Talking Counter
Episode 126: PGL Cluj Playoff results, PGL's Field of Dreams and the CS ecosystem
Wed, 26 Feb 2025
YNk, SPUNJ, and moses are Talking Counter.Join our Discord and discuss the episode with other viewers, stick around and watch tournaments, Talk Counter.https://discord.gg/sZCRkAaa00:00 Intro10:50 long-term tournaments, VRS musings and implications28:35 teams vs TO’s, who are the bad guys?46:40 PGL Cluj, 3rd/4th place decider54:55 PGL Cluj team performances
Chapter 1: What were the PGL Cluj Playoff results?
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but, you know, it's kind of unfair, I guess. I don't know.
It's not unfair. You're earning the money. You're out there. You're grinding hard, Janko. You're in the trenches.
That's what I say, Chad, but it's always like, yeah, but then this and this, that and that, that. It never stops. It never stops.
Jason, do you have any good excuses when you leave? Are you like, hi, honey, do you do anything special?
To what, take away the sting of departure?
Yeah.
No, not really.
there's nothing you can do i send some flowers back occasionally if there's a if there's a if there's a moment um i leave some notes you know you know somewhere i've done that once not very often wow that's thoughtful oh shit i saw did you see that it was all a fucking ruse which your your your gal getting pregnant it was all a lie yeah of course do everything publicity publicity stunt
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Chapter 2: How are teams performing in the CS ecosystem?
Chapter 3: What are the implications of long-term tournaments?
It looked like you were playing golf on the ice. Is that correct?
Yeah, we have a lake in town that freezes in the winter, obviously. So for like charity, they do like once a year, they do like an ice golf drive. They set up like nine holes on the ice and you go out on the lake and you play nine holes in like the frigid cold. Drink a beer, you know, hit some balls in the snow. Drink a beer. Yep, there we are. I stepped right into that one, didn't I?
Had a shot, you know, warms you up. Actually, you might appreciate this.
I did bring a flask of rakia and had a couple nippers, you know? Yeah, I needed that rakia blanket. You were not cold. It was fun though, man. They like, they like drill like little, like four inch holes into the ice as like the, uh, as like kind of, I guess the, the hole that you, that you have to put into, but it's hard. It's intense. I'll tell you this golf is fucking stupid.
I've never, I've never played a sport that is more designed to make you feel like a complete idiot. Like I'm not obviously in the best shape of my life, but I consider myself a reasonably athletic person. Who's talented enough at most athletic endeavors. Golf is not one of them. Golf is not one of them. That will make you feel like a complete moron with no coordination.
And I do not understand why people enjoy it.
Isn't golf like a lot of tech you need to, you know, you can't just come in and take a swing. That has nothing to do with, I mean, it has very little to do with power and a lot more with.
Yeah, I'm not looking for actual fucking detailed analysis. I'm just saying as a general concept, fuck golf.
Wow. All right, Jason. Sorry. I guess it's a professional deformation for me. That's what it is.
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Chapter 4: Who are considered the 'bad guys' in the CS ecosystem?
True. I think Dinko has a lot of things higher on his list than getting around to golfing.
Well, he is a tall boy, so what are you saying, like climbing beanstalks? What taller things would Dinko be doing?
I think just early 20s single fucking you say fucking fucking out there slinging dick will be in Poland a little bit in Northern Ireland, Ireland, airports. I don't know. Airport airports.
You got those sleep rooms now, you know? hell connor had to use one of those yesterday he had a nine hour layover there you go before he was flying home yeah and you know connor was doing something yeah i i've had to use those i've had to use those as well they're nice actually
I used it in Munich one time, I think like for four hours, something like that. But this is why people get up in my grills, man, about not having an alliance. And the reason he had to wait for nine hours is because he's flying with an alliance. So it's like, if I just want to get from point A to point B as quickly as humanly possible, I avoid all of that nonsense.
There's no points, of course, and you have to pay for everything, but you get there quickly and my time is valuable.
I mean, listen. If you have money, you don't need like points. I mean, it sounds kind of dumb, but my point being, if you're going to fly business every time, regardless of, you know, if you're going to pay for it every time, then why would you care which airline you're flying with? You're going to fly with whatever makes the most sense, right?
But if you don't want to pay every single time, then accruing points and then sometimes just being able to upgrade with miles and having some of these perks, even when you're flying economy, it is nice. It does. It hits the spot. It does. Yeah.
I'm not going to do what you guys are doing.
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Chapter 5: What were the standout team performances at PGL Cluj?
