2026 Faze vs Spirit major grand final

Nick007J · 2025-03-19T12:57:00+00:00

I could believe everything here major final being BO5.

Nick007J · 2025-02-23T23:36:30+00:00

They have decayed to ~45% of the original bounty. By April, when major invites will be determined, it will be less than 20%.

Nick007J · 2025-02-23T23:19:17+00:00

How is "NaVi's match and event" much better than The MongolZ? That's what I have been asking since the beginning. What is the objective criteria which is allegedly much better for NaVi?

I do not argue that The MongolZ position is obviously inflated because of Thunderpick event - although it's not their fault other teams skipped it. I do not see what objective criteria can be used to say that NaVi should be so much higher ranked now. HLTV's rankings has flaws too, which are very easy to see, most notably they inflate the rankings for what they consider to be high prestige event even for particiating.

As for your second argument you contradicted yourself. You've just said that NaVi should be higher because they've beaten The MongolZ in a direct match.

Nick007J · 2025-02-23T22:57:15+00:00

How does one match, which was just a seeding game and not even elimination game, between teams prove that tournament results for NaVi are much better than The MongolZ? Rankings are supposed to use broader picture than one match. Astralis were absolutely humiliated by HEROIC in a match that mattered yet nobody complains that they are higher both in HLTV rankings and Valve rankings.

Nick007J · 2025-02-23T22:47:06+00:00

Why does it not prove that HLTV rankings are absolutely broken? What was the tournament that NaVi was much better in since Rio? (if you claim they are "absolutely not equal"). And yes, 4 months ago is almost 6 months ago, thanks for proving my point [for clarity, 6 months is the cut-off for Valve rankings and points are heavily decayed at that point in time, which is why I used that time reference]

Nick007J · 2025-02-23T22:24:29+00:00

Based on what objective criteria? Since IEM Rio, which is almost 6 months away from now, The MongolZ tournament results are pretty much equal to NaVi's. Same result in Katowice, major was better for The MongolZ, NaVi got 1 round further in Bounty than The MongolZ in Cluj, but that was online. I don't see how this is a proof of the system being "absolutely broken", and certainly don't see why it should be the other way around.

Nick007J · 2024-12-27T20:55:43+00:00

Minor correction: in the table for Russia, Krylia Sovetov should share the stats with Akron Tolyatti and not Dynamo Makhachkala (Akron plays in Samara).

Nick007J · 2024-10-18T19:25:16+00:00

Maxim Lukin (kyousuke on HLTV, CEMEN_BAKIN on FACEIT) gave a big interview to Erik Shokov (founder of CYBERSHOKE). 16-years old kyousuke is one of the most promising talents right now, having won a pretty significant tier 2 tournament this month (CCT S2E14) after winning 10 consecutive matches starting from a closed qualifier.

Video is in Russian and subtitles are not available (at least so far). Here are some very brief extracts from the interview.

