the situation, right?
But when that happens, sometimes you also have the danger of no one stepping up, and then you end up being a bit stuck.
I mean, you could, I would say huNter-, but he’s the IGL, so it’s a bit unfair to expect that from him, but I think it’s probably down to Matys or HeavyGod.
I think Matys is the more aggressive of the two, and then Heavy God is more of a clutching presence. I think that’s the way to go for G2.
For MalbsMD, in the end, it looks to me that he’s just not the type of player who can play star positions and star roles.
It seems he is much better at playing anchor positions on the CT side and then being put in active roles on the T side, whether that’s entry fragging or being sent out somewhere to fake to create some space and whatnot.
I don’t think he’s the guy to play outside nuke and be sneaky and try to be that sort of a star player. We’ll see.
Maybe he just needs more time to adjust in this lineup, but it does feel like some of the other guys are maybe more prone to being able to do that.
But G2, yeah, I think one of those teams that definitely could make playoffs, but I don’t really see them in the mix as being able to lift the trophy.
You know, I think it’s just too early for them with this lineup, when you look at some of the other names we have in the tournament.
What you said about the results, some of them have been unfortunate, huNter- unable to play the last game to potentially make playoffs, and just some struggles running into some good teams.
When I talked to huNter- at BLAST we talked about G2’s trade-heavy style. Could it be that it’s become too predictable?
I think for them it’s just, it’s starting off and looking at what your strengths are and playing to them and then sort of being able to widen that, and deepen your playbook because people will catch on fairly quickly at what it is that you’re good at and what it is that you like to do.
You can’t be one-dimensional, no matter what. For me, the beauty of Counter-Strike is there’s nothing that’s OP in the game. There’s a counter to every single thing you do. The trick is getting the read, getting the information, and having the counter for that play.
So I was impressed early on with some of their T sides, too, considering huNter- is new to the roles. Some of the mid-round calling has been great, especially on Inferno.
So a lot of good signs early. It’s just about giving them some more time to put everything in place and then having the conversation of, ‘All right, does this roster have enough firepower to compete with whatever Vitality, Furia, Falcons, the other teams?’ or do they need maybe an upgrade in a certain position?
“That’s the issue for me with Vitality; they don’t have that mental edge over these other teams anymore, and if you take that away from them, then it’s a much more even playing field.”
– YNk on Vitality’s lost dominance
Which of Vitality or Furia are favourites for the Major?
I think Furia is the favourite for the whole major. I was going to say, when people ask, ‘Who’s going to win the major?’, ‘I don’t know who’s going to win it, but I don’t think it’s going to be Vitality.’
I still feel they have probably the highest floor in a way when it comes to playoff games. They’ve been together for so long. They have so much experience with this lineup in high-pressure games, coming back, and the Grand Finals.
The Grand Final is going to be a best of five. So actually, that’s hurts Vitality at this point.
That’s why I don’t have them winning; they don’t have the confidence. They’ve lost the confidence.
I mean, that veto against Furia was baffling to me in Chengdu, and that they even banned Train and not Overpass. That’s even worse in the grand scheme of things.
So okay, you’re telling me you don’t have faith in your Train or Overpass? Well, how can I expect you to win the major when you have Furia, who’s good on both maps, Falcons, who are a good Train team, Mouz, who are a great Train team and are now picking it against you and are also willing to play Overpass?
All these different teams that are contenders, that’s your problem, and I think it’s just from some of the interviews and seeing how they play sometimes, some of that championship attitude is missing a bit.
In the first half of the year, they were just winning all the time, and you were always confident and everything was going great. But it’s hard to play with that level of confidence when you’re not winning all the time.
I mean, and they’ve only won one tournament this season. Sure, they’ve been in a couple of Grand Finals, probably should have won London, but they didn’t.
Also, they lost to so many different teams this season too, including, you know, a group stage loss to Gentlemates.
So there have been a lot of things happening to shake some of their confidence.
On the other side, you have Furia, whose confidence is just growing more and more, right? You had Falcons who were finally able to beat Vitality 2-0 in a high-stakes game in the semi-final. Mouz was able to beat them in an important series too.
So that’s the issue for me with Vitality; they don’t have that mental edge over these other teams anymore, and if you take that away from them, then it’s a much more even playing field.
And to some extent, Austin was the last time in a while that the main favourite just went on and won the major trophy.
Usually, it is someone who is in the mix, but not the first name that comes to mind when going into the major. That’s why I’m also leaning against them a little bit.
YNk on Furia
Like, there’s Furia. Furia are definitely the main favourite. They won three tournaments in a row and four out of the last five that they played in.
Their map pool is deep. They really mesh well together. The roles are really well defined. Players are playing on a super high level.
They have that togetherness that I was talking about. They make smart decisions in the veto too, going from vetoing Nuke in the final against Vitality in Chengdu to letting it through in their game in Hong Kong, right, and vetoing Dust 2 instead – keeping them guessing.
So I think they’re definitely the main favourite. It’s just, it’s a different level of pressure when it comes to the major, and it’s about handling that for them.
“I somehow have a feeling that Mouz will maybe not win the major, but that they will eliminate like Furia of Vitality or Falcons.”
– YNK on Mouz
YNk on Mouz
I think probably one of the teams that I can’t believe I’m going to say that out of all people, but Mouz has a decent chance because no one’s talking about them anymore, right?
