And I'm not talking about betting odds. I don't give a shit about betting. I'm asking for people's opinions.

Based on what we've seen, are they the clear favourites? Who else could everyone see winning the whole thing?

I’ve been playing CS for around 700h, and lately I’ve been asking myself: am I actually having fun anymore?

The funny thing is, everyone keep saying 700 hours is nothing bro, you’re not even out of the tutorial yet. You need 1000+ hours to even start understanding the game. And yeah, I get it. CS has an insane skill ceiling. There are people with thousands of hours who are still grinding in faceit every day. But I feel like I’m stuck in this weird phase where I’m not a complete noob anymore, but I’m also nowhere near good enough to feel like I’m improving.

Every game feels like one dude on the enemy team is playing like it’s a major final, while someone is screaming in voice chat because you missed one smoke. And even worse, cheaters and paranoid VAC.

I used to get excited about learning new utilities, improving aim, trying new things. Now I just queue up, play 2-3 games and somehow end up more tired than when I started.

The worst part is that I still love CS. But lately it feels less like a game and more like a second job where my coworkers are angry teenagers and the performance review happens every round.

Maybe I’m just burnt out. Maybe I need a break. Maybe 700 hours is just the point where you realize how huge the skill gap actually is.

Anyone else went through this?

I'm not the streamer, just a viewer.

i played csgo when i was 14 but off and on and got to mge.

i got disconnected the round before too , me and another person on the enemy team both for steam logon

Just came across this roster on HLTV and honestly, seeing all these old NA names together again is pretty wild.

Stewie2K, autimatic, Brehze and CeRq are all names that had some really great moments in NA CS, so I’m genuinely happy to see them giving it another shot.

Obviously, this is nowhere near the level these guys were at during their prime, but I’m curious to see how they perform together and whether they can still make some noise in the current NA scene.

I could see them benefiting from having a really experienced IGL and maybe making a few changes depending on how the roles work out.

Do you guys think this is just a nostalgia project, or could they actually surprise people?

as many of you know, if 2 map bans are the same the map further on the right will always be banned.

currently cache is furthest to the right and ancient furthest to the left.

why would you introduce a map into the pool and make it even less likely to be played by putting it in the worst spot possible

any ideas?

Hopefully the quality makes up for the fact that I'm late to the party.

Thanks for watching!

I’m not good at cs2 in anyway but i have like 40 hours and every comp match is literally just whoever has the most hackers wins and its not fun how do i get into matches with no hackers

Where are they? Why does solo q take 5-10 minutes in NA at evening hours? Why is retakes so dead? Is everyone on Faceit or RUS servers? I just started playing again after a few yrs and i thought the game had died but no theres millions of people here, meanwhile the community server browser is so empty and I can't find a single 1-deag server with anyone on it

HOTU 🇷🇺 2-1 🇷🇺 Color

Predicted VRS Impact

^{Note: VRS officially updates once per month. This is simply a prediction that might not take into account all factors that go into VRS calculations.}

Event Information

GLuck Moscow Cyber Games 2026 Closed Qualifier | 🇪🇺 Europe ($0 Online) | Liquipedia | HLTV

Streams | Twitch A

Team Information

🇷🇺 HOTU | Liquipedia | HLTV
Roster: 🇷🇺 mizu | 🇰🇿 kade0 ♛ | 🇷🇺 frontales ⊕ | 🇷🇺 n0rb3r7 | 🇷🇺 dwushka
Coach: 🇰🇿 mou

🇷🇺 Color
Roster: 🇺🇿 Ryujin | 🇷🇺 lattykk ⊕ | 🇷🇺 reyoz | 🇷🇺 cronuss | 🇷🇺 oz1k
Coach: 🇰🇿 cau

^{Note: Above rosters do not reflect temporary subs and may be out of date if recent changes were made}

Full Match Stats

HLTV Match Page

MAP 1:

Detailed Stats

MAP 2:

Detailed Stats

MAP 3:

Detailed Stats

This thread was created by the Post-Match Team.
Want to help post these threads? Message /u/Undercover-Cactus to join the Post-Match Team.

Nuclear TigeRES 🇷🇺 0-2 🇷🇺 1w Team

Predicted VRS Impact

^{Note: VRS officially updates once per month. This is simply a prediction that might not take into account all factors that go into VRS calculations.}

Event Information

GLuck Moscow Cyber Games 2026 Closed Qualifier | 🇪🇺 Europe ($0 Online) | Liquipedia | HLTV

Streams | Twitch A

Team Information

🇷🇺 Nuclear TigeRES | Liquipedia | HLTV | Official Site | Faceit | Instagram | YouTube | Twitch
Roster: 🇧🇾 senka ♛ | 🇷🇺 flouzer | 🇷🇺 z1k4 ⊕ | 🇧🇾 m1QUSE | 🇷🇺 ayuki
Coach: 🇷🇺 Polt

🇷🇺 1w Team | Liquipedia | HLTV | Twitter | YouTube
Roster: 🇷🇺 nafany ♛ | 🇷🇺 Ax1Le | 🇷🇺 ArtFr0st ⊕ | 🇷🇺 fame | 🇷🇺 BELCHONOKK
Coach: 🇷🇺 groove

^{Note: Above rosters do not reflect temporary subs and may be out of date if recent changes were made}

Full Match Stats

HLTV Match Page

MAP 1:

Detailed Stats

MAP 2:

Detailed Stats

This thread was created by the Post-Match Team.
Want to help post these threads? Message /u/Undercover-Cactus to join the Post-Match Team.

Has anyone else experienced this? I won 50% of my placement games and queued with people around 20k, none of which had any trust factor issues, suddenly I get my rank and its 10k rating lower, when none of my friends had similar issues. I did my placement within a week of the season starting

Logitech G Play Connect 2026 $100k in Poland from 9/17 to 9/23

Stake Pulse Beat II $60k in Sweden from 9/21 to 9/26, though due to format their group (if it's the last one) might start on 24th.

1win Private Club #1 $100k in Serbia from 9/25 to 9/28

This seems like really setting themselves up for failure and potentially having to forfeit matches if they do well (which they absolutely might). Surprised that they haven't dropped out of Stake Pulse while they can be replaced to focus on the two 100k ones. This will also be super tough on the team even with minimal travel times within Europe.

Would for this to be written out in rules by Valve to prevent such overlaps (Like Faze did last major race).

Old Echo team (new name BBL) is also in Logitech and Stake Pulse as they made it through qualifying for both, but that team is not nearly as likely to make a deep run so probably doesn't matter as much for them.

I think the area enclosed by the red lines should be larger to match the size of the bombsite plant area

8 years ago Hungarian player DeadFox, while explaining his bottomfragger stats, stated:

[..] If it wasn't for me, the team would have fallen apart, no one can do what I do, I play the most despicable positions, I die first a lot of times so I can get traded [..]

And got eternally ridiculed for that. Especially the "despicable positions" turned into a running gag.

Now, in 2026, Luz looked into the old seasons. Parsed 2018 demos. And it turns out the guy was right. He played the worst possible role. Straight at the bottom of the scale. On every map. As far as this analysis has been run, no one has even tried playing so handicapped.

Here's the timestamp to where this was presented: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw1p1KmAFU4&t=3802s

obviously, its him.