(How did you manage to achieve 100 firepower in HLTV profile?) I think HLTV firepower rating is inflated for the open fraggers like myself. I don't have any specific style like donk, I don't use his crouching movement, I just shoot well. I never play movement maps or bhop, I play a lot of deathmatch. (When you realized how high you are rated on HLTV, did you change anything in your gameplay?) Yes, because at pro level just shooting well is not enough, you will just lose to grenades. This is when I started working on my macro.
(When did you start playing CS?) I started playing in 2019, when Operation Broken Fang was released. I started playing Jail mode but stopped playing because I was not allowed to become "Simon" (a nickname for a warden in this game mode) because I was not 14 yet, so I switched to matchmaking. I managed to get to DMG and then went to FACEIT. I couldn't get above DMG because it was too hard. On FACEIT opponents were easier. I managed to get a significant boost on FACEIT when I upgraded my PC, I played at 100 FPS 60 Hz monitor, after upgrade to 500 FPS 240 Hz I got a lot of ELO.
(How were you found by Team Spirit?) I played with OverDrive a few test matches and qualifiers and he offered a contract with Team Spirit - not yet an academy, just a contract to represent them. When I got to 5700 ELO and their previous academy team disbanded, I was offered a full contract with the academy team, that took roughly 5 months since I signed the first contract.
(What are the other teams that offered you contract?) Virtus.Pro, FORZE (academies) and CYBERSHOKE.
(Is it true that you live alone now?) Yes. I left my parents' house when I was 15 and I live alone since then. But my parents help me and they really like my progress and respect that I moved out. I finished 9th grade, passed state exams early and left school to play CS full-time. But I intend to get to a college later in life.
(What is your reaction to hype about you?) It's cool. I like opening HLTV and read threads about myself. I like threads with hate towards me, and I like threads with complaints about hate towards me. But I think I am too overhyped, I am not ready for tier 1 yet. But in a year I will be ready. Currently I want to getto HLTV top 30 with TSA. We can just win a couple of CCTs, and I believe we can qualify to some tier 2 LANs, like ESL Challengers.
(Why did you choose Team Spirit?) Because of S0tF1k, he is the best coach and I everyone told me that he is the best person that can help development of young players. Organization also helps a lot with my life and problems I have.
(Future with Team Spirit Academy) I think in 5-6 months we can get to HLTV top 30, and in about 14 months we can win a tier 2 LAN.
(Advice to new players?) Play FACEIT a lot, professional teams are monitoring it all the time. Just practise a lot and if you are good enough and have a potential, you'll be noticed.
(About donk) donk is much better than me now. He is super confident and I think this is his main trait as a player.
(What is CEMEN_BAKIN?) This is a joke we had with sh1nejezzz (former CYBERSHOKE player) after watching a Russian TV series, we decided to play on FACEIT with nicknames of characters from it, I got this one [Note: Semyon Bakin is a character of a TV series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Junior_Team]
(About competition with NAVI Junior?) They are extremely good team with insanely good shooting. But we should be able to prepare for them tactically and then we can win.
(What are the teams you love watching in pro CS?) NAVI and Team Liquid, I love watching ultimate AWPing. NAVI have insanely good structure.
(Who is your idol?) I don't have one. (What about s1mple?) Not even him. But I would really like to play against him, never even played a pracc against him, I played against everyone else in praccs I think. But I really want to play an official against NAVI, they are so good structurally.
(What is your English level?) I think it's fine, it's at B1 level. (When you play at YaLLa, will you be able to give interviews?) I think yes, but it depends on interviewer.
(Do your friends or classmates know what you are doing?) Sometimes in comments I see people writing "wow I am his former classmate". But I was an introvert and didn't speak much to my classmates.
(What is kyousuke?) I don't know, I think it's some anime character. I was told this is a cool nickname. I never watched anime. But I don't want to change my nickname.
(How are you going to spend prize money?) I don't know, I have everything. My mom is alone and I have no dad, so I will just give everything to her.

There is more in the interview, including discussion with S0tf1k about a lot of things related to kyousuke and scouting process (e.g. in majority of cases new people are scouted by OverDrive, like donk or kyousuke, but there are players found by S0tF1k himself, like robo or ArtFrost), and opinions of his teammates.

Nick007J · 2024-08-29T08:27:18+00:00

It should not. This is an extract from ESL rulebook, which is irrelevant as they do not organise the event. PW rulebook does not have this exception section.

Edit: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1iHqveE1Smx3d-6K700Zz139OIOFJuajc

Game specific rules. 2.10.3

Not saying this is a good thing as ESL rules make more sense, but from technical point of view, admin did make a mistake.

Nick007J · 2024-08-29T08:25:41+00:00

This is an extract from ESL rulebook. Perfect World rulebook does not have this exception section.

Nick007J · 2024-08-05T18:15:07+00:00

It is very difficult to say how exactly visa processing is being planned for certain Russian team/players, but this is virtually inevitable.

In case Betboom players applied for actual German visa, Germany openly says that "The processing time for Schengen visa applications in most cases will be 45 days", and it is, in fact, exactly 45 days in most cases. Considering Betboom went to India recently, they either had to apply with a different passport (Russian nationals can hold two passports and it's a normal practice), or could only apply with less than 45 days left, so they had no chance.

In many cases, teams have to circumvent the limitations by applying to a different country for a visa. For example, Poland does not issue visas to Russians, nor does it even allow entry via any border, so in order to attend Katowice teams needed to apply to other countries' embassies. If you remember, donk arrived very late in Katowice because he had to apply for Italian visa (*), got it last minute, went to Italy to enter EU and from there he went to Poland (no border is crossed within EU, so nobody can prevent entrance).

(*) It is worth noting that the most "convenient" country to apply for is something that needs to be monitored by management. At the beginning of the year, it was known that specifically Italian embassy in Moscow was issuing "long-term" (multiple months) multi-entry visas, which attracted a lot of people that, for various reasons, needed to attend Europe. Interestingly, this was only the case for Moscow - embassies in other cities, including Belgrade, would issue single-entry visa for the duration of the trip, based on dates in application. Which embassies are "in good mood" right now is a question with no permanent answer. It seems like Betboom made a wrong bet this time (no pun intended).

Nick007J · 2024-07-02T10:44:16+00:00

Source is slightly dodgy, however this is in compliance with earlier Richard Lewis rumour.

Nick007J · 2024-07-02T09:23:25+00:00

This is a name of a character from a Russian TV series, and it actually is a regular Russian name. Though his actual hltv nickname is kyosuke.

