Xertion just did an HLTV interview where he talks about the analysts and the community need to give the team more respect based on their results this season. My question to this sub is, what would it take for you to respect Mouz as a top contender?

Wiktor “TaZ” Wojtas recently gave a long interview to Polish journalist Żurnalista. It covers pretty much his entire career, from playing in internet cafés to Virtus.pro, leaving VP, coaching and the current state of Polish CS.

Below, in first comment you might also find straight translated quotes from interview.

I went through the interview and picked out some of the parts I found most interesting, and added timestamps:

TaZ on donk, s1mple and his own prime — 42:57–44:10

Probably the most interesting part of the interview.

TaZ was asked about the new generation of players, including donk and s1mple, and whether players today are simply better than players from his generation.

His answer was pretty interesting: he doesn't really agree with that idea. He argues that comparing generations is difficult and that if you took him at his best and gave him the same age and circumstances as today's players, he believes he could compete with them.

At one point, when discussing whether he could beat players like donk, his attitude is basically: yes — in his prime, he believes he was better.

It's obviously a very subjective take, but coming from someone who played at the highest level for so many years, I found it interesting.

The Pasha / era — 28:26–36:51

There is also quite a bit about the legendary Polish VP lineup and how it actually came together.

TaZ talks about Pasha joining the team and about the early days of what eventually became one of the most recognizable lineups in CS.

What's interesting is how different the players were outside of the game, despite eventually becoming such a legendary team.

TaZ and Pasha — 1:36:54–1:38:10

Near the end of the interview, TaZ also talks about his relationship with Pasha and some of the conflict between them.

He was asked about the possibility of fighting Pasha in High League. TaZ explains why he didn't want to do it and reflects on their past relationship.

I thought this was one of the more interesting parts because it gives some context to the relationship between two players who were teammates for so many years.

The Mercedes story — 1:16:50–1:20:16

Another interesting VP story concerns the famous Mercedes situation.

TaZ talks about the decision to get the cars, how it affected the team and the narrative that later developed around him.

It's a good example of how much was happening behind the scenes during VP's peak — not everything was simply about what happened inside the server.

TaZ on the current state of Polish CS — 1:44:20–1:56:47

The final part is about the question Polish fans have been asking for years:

Where are the next Polish players and why hasn't Poland produced another top team?

TaZ talks about the lack of a proper development structure and what he thinks would need to change for Polish CS to produce another team capable of competing at the very top.

The full interview is almost two hours long, but these were probably the parts I found most interesting.

The donk section especially surprised me — TaZ genuinely seems to believe that his best version was better than today's young stars.

Curious what people here think: how would prime TaZ actually compare to today's top players?

So I was watching a video by Ash (Aurora Coach), talking about Micro Movements in 1:1 duels. My following question is advanced, so no need to explain the basics of swinging here.

He mentioned, that it is more beneficial to swing outwards/same direction of your opponent as it is more difficult for your opponent to adjust their crosshair into the direction they are swinging.

Now I've watched another video about the same topic and this guy said the same, but claimed that doing the exact opposite would be even harder for some. He definitely analyzed the micro movements of fights pretty well and explained it even more detailed than Ash.

Now I'm wondering, is there any data of fights won/lost in which the person swinging had to adjust their crosshair in the same or opposite direction of where they were going? And if not, is someone here able to get that data? All from pro matches of course (Top10 or 20).

Also happy to just read your opinions on the topic. Thanks :)

Edit: Please read the rest of the post before you comment or vote! This post is not entirely about toxicity.

Since chat logs were made public, it was found that nearly 1 in 5 matches have slurs in chat, and that's not counting occurrences in voice-chat which may be way more. I really don't see the purpose of having this feature in FACEIT pugs other than to incentivize teams to hurl slurs at each other scot-free and unintentionally leak strats/info.

