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Iberian Soul fall at the worst possible moment: out of EWC in the week they lost their org

Iberian Soul fell 2-1 to 6666 and crashed out of the Esports World Cup qualifier, in the same week Gentle Mates confirmed their exit from Counter-Strike and left the team without an organization. alex admitted the situation is affecting them mentally.

Valve uncovers the VACnet portal: the new tool for catching cheaters (and it's invite-only)

Yesterday's patch uncovered the "VACnet labeling portal": a website where invited reviewers will judge suspicious clips. But with a key twist: their verdicts won't ban anyone directly — they'll train Valve's AI instead.

GamerLegion's collapse: 10-2 up, three rounds from the quarters, and out

GamerLegion led 10-2 on the deciding map, three rounds from the EWC quarter-finals. MOUZ turned it around with xelex — until then his team's worst performer — transformed into the hero. The tournament's most painful defeat.

FURIA come back against Aurora and stay alive: the international project bows out in Paris

FURIA came from behind to beat Aurora and reach the EWC quarter-finals, while kyxsan's international project bows out. FalleN's final season lives on, and he's opened the door to signing an IGL.

CS2 News

Thursday, August 20, 2026

Valve patches the wall-speed trick: an update that fixes a bug and leaves everyone wanting more

CS2 Update

Valve fixes a bug allowing excessive speed when moving against walls and refreshes community maps Boulder and Poseidon. A solid patch — but one that left the community feeling it expected considerably more.

Thursday, August 20, 2026

FURIA come back against Aurora and stay alive: the international project bows out in Paris

eSports

FURIA came from behind to beat Aurora and reach the EWC quarter-finals, while kyxsan's international project bows out. FalleN's final season lives on, and he's opened the door to signing an IGL.

Thursday, August 20, 2026

GamerLegion's collapse: 10-2 up, three rounds from the quarters, and out

eSports

GamerLegion led 10-2 on the deciding map, three rounds from the EWC quarter-finals. MOUZ turned it around with xelex — until then his team's worst performer — transformed into the hero. The tournament's most painful defeat.

Thursday, August 20, 2026

FURIA fe leave Counter-Strike for VALORANT: the women's scene is bleeding out

eSports

FURIA fe, one of Counter-Strike's best women's teams, is leaving the game and moving to VALORANT in full as FURIA Inclusivo. It's the first roster to switch games keeping its entire structure, and comes two weeks after ASTRA's departure.

Thursday, August 20, 2026

FACEIT banned 109,232 accounts in Season 8: the breakdown challenges some assumptions

Faceit

FACEIT banned 109,232 accounts during Season 8 and returned 71.9 million Elo to 1.2 million players. But the surprising figure is in the breakdown: only 707 of those bans were for cheating.

Sunday, August 16, 2026

NAVI send the defending champions to the lower bracket and book their EWC Round of 16 spot

eSports

NAVI beat The MongolZ 2-1 to qualify directly for the Esports World Cup Round of 16, sending the defending champions to the lower bracket. No MongolZ player finished the series above a 1.00 rating.

Saturday, August 15, 2026

Cheaters are already trying to poison the new VACnet: why it probably won't work

Anti-cheat CS2 Update

Cheaters are already trying to poison the new VACnet portal, labeling cheating clips as clean via scripts and inviting other cheaters to multiply fake verdicts. We break down why the system's design likely makes it pointless.

Thursday, August 13, 2026

FL4MUS opens his Esports World Cup with a masterclass: the relief of a stand-in who finally has a home

eSports

FL4MUS posted a 1.85 rating and 113.7 ADR in GamerLegion's 13-3 win over Luminosity, the day's best individual performance. It comes after a year drifting as a stand-in: "I finally feel like I'm back on a team."

