#679: Ethical kills only (AMERICAS)

Match highlights

• malbs can’t catch a break: Out of the frying pan, into the depths of hell. Poor malbs might never smile again.

• The battle for second-ish place: NAVI have proven their worth as a contender to be Vitality’s footrest, and a win against Falcons (albeit only 80% of them) might cement their spot in the top five going forward.

Your deepest thoughts

We've got a tiny favour to ask.

We're trying to get to know you better (in a non-creepy way, promise) so we can make TLDR even more relevant to your world.

Bonus: it also helps us bring in new sponsors you'll actually like, instead of ones that make you hit unsubscribe.

💆 Share your deepest thoughts here (1.5 min to complete)

Ammunition update

Think before you shoot

For once when making a major patch to CS2, Valve have decided to listen to the fans.

The fans of a different game.

The gist of last night’s flabbergasting update is that Valve have rectified the biggest gripe players from other tactical shooters have when playing Counter-Strike. Ammunition management is now not just a measure of how many times you’ve clicked your mouse, but how many times you’ve reloaded.

That’s because the remaining bullets in each magazine you discard now don’t magically teleport back into your reserve, but are also discarded. In practice, this means every time you reload your AK-47, it won’t matter if you’ve fired all your bullets or just a single one - you still lose 30 shots.

Some think this is the first step in a radical realism shift for Counter-Strike. I mean, what’s next?

Buying ammunition like in 1.6? Dropping magazines to your teammates? Having to do regular gun maintenance or your gun will jam in overtime?

We doubt any of this is the case, as it’s quite obvious what this update is meant to address. By limiting the number of times you can reload in a round, it also limits how many times you can aimlessly shoot in a round.

Rejoice - Valve found a fix to the incessant smoke spamming!

At least, that’s what we think about it. How it will work for the pros in practice, we’ll have to see soon, as most of the ongoing Counter-Strike tournaments are, of course, staying on the old patch.

In any case, our tip for all you smoke sprayers out there, remember this old carpenter’s proverb:

Measure twice, cut once.

Words by quacke

FaZe part ways with NEO

Rising from the ashes

So, FaZe have made a change.

F-cking finally. We’re so glad brok… wait, what? They sacked the coach?

After a disastrous start to the year - with just 3 wins in 13 matches - FaZe have decided they’ve had enough with NEO.

One thing is clear: FaZe were - and, honestly, still are - in desperate need of changes. This roster clearly isn’t working, and making the Grand Final of the Budapest Major was the worst thing that could’ve happened to them.

But will this move actually fix anything? Probably not.

The problems seem to run much deeper than the coach. It’s always hard to judge coaching work from the outside, but according to karrigan, the team is “looking at somebody who maybe has more experience, can be more structured and harder”.

That’s easier said than done. Experienced coaches don’t exactly grow on trees, and convincing someone to walk into the current dumpster fire that is FaZe Clan won’t be easy. Still, this is FaZe we’re talking about - one of the biggest brands in Counter-Strike. The chance to turn this roster around might just be too tempting to pass up.

One name already floating around is ash, and honestly, we like it. He’s done a fantastic job with GamerLegion over the past few years and deserves a shot at a team with bigger ambitions. Let’s just say he’s not exactly hiding it either.

Just please, for the love of everything holy, don’t give him broky and jcobbb to work with.

Words by shoko

Podcast

Overtime on Inferno: debate edition

If you were donk, why on Earth would you still be at Team Spirit? That’s the question we’re asking, and answering, amidst the chaos.

• We actually try to solve the FaZe problem for once

• #hallyOUT

• Who lost in the malbsMd/NertZ swap (and why it’s malbsMd)

fnatic make a change

KRIMZ, the immortal

fnatic signed Maden just three months ago to replace blameF because they needed a sacrificial entry fragger guy - supposedly - which didn’t really work.

To their credit, they’re sticking to their guns with the signing of Br4tkO, who profiles similarly as a super-aggro first or second man in, rather than just going and getting another star, but according to harumi (yes, we know), KRIMZ is going to be the star player?

