The Contenders - IEM Cologne Major Preview

These are The Contenders - the best of the rest, but not in stage one and would only have an outside shot at getting a taste of glory.

We've put Astralis (which might be brave, but we believe), FUT and G2 in this category, with FUT especially probably being a little hard done by to not have their own article.

We'll get to that straight away. This team should really be in the third stage.

Bear in mind they've been fighting with the best teams in the world more than other teams with 'overperfoming' players we've talked about so far, look at their results and man, just watch them. They're one of the top 10 teams in the world without any doubt and might even be a top five team.

They're all so young, work so well off of each other, and still have room to grow. We've seen them win an event this year, we've seen them take some of the best teams in the world down, we've seen them blossom from promising to terrifying in a matter of months.

You'd struggle to pick the hottest prospect out of the team - but you wouldn't struggle to find the one holding them back.

We're so sorry, cmtry. It's just that... you're just nowhere near the level of your teammates.

Amusingly, their one tournament win did come off the back of his MVP performance, but that only serves to prove the point that if they had a real AWPer they'd be a genuine trophy contender. They'd win so many games if his duel swing wasn't, well, broky level.

dziugsss, Krabeni, dem0n and lauNx are all genuinely fantastic players who make up one of the best rifle cores in the entire world. Their AWPer is a tier two AWPer who has been dragged into a league he's not capable of playing in. It's not his fault, and in terms of chemistry they probably don't want to change him right now, but he will unfortunately hold them back.

Still, this is a team who could and arguably should be making top eight here. This probably won't be their best chance ever at winning a Major, as they're still so young, but they have momentum and maybe can aim for a semi-finals berth. It's really not out of their grasp, with FURIA and MOUZ being a little shaky.

FUT are potentially the hottest team in the world and one of the most interesting to watch - but the Major is a different beast for them.

G2, on the other hand, are no stranger to the Cathedral.

A cursory glance at their team page will have you thinking this team is 2021 NAVI. They aren't. They're a weird mish-mash of players and roles that don't really make much sense, with enough ability to override it. Until they don't.

What we're saying is, all five of these players, in isolation, are very good. This team isn't, and there's a big reason for that. The roles are just... weird.

huNter- is taking up too much space for the output he's putting out. He's actually improved on this a little bit (he's become a secondary rotator rather than primary, which is more of a traditional IGL role), but on T side he's still baiting his teammates and leaving HeavyGod to do most of the bombsite entrying and... why?

HeavyGod is genuinely one of the best support players in the world. He's being hung out to dry every game and still gets his every time. He's being used as TACO when he's basically coldzera.

HeavyGod is one of a very limited pool of players who could potentially improve Vitality, the best team of all time. He's that good.

We don't know if making him play more of a star role would actually limit him (in the sense that why would you change anything?), but surely he doesn't need to be bombsite entry. Surely.

The team is good, they can beat bad and good teams, but they never seem to be able to topple the truly great teams and it's because they have huNter- closing rounds out instead of their best player. In our opinion.

SunPayus looks like he's back to something approaching his best, MATYS is useful if a bit of a choker in big games and NertZ is... well, we think he's better than the model does, and it'll probably self-correct soon.

G2 are really close to being a top eight team, and yet, so far away.

Astralis, on the other hand, are like the complete opposite in terms of style.

We would like to push back on the HooXi narrative. Not only is this guy a fantastic leader, he's really not as bad as people make out as a player either.

Our guy is just simply unfairly maligned and is not terrible as far as IGLs go, especially ones who hard support and B anchor. We're not saying he's ZywOo, but he's not Zeus either. Our system rates him above Aleksib (who can actually play a bit too), MAJ3R and karrigan in tier one, and given he's on weaker teams than them we'd say that's pretty damn respectable.

Therein, however, lies the issue with this team. They're all kind of 'fine' individually and make up more than the sum of their parts (because HooXi is a good leader!), bar Staehr who is an absolute demon.

He's finally given the reins and he's showing just why Astralis were so keen on him in the first place. This guy is legitimately top quality on a team of very little genuine firepower, and is the main reason they can compete with top teams. phzy has had spells of looking like one of the best AWPers in the world, but he has regressed to the mean a little bit. When he's on, and Staehr is on, they can duel with anyone and outthink everyone.

We like this team because they're brains over brawn, and in the era of international teams and star-studded line-ups such teams have largely fallen by the wayside. Astralis can outplay you, but are just as easily overpowered by stars. It creates a delicate balance in games that is hard to replace when two behemoths fight.

We don't know exactly how good Astralis are, but we know they can be a threat. Stage one should be doable, and from there, you never know what might happen.