She's paying for someone else's IVF though now. She styled it out. She styled it out really well. I think because the controversy kicked off that she faked it, she turned it into like a charitable thing of now that I'm getting so much more media attention, I'm going to take all the money I've earned from this and pay for someone else's IVF journey. Sounds like something Jake Lucky would do. Jesus.
I actually – but I don't know if she's – Not get fucked by a thousand guys in 24 hours.
Yeah, of course not. I definitely wouldn't do that. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't know if it was like a premeditated thing cause fair play, but you know, I think she styled it out either way.
Uh, yeah. Only fans and pornography really, uh, everyone's favorite topics. I, this, how are you getting so much traction in 2020? I guess it makes sense. We had a woman who spoke about spitting on a dick and that was top of the world for a little while there, the hot tour girl.
oh yeah that's died out pretty quick though one crypto scam and it all comes crumbling down just one rug pull and that'll be it that fucking spitting on a dick empire that she built up it's all come crumbling down which we don't even know if she really did she just had the comment so yeah she just made a funny comment it's cool what can we do about it yeah all right let's get in the counter stretch and we're floundering today we got nothing there's no there's no no fun was had
Well, I haven't come in on a high. Yesterday, I traveled early, so I didn't get much sleep. So I had a nap throughout the day, and then I stayed up late playing Face It. And then I've woken up today, and I've gone, all right, well, I have to do seven loads of laundry because I'm going to leave in a day and a half's time. So it's just, there's a lot of stuff going on.
It's not really recharging my batteries. It's just fucking hoping it doesn't rain. That's essentially life at the moment.
I know the feeling. I've got a similar kind of day ahead of me as well.
Well, like you got to pack, just pack laundry as well. And then I'm packing.
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Chapter 6: How does the CS ecosystem impact tournament attendance?
I shouldn't say all of them as a general concept, but yeah.
That's a great topical joke. Anyway, the thing is they don't know what they are. So what they're doing is they're now putting pressure on one of the entities, which is the TOs, which we know rarely make money on events until recent history. Only in the last couple of years did TOs start making money on majors.
PGL, they're in a really strong position to make money on events because they run more of a tight-knit ship.
right they don't have like a big social media company they're not making a shitload of content they're not building a fucking watch party platform called blast tv or face at watch or anything right they're just focusing on what they do which is run tournaments and they can generate that and they have a guy in their sales team who apparently knows how to sell better than everybody else in the entire industry he's a fucking homie isn't he
He knows how to sell. Nobody else knows how to sell, apparently. So, like, PGO make money. These other TOs we know don't make money. And it's because they're, like, selling off to part of the Danish government or fucking Saudi Arabia or this. And then someone comes in to tighten the belt. It's like, wait, we were talking about orgs. Now I'm talking about TOs. I know.
You found a new bad guy. Keep going.
They're all bad guys.
Yeah, they're all bad guys.
They're all bad guys.
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Chapter 7: What are the future prospects for Astralis?
Chapter 8: How do tournament organizers influence the CS scene?
I don't know if it's where you place. I think it's just to do with attendance. Frequent Flyers program, 2 million yearly. So 2 million is the base. That 2 million I think can change, right? So within this, I'm reading it from the Blast website now. The Frequent Flyers program is designed to reward teams for their consistency and participation in multiple Blast events. The program works as follows.
Teams earn tokens for participating in events. Four tournaments, one token. Five tournaments, two tokens. Six tournaments, four tokens. Additional tokens are awarded for performance. Reaching the second week of bounty or open is one token. Winning bounty open arrivals is two tokens.
At the end of the year, the frequent flyer pot, a minimum of two million, is divided based on the number of tokens accumulated. If a team declines an invite, they forfeit all tokens for that year.
That's so rough.
I think they changed that. I think that's been amended. You can like forfeit one event. I think, I think. So that's how like blast incentives work. But then, yeah, if you go and you look, let's go look at the Lisbon prize money. Lisbon prize money is 400K overall. So it's 150K first, 60,000 second, and then 40 for third, fourth, and then down to the bottom there, right?
So yeah, that's how blast are doing their incentives. And then, yeah, you mentioned the club share. It's just semantics, man.
I know, I know. We've already been over this a million times. It's just the words you use and when it gets paid out. But ESLs, I think Janko's point was ESLs counts towards your VRS because it's contributed with prize money. The freaking flyer doesn't go there at all.
Well, the average viewer, Tom, Dick, or fucking Harry doesn't give a fuck if it's club money or if it's prize money. It's the same shit.
It's all prize money. And that's why I also said in my tweet about Maus, Maus and Kluge, the highest ranked team they beat was Falcons in the grand final. They were ranked 8th before.
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