Like Mouz has always been in the mix with Vitality. ‘They’re the second-best team, blah, blah, blah.’ I was like, ‘Mouz is the best team out there that’s not going to win a trophy.’
Like you don’t know who’s going to win, but you can count that Mouz isn’t, because they, similar to Falcons, would always crumble at the last hurdle or in some of those high-pressure games, they would just play worse.
Individuals would fall off a cliff compared to their group stage performance, but they’re still not to be underestimated.
I don’t know why I have this feeling that now that finally all the spotlight is away from them, and they didn’t play in Hong Kong, so they had extra time to just relax a little bit at home before going into a bootcamp.
And then you take into account the format, right?
I mean, in theory, you could play three best of threes and a best of five, and two best of ones to win the major.
So there’s a lot that can happen in that sense where you might be able to get away with things, not playing as many maps, or you have some pocket strats on a map that doesn’t show up in the pool until you come into a playoff game, and you can surprise a team that’s favoured to beat you.
I somehow have a feeling that Mouz will maybe not win the major, but that they will eliminate like Furia of Vitality or Falcons.
Mouz had had struggles in the past when xertioN hasn’t had impact. Do you think they’ve fixed some of those issues?
Their struggles have also been when it comes to the mid-rounding, like when their opening gambit doesn’t work, or maybe it does, but it’s just an even trade, and now it’s situational Counter-Strike.
It’s thinking on the fly, it’s reacting, calling on the fly to some extent. Everything that’s off script is where they start struggling.
I think they’re very good with scripted plays and having set plays that they do and set reactions, that’s all great.
But when it goes off script and players need to become a bit more individualistic and someone just needs to make a play and go for something, that’s when you see things fall apart for them, and it doesn’t look so good.
So if they can find a way to do that better, then it can definitely be a dangerous team.
“They’re more in danger of not making the playoffs than making it deeper than the quarterfinals.”
– YNk on Team Spirit’s Budapest Major chances
What about The MongolZ after losing Senzu? Can they still go far?
Yeah, I think The MongolZ can still make the playoffs. I don’t think that should be underestimated.
I think it’s going to be matchup dependent. Their map pool isn’t super deep, but if they play against teams where they can get Mirage, Ancient in the pool, then they have a good chance.
Perhaps even Inferno with controlez, they’ve been playing it a lot and controlez has been fine for them.
You know, obviously he’s not Senzu, and obviously, they had been together for over 2 years with him. So whenever you lose a piece, it’s just not going to be the same in terms of reactions and being on the same page and being able to just play off of instinct and reactions.
So that’s what’s putting The MongolZ out of the mix to win the tournament.
They’re not a contender to win the tournament, but I think they could make the playoffs; probably a quarterfinal exit in that case is in the cards for them.
PaiN is not going to make the playoffs. They potential to be a 0-3 team, even though they’re playing better with snow in more active roles, which is actually probably a condemnation on Biguzera and the coach for why he has been in passive roles for so long.
Like it’s not like you had insani on the server who is taking up space. You had a bunch of average players in those positions. You might as well given this kid a chance because people have been touting him as this prodigy, and he hasn’t really shown anything close to that.
So at least they have that silver lining in terms of that change being a good one.
“It’s much easier to be the best player on Heroic than it is to be the third-best player on Spirit.”
– YNk on tN1R and Zweih additions
YNk on Spirit
It’s hard to count out a team with donk in the lineup, but outside of making playoffs, I just don’t see them being able to threaten Furia, Falcons, Vitality, or Mouz.
They are outside of that mix, and I don’t think there’s enough time for them to switch things up on a significant level where that could change.
They’re more in danger of not making the playoffs than making it deeper than the quarterfinals.
I guess it depends on who they would play, but I don’t think they can beat the top four teams.
I think the problem is they’ve changed too much. Like they brought two rookies for two veteran players, and you can’t teach experience.
No matter how skilled these guys are. Like that’s the problem, understanding how these teams and players play on a Tier 1 level, what goes into it.
It’s much easier to be the best player on Heroic than it is to be the third-best player on Spirit.
So I think that has been more of a learning curve and maybe more of a struggle for hally and chopper to deal with to some extent.
It feels like the zont1x change; they didn’t want to make it, it was sort of forced on them because of things outside the game, and maybe that’s temporary. Maybe he’s able to come back in the near future, right?
Because if you think about it, and you put him instead of zweih, well, then now all of a sudden we’re talking about just bringing tN1R for Magixx, and that doesn’t sound too shabby.
It’s also about how no team makes more sacrifices for a player than Spirit does for donk. Every round, he has an AK in his hands; someone else doesn’t.
That just doesn’t mean that you don’t have the AK. It means the next round you have a Galil or a Mac-10 etc.
That’s not easy to do. Like you’re willing to do it because you want the team to win, and you’re doing it, but in the back of your head, you’re thinking you could be doing more if you had a bit more resources attributed to you. So it takes time for players to adjust to that mindset.
I mean, they’ve been happy with what Tanir has been bringing in terms of vocalness and helping with some of the calling and whatnot, but you would also, you expected a bit more out of him in terms of just fragging output. And maybe that’s getting used to the rest of the team and the players.
We’ll see, but they just haven’t looked nearly strong enough to be in the conversation for the major trophy.
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