Imperial Valkyries’ Struggles Against Top Teams
After their few first performances against some of the top teams, it’s pretty safe to say that the whole world expected the Valkyries to improve and show better and better performances as soon as they have more opportunities. Unfortunately, for me what ended up happening is quite the opposite. When they played with NAVI and FURIA I think they had a lot of surprise factors in their favour, together with the beginning of the season and some of the top teams still being a bit rusty. After a couple of officials, I think they not only lost confidence because of bad results, but also started to struggle map-pool wise.
In this particular event, they didn’t have an easy start at all, facing one of the biggest favorites on their debut against Eternal Fire, honestly speaking they stood no chance in that series. But then they moved on and faced MIBR and Complexity, two rosters that had tons of issues at the moment, one of them even changed the roster right after the tournament was over (MIBR) and the fact the ladies barely made it competitive against them, raises serious concerns for their future. I am all up for women having more opportunities in CS and more, but it’s crystal clear to me that they are not even close to being ready to play at this level yet. I wouldn’t mind seeing them with wildcard spots at Closed Qualifiers and so on, but I am completely against more direct invites for now.
paiN & The MongolZ continue to crumble under pressure
paiN have shown incredible results at the early stages of PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025. They proceeded to the playoffs by defeating Virtus.pro, as well as the semi-finalists and finalists from the swiss stage, Astralis and Falcons. With very convincing performances and Davideus continuing to prove his value and what he brings to the team, it’s safe to say that my expectation was for them to at least take a map off MOUZ or make it competitive. Remember, MOUZ hasn’t performed very well after changing their roster, and map pool-wise, that matchup favored paiN significantly, as there wasn’t a map where MOUZ could instantly punish them or anything like that. But well…what happened on the server was quite the opposite.
Even though we are talking about two nail biting maps with 13-11 scores, I didn’t feel throughout the whole series that MOUZ lost any control of the maps…but worse than that, is the fact that nqz went completely missing and same goes for kauez that starts to become very questioned as a player within the Brazilian community. It’s true that paiN ended up losing to the actual champions but…I personally still don’t understand the way paiN approaches these very important games against top tier opposition. They end up being full passive on the CT sides and losing their identity.
The MongolZ storyline isn’t much different. It’s pretty crazy when you think about the tremendous potential and firepower this team has. They’ve certainly improved a lot over the past three years, but just like at the Perfect World Major, whenever they’re under pressure or need some players to step up, that still doesn’t happen on the big stages. Could it be nerves, or are they simply unlucky with the opponents they face? At least in this tournament, they were far from comfortable playing Astralis, since the head-to-head heavily favored Astralis. It also seems like they play much more comfortably against the Mongolz’s style.
The match proved that factor once again, with MongolZ losing 2-0 to Astralis on two of their comfortable maps (Inferno and Mirage), barely making it competitive in the second. I personally expected MongolZ to reach the Semis or at least the Grand Final, and they definitely missed a great opportunity with some of the best teams in the world not in the mix.
Astralis is back?
Like him or not, you have to respect the fact that cadiaN certainly knows how to build a strong foundation within his teams. The only exception being Team Liquid, where he struggled due to multiple factors. But when it comes to dealing with the Danes, especially with players he’s had success with in recent years, he always delivers. I think we’re now seeing the best version of Astralis in many years. The beginning looked dark, and there are still a lot of question marks regarding some players’ recent performances, especially the fact that stavN hasn’t had the same impact he used to have.
The Danes’ run looked very solid, with victories over The MongolZ and FaZe, losing to the eventual champions in a very close series that could’ve easily gone their way, especially after throwing a massive lead on the first map, Inferno. While Inferno remains their most consistent map, they showed significant improvements in their map pool, particularly on Nuke and Ancient. Jabbi was the MVP of the team in my view, ranking as the 5th best player in the tournament with a 1.18 rating across 21 maps played, and boasting one of the best T-sides of the whole event with a 55% round conversion. All of that, with Nicolai ‘device’ still not close to his prime level—so imagine what this team could do if they manage to improve their map pool even further by becoming more consistent on Dust2 and Train, and with device returning to his old form as an AWPer.
The beginning of Brollan IGL era?
I’ll confess, when the roster change news came out and they decided to put Brollan as the IGL, I felt—and still feel—that in the long run, this might not be the best decision. I know many will jump on the MOUZ hype train now and start building this narrative of Brollan being great, but let’s hold on for a minute and not forget that a majority of the best teams in the world weren’t playing in this event. For me, he still has a lot to prove in that regard. Obviously, I don’t want to take any credit away from them—they certainly deserved to be champions here, especially with the way they consistently played throughout the event. Very proactive CT sides, always looking for openings, mixing up the pace, and not afraid to take gambles when it made sense. They had the best CT and T side round conversion percentages throughout the whole event, and to me, this team is a crystal-clear reflection of the importance of teamwork.
None of them were superstars during the event, carrying the team through games or anything like that—everyone had their fair share of contribution to this amazing result. I saw an interview on stage with xertioN, where he talks about taking on more important roles and having more freedom within the team, kind of admitting he’s now a secondary caller and has the trust of his teammates. I genuinely think he’s one of the most underrated players right now. He keeps a very low profile, and people rarely talk about him, but he’s tremendously impactful for the roles he plays, especially when it comes to helping Brollan mid-round with valuable information due to the amount of space he takes on both the CT and T sides.
It’s still very early to get too hyped—they showed a lot of inconsistency not too long ago at IEM Katowice 2025. But it’s great that they managed to accomplish this with the addition of SpinX. It definitely raises some interesting questions about the actual importance of a real IGL versus boosting firepower and transitioning a player into that role with support from the rest of the team. Time will tell, but for now, congratulations MOUZ!