In the first week it was a fun gimmick, but in nearly all of my matches since, teams have been silent at half-time or just talk amongst themselves. Or my teammates have called strats that the other team hears and we have to quickly come up with a new plan during freeze time. This feature should have never been implemented for the rest of the season

It's frankly a boring addition and a detriment to the competitive landscape of FACEIT, and I think it should be removed.

Obviously donk will never give up rifling as that’s his edge, but its curious to think if donk was a sole awper I think he could still be a top 5 player which is insane. We seldom see him use the AWP in matches but when he does he doesn’t seem to disappoint.

I think the same could possibly be said about Zywoo if he switched to only rifling, but I feel like the rarity of seeing donk AWP in official matches makes this much more interesting. He has the aim, movement, gamesense, and is arguably the greatest player ever at isolating 1v1s and dueling. I feel like he secretly might be the best AWPer on Spirit and they already have sh1ro, hot take.

Donk AWP highlight vs Furia: https://youtube.com/shorts/KyxbObfL3wk?is=dKGlwkTMN7JHyq-4

I’d love some other opinions because this is all subjective based on feeling and anecdotes.

I’m in Vancouver and I get 10-15ping to Seattle server, little more to California. Despite this, I find that the Chicago server feels better for me with 50-60ping.

I get a similar ping to Dallas and it feels slightly worse. If I am routed to any server THROUGH Seattle it also feels like crap.

Friends I play with are from all around NA and nobody likes Seattle server, but I feel uniquely qualified to shit on it because it should be my best server by far.

TLDR 55 ping Chicago feels better than 12 ping Seattle

At the bottom of the map Baggage there is a big red button labeled "EMERGENCY STOP". If approached, it lights up blue and when pressing E, is makes a sound. But does it actually stop something?

https://reddit.com/link/1w68faz/video/078k8jl7bbnh1/player

This is a very old CS clip. I spent a lot of time finding it again wanted to share it with you guys.

I counted the representatives from each country at the upcoming FISSURE Playground 3. I also included coaches. You can see the full table here.

p.s. we ended up losing that match.

Edit: it's 12k endeed

I’ve been fan of pro-CS for like over 10 years. And every time it makes me sad to watch showmatches at tier-1 events because they’re really boring. I think it’s time to organize matches with real legends.

One such matchup could be the old VP roster (pashaBiceps, TaZ, NEO, byali, and Snax) against the old NAVI (Zeus, markeloff, Edward, starix, and ceh9 or with s1mple / GuardiaN). I think their skill levels are roughly the same, and it would be really marvelous to see them face off. Given that all the VP players have made up with each other, it will be easy to organize.

Please, ESL, if you’re reading this, we’d really love to see this match before the IEM Krakow 2027 Grand Final. It would be a real treat for CS fans.

What kind of showmatches would you like to see?

Glock-18 | Copybook

The wacky design resembles the doodles everyone used to draw during boring school lessons.

Support, more pics and wear gif: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3437988150

Also there is a second version closer to real marker colouring: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3447430173

Created a Glock-18 skin and tried to keep it as clean as possible. Would love to read your opinions. W or L?

If you like it, you can vote at the Steam Workshop:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3785303495

I try typing status like in the old days of csgo, but "callvote kick ID" doesn't work, i tried "callvote kick <ID>" still doesn t work, i just saw a teammate kick himself, that means is possible, so how the fuck ?

Close, close!