He reckons that KRIMZ was going to be cut and another Ukrainian brought in to anchor, but now KRIMZ is a star player and Br4tkO, presumably, is going to be an anchor? It’s all a bit mad, and suggests either fnatic or harumi haven’t a clue what’s going on, and it could genuinely be either.

We don’t appreciate him suggesting 31 is too old, by the way.

Words by aizyesque

BLAST Open Rotterdam

Of MOUZ and MongolZ

If MOUZ aren’t even winning every game in the group stages at a studio event, what’s even the point any more?

They got tonked on map two by The MongolZ, who, admittedly, looked exceptionally good on the day. Techno4k was in a MOOD, dancing around Inferno, looking like he had God mode on.

Maybe they’re in their FaZe era now and they’ve all of a sudden become rubbish in group stages and clutch in playoffs. Maybe they think that there’s a causation there, rather than a correlation.

Whatever happened, it doesn’t look good for MOUZ. This used to be their bread and butter.

Speaking of FaZe, they, remarkably, weren’t completely horrendous. jcobbb was absolutely frying for a few maps, Twistzz achieved nirvana on the third (albeit at the expense of everyone else) and even karriga-

Okay, he was still terrible. But he tried really, really hard.

None of it mattered, of course, as they did eventually fall in three to Aurora, but for a whole series, we genuinely believed that all five FaZe players were professional Counter-Strike players again.

If the bar were any lower, it’d be buried deeper than chrisJ’s career.

NIP similarly continue to underwhelm. Poor xKacpersky dropped a highlight reel-filling 31 kills in regulation on Ancient and still lost. In regulation. What else can he even do?

They lost 2-1 to PARIVISION, as they withered in the sixth half of the series - though losing a long game to a Jame team is par for the course for pretty much everyone. xKacpersky went 5-16 on the final map, but to be completely honest, we’d probably give up as well.

There were so many comedic rounds in this game. Just basic stuff going wrong. NIP lost a 2v5 because they left one guy on his own on A (Mirage), he got killed, and PARIVISION won on time after killing only one other player.

Awful.

Vitality obviously cleanly beat 9z, Spirit put Liquid away because donk got 55 kills in two maps (no overtimes), pretty standard stuff.

FURIA needed an eco round win with a bit of a dodgy boost just to not lose on Overpass to TYLOO, but at least they won, and Falcons without kyousuke beat NRG despite a ridiculous performance from Sonic.

At some point, NAVI and B8 played a marathon game with NAVI winning, but it was a very forgettable game. We cannot remember anything that happened from that game, and it happened two days ago.

Today has two less interesting games in the morning (NRG vs B8 is an insomnia cure, FaZe vs TYLOO will likely be poor quality) and two bangers (Falcons vs NAVI is always good, Aurora are playing decently while FURIA are in a weird spot) in the evening.

We’ll be watching every minute, obviously.

Words by aizyesque

Everything else

🐲 Bad spirits for donk

• Turns out even donk is actually human and feels the effects of bad team decisions. Thank god, we thought he was actually invincible.

• There’s a difference between being loyal to your current team and being open to an International move in the future, but donk doesn’t get that yet we think.

👴 Not all geriatric IGLs are the same

• We think we’ve nailed why FaZe are doing so bad, karrigan seems to be cucking his teammates by withholding fistbumps. That must be it.

• On the flipside, apEX seems to be doing just fine, with him renegotiating his contract with Vita to stay there even longer. Age is just a number?

👶 Ad so bad it made me not want to buy a condom (not like we need them)

• We usually stay pretty calm when writing these but excuse us what in the flying tabernacle is this ad from Vitality?!

• mezii seems to echo our feelings on the ad as well, which is good. At least someone in that team knows it’s bad.

Words by napz

This TL;DR was written by aizyesque, shoko, quacke and napz.
Crash_ coded the email.

How did you like this edition?
Help us improve by clicking a smiley below.

Give your friend the tl;dr