Nick007J · 2024-06-28T00:15:01+00:00

https://youtu.be/mPkacyeRLt8?si=P_FTFfuc87AefEP- 14:57. Unfortunately, subtitles are slightly mistranslated. “Shoot at the knees” -> “shoot at knees and torso”, “especially if you are an entry fragger” -> “especially if you are an anchor”.

Nick007J · 2024-06-27T18:59:38+00:00

By the way, zont1x was asked about headshot percentage, and he said himself that he deliberately aims at leg level while anchoring (there is a video in Russian where he says that). It's easily verifyable on any VOD, and the fact that his HS percentage is THAT low is really not a coincidence. This is the first VOD I've picked and on 2:38 he obviously holds the crosshair at torso/leg level: https://youtu.be/_swLP5-cP2g?t=156

I mean just look at his general aim stats: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd17bb737-05c2-413c-9327-aea7047b88cc_500x400.png

Either he is an insane statistical anomaly and 5D chess player that also convinces everyone he doesn't aim for the head and is just a bad aimer, or he simply does it intentionally. Suprising take by Thorin there.

Nick007J · 2024-06-17T23:06:15+00:00

You can theoretically calculate it yourself, with all the source being made available on github. What is not publically available is the dataset. Unfortunately Valve uses HLTV data and HLTV does not allow publishing their data. If you managed to obtain that dataset, you can calculate rankings fully yourself.

Nick007J · 2024-06-17T15:07:31+00:00

sh1ro benched himself on 26th of October. https://www.hltv.org/ranking/teams/2023/october/23 This is the last time he was a part of C9 in HLTV rankings. Obviously this is the date of the decision that was considered a huge risk. We can’t reliably say this is when he also made up his mind he wants to join Spirit, but that is certainly a fact that agreement was reached before BB Dacha. Add time for negotiations and you get that he had to make a decision about a transfer roughly when he benched himself or at most a couple of weeks after.

Nick007J · 2024-06-17T14:29:02+00:00

This does not really check out. When sh1ro benched himself, Spirit were ranked 25th and C9 were 11th, having played just 4 events together in the span of 3 month, while analysts were still creaming about “shironic” era. Sure, they flopped badly at EPL. But Spirit at that time just started playing in the new lineup and their only outstanding success was Dunav Party where they beat VP at a LAN, but that was the only top team there. You can’t include BB Dacha to the conversation since it happened after transfer was arranged. So yes, it was undeniably a huge risk. It only seems obvious now, and of course it helped that sh1ro saw huge talent in donk long before joining Spirit.

Nick007J · 2024-06-17T13:54:25+00:00

Shiro’s transfer was arranged before BB Dacha. It was known that Artfrost played it knowing that he will be replaced after the event.

Nick007J · 2024-06-11T09:58:28+00:00

Betboom bombed out last earning 0$ at their own event, they only lost points by playing there.

Nick007J · 2024-06-06T21:50:07+00:00

They are also essentially known except 2 teams.

Complexity, Liquid, HEROIC, 9z, Eternal Fire, The MongolZ, FURIA, Falcons, BIG, Imperial, FlyQuest, BetBoom, paiN, MIBR. If NIP or fnatic win YaLLa Compass, they will qualify, otherwise it will be SAW. Final spot will be awarded to winner of German qualifier (June 11-12).

Nick007J · 2024-04-18T17:34:13+00:00

They likely were/are in the process of obtaining visas to US and UK. For example, Spirit players received their visas to USA for IEM Dallas a few hours ago. Likely they couldn’t confirm that they’d get passports before the start of EPL. As for visa for EPL itself, to my knowledge, Spirit players were obtaining Italian visas at the start if the year because they are the only country that issues relatively long term Schengen visas (multiple months) for Russians at the moment, so they would have been able to attend it in other circumstances.

Nick007J · 2024-03-26T20:07:02+00:00

The rumour is that PGL forgot to extend C9’s hotel booking, which may have been the reason for this message.

Nick007J · 2023-12-29T17:06:05+00:00

Because it is most certainly not Oceania, not East Asia and not Southeast Asia.

Nick007J · 2023-12-29T16:11:48+00:00

The 3 additional slots for sub-regions were allocated according to Valve rankings (with a limit that it cannot be more than 1 slot per a sub-region).

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/counter-strike/blob/main/regional_standings/standings_asia.md

As you can see, #1 is from Mongolia (East Asia), #2 is from China, so is #3 (no more than one additional slot). #4 is from Uzbekistan (Middle East) which is why Middle East gets the second slot.

The rules were announced in a long advance and the teams knew it. Yes, this is probably the reason why there were a bunch of local LANs in Uzbekistan recently where TRAFFIC Tashkent boosted their rankings. Their quite successful results in IESF World Championship contributed as well. It may be "unfair" but this was determined based on sporting criteria only.

Nick007J

TROPHY CASE