HEROIC [🇸🇪](heroic-logo) 2-0 [🇪🇺](lang-eu) magic

Dust 2: 13-7
Ancient: 13-3
Mirage:
 

[🇸🇪](heroic-logo) HEROIC to Lower Bracket Semi-Finals and will face [🇷🇺](lang-ru) HOTU

[🇪🇺](lang-eu) magic is Eliminated

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

IEM Beijing 2026 Closed Qualifier | 🇪🇺 Europe ($0 Online)

Team Information

[🇸🇪](heroic-logo) HEROIC | Liquipedia | HLTV | Official Site | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Twitch
Roster: 🇸🇪 nilo | 🇩🇰 Chr1zN ♛ | 🇸🇪 susp | 🇪🇸 MartinezSa ⊕ | 🇸🇪 Brollan
Coach: 🇫🇮 doto
Subs/Benched: 🇰🇿 Alkaren

[🇪🇺](lang-eu) magic | Liquipedia | HLTV
Roster: 🇧🇾 MaSvAl | 🇷🇺 tenzy | 🇺🇦 sFade8 ♛ | 🇷🇺 AW | 🇰🇿 mo0N ⊕
Coach: 🇷🇺 eksiver

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

Map Vetoes

Full Match Stats

HLTV Match Page

MAP 1: Dust 2

Dust 2 Detailed Stats

MAP 2: Ancient

Ancient 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.

K27 [🇷🇺](lang-ru) 0-2 [🇪🇺](eternalfire-logo) Eternal Fire

Ancient: 10-13
Cache: 7-13
Mirage:
 

[🇪🇺](eternalfire-logo) Eternal Fire Winner to Lower Bracket Final and will face [🇸🇪](heroic-logo) HEROIC

[🇷🇺](lang-ru) K27 Loser is Eliminated

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

IEM Beijing 2026 Closed Qualifier | 🇪🇺 Europe ($0 Online)

Team Information

[🇷🇺](lang-ru) K27 | Liquipedia | HLTV | Official Site | Faceit | Twitter
Roster: 🇷🇺 kashl1d ⊕ | 🇧🇾 xeedo | 🇷🇺 qw1nk1 | 🇷🇺 X5G7V ♛ | 🇷🇺 clax
Coach: 🇷🇺 balblna
Subs/Benched: 🇷🇺 relaxxie (loan: ex-RUBY)

[🇪🇺](eternalfire-logo) Eternal Fire | Liquipedia | HLTV
Roster: 🇹🇷 jottAAA | 🇷🇴 regali ⊕ | 🇿🇦 MisteM ♛ | 🇺🇦 Kvem | 🇹🇷 soulfly
Coach: 🇹🇷 yT
Subs/Benched: 🇩🇰 br0 | 🇺🇦 Woro2k | 🇹🇷 imoRR

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

Map Vetoes

Full Match Stats

HLTV Match Page

MAP 1: Ancient

Ancient Detailed Stats

MAP 2: Cache

Cache 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.

ill be active LMK

Hey everyone it's Arr0w from NSTLGA!

I'm beyond proud to say that we have 46 VRS matches of coverage for NSTLGA League Season 2. I have spent tireless hours making this happen, and im so glad it worked out in the end.

Not 100% certain if this is the single largest HLTV covered NA event besides tournaments from tier 1 TO's (Blast, ESL, PGL, Starladder) but I am pretty sure it is. The closest events we had to this amount of games with previously Dust2 Eagle Masters & CCT, both sadly no longer round in NA.

So im really glad I am able to help out NACS in this huge of a way.

HLTV Event Page: https://www.hltv.org/events/9389/nstlga-league-season-2

B8 🇺🇦 2-0 🇸🇪 EYEBALLERS

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

IEM Beijing 2026 Closed Qualifier | 🇪🇺 Europe ($0 Online)

Team Information

🇺🇦 B8 | Liquipedia | HLTV
Roster: 🇺🇦 npl | 🇺🇦 esenthial ⊕ | 🇺🇦 alex666 ♛ | 🇺🇦 kensizor | 🇺🇦 s1zzi
Coach: 🌍 maddened

🇸🇪 EYEBALLERS | Liquipedia | HLTV
Roster: 🇸🇪 JW ♛⊕ | 🇸🇪 dex | 🇸🇪 Ro1f | 🇸🇪 maxster | 🇸🇪 KRIMZ
Coach: 🇸🇪 pita

^{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