Thursday, August 13, 2026

JiJieHao stun Spirit on Esports World Cup opening day: the upset nobody saw coming

eSports

JiJieHao, the Chinese side that came through the qualifier, beat Spirit 13-10 on Mirage in the Esports World Cup's opening day, sending the world's second-ranked team to the lower bracket. sh1ro posted his worst map in 18 months.

Tuesday, August 11, 2026

Valve uncovers the VACnet portal: the new tool for catching cheaters (and it's invite-only)

CS2 Update

Yesterday's patch uncovered the "VACnet labeling portal": a website where invited reviewers will judge suspicious clips. But with a key twist: their verdicts won't ban anyone directly — they'll train Valve's AI instead.

Monday, August 10, 2026

The world's best female player leaves CS2: "female CS is falling apart"

eSports

ASTRA, named the world's best female player by HLTV in 2025, is leaving Counter-Strike for VALORANT, citing that female CS is "falling apart" with no tournaments ahead. Her departure is the starkest symptom of a scene that has spent a year losing its circuit.

Monday, August 10, 2026

Iberian Soul fall at the worst possible moment: out of EWC in the week they lost their org

eSports

Iberian Soul fell 2-1 to 6666 and crashed out of the Esports World Cup qualifier, in the same week Gentle Mates confirmed their exit from Counter-Strike and left the team without an organization. alex admitted the situation is affecting them mentally.

Saturday, August 8, 2026

HEROIC advance unbeaten as BC.Game edge closer to s1mple's Esports World Cup debut

eSports

HEROIC, featuring Spain's MartinezSa, closed the opening day of the Esports World Cup qualifier without dropping a single series and are through to the playoffs. BC.Game also advanced, with a historic angle: s1mple has never played the EWC.

Saturday, August 8, 2026

Valve wipes out two bot farms in a single night: 14,000 accounts and $38,000 in frozen inventories

CS2 Update

Valve hit two bot farm operations simultaneously overnight, with over 14,000 accounts logged and not a single VAC ban among them: these are trade restrictions. Casual servers have lost around 35,000 "players" in under a week.

Thursday, August 6, 2026

jL finds a place at the world's best: he'll stand in for Vitality at two events

eSports Fichajes

jL returns to the top level with Vitality: the Copenhagen Major MVP will play as a stand-in at BLAST Open Porto and PGL Masters Bucharest, covering paternity leave for mezii and apEX.

Thursday, August 6, 2026

FACEIT Season 9 is live: how its AI anti-cheat actually works

Faceit

FACEIT Season 9 is live with its AI anti-cheat active. We go through the platform's answers to the community's three biggest concerns: privacy, false positives, and unconventional peripherals.

Thursday, August 6, 2026

Valve fixes grenades going through walls and removes a Cache boost spot

CS2 Update

The latest CS2 patch fixes the bug that allowed grenades to be thrown through level geometry, tweaks Cache by removing a boost spot in Outside A, and significantly expands the map scripting tools for creators.

Monday, August 3, 2026

Everything arriving with FACEIT Season 9: new anti-cheat, Vertigo, and five-year bans

Faceit

FACEIT Season 9 begins August 5 with a personalized soft Elo reset, ten placement matches, Vertigo as the community-voted optional map, the new AI anti-cheat, five-year cheating bans, and an experiment with half-time voice chat.

Monday, August 3, 2026

FISSURE moves Playground 3 to Suzhou and seals a deal to bring Tier 1 to China every year

eSports

FISSURE is relocating Playground 3 from Shenzhen to Suzhou, where it will run September 8-13 with 16 teams and $1,250,000. The change comes alongside a long-term partnership with production company GGMEDIA to host Tier 1 tournaments in China annually.

Monday, August 3, 2026

MOUZ break the curse: BLAST Bounty champions after eight straight losses to Spirit

eSports

MOUZ are crowned BLAST Bounty Season 2 champions after beating Spirit 3-1 in Malta, snapping an eight-match losing streak against the Russians and claiming their first title in 17 months. Spinx, with a 1.54 rating, earned the first MVP of his career.