Talking Counter
Episode 130: EF/Aurora, m0nesy and niko reuniting, siuhy loaned out, PGL Bucharest
Sat, 05 Apr 2025
moses, YNk, and SPUNJ are Talking Counter ahead of PGL BucharestJoin our Discord to discuss the episode with other viewers, get involved with pugs and Fantasy CS! It's a real party.discord.gg/talkingcounter00:00 Intro8:50 Aurora signs Eternal Fire roster23:10 m0nesy to join Falcons (nel report)50:00 Liquid add Suihy on loan until Austin Major1:11:45 Yalla Compass VRS controversy, Lynn Vision VRS controversy1:20:00 BLAST Monterrey moved to Copenhagen 1:32:00 where we hold FaZe at this moment1:37:15 PGL Bucharest (and NaVi)
Chapter 1: What are the latest signings in Counter-Strike?
It was I had me and Alex had this like dread. We were like, Oh, no, we have to go and do this thing. And we have to act. And we're already at the end of this long run. We're at the edge of our room. We don't have the energy. We don't have the energy. But we got there, and it was like, oh, shit. This was like a real deal thing. And it was actually lots of fun. Alex killed it.
So we were there for three days. Flew back to Malta on Thursday. Did HLTV confirmed yesterday where my brain just wasn't working. Words weren't coming out. I was like, nothing was flowing. I was just like, oh, Jesus. Yes. I'm not doing justice to this right now. So I apologize to any HSTV confirmed listeners for having to put up with my broken brain yesterday. But today I feel a bit more glued in.
And we also invite a little bit more of a broken brain syndrome on this kind of a show.
That's true. We do enjoy it. And listen, Chad, you can always take a couple of episodes off here when you need to. No one's going to force you to do things against your will on this podcast.
So you guys got Duncan in. That's quite a barn burner of a guest.
We had to get a headline. We had to get someone spicy.
No one can fill your shoes, Chad, but a big name like that adds a little bit of spice.
Well, he's provocative, right?
He gets the people going.
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Chapter 2: How is m0nesy impacting the Falcons roster?
Yeah, it should be nice. And obviously you're missing Vitality, missing Spirit, missing Maus. But the way that Striker framed it was the sense that it's a chance for someone else to win a trophy, right? Because all the teams that have won trophies in 2025 at Tier 1 events so far... none of those names are there. So it's that opportunity.
But with this news that's gone down, now it's like probably G2's last event with Monacy or potentially, right? The Aurora thing as well, that comes with a different measure to it because have you guys seen the tweets coming out from some of the players? They feel like remorse-laden tweets. It's like, we're sorry that we had to leave, but we needed to go and get more support, right?
Because I was looking into it Apparently, all of the betting sponsors in Turkey are government owned or government backed. And you can't have betting sponsors outside of that or maybe they're a little bit more murky. I don't want to say matter of factly because I'll be wrong, but...
Yeah. And I mean, I would go down that same road where I don't, I've just heard this secondhand, but I know like kind of the, the thing that we heard was that there was just like a mainstream journalist that like wrote like a big article, uh, about, about the gambling sponsors and Turkey just doesn't allow gambling affiliations with their competitive teams. Have we lost Yanka?
It's very possible that we might have lost Janko.
What do we do?
No, no, I'm here. Just keep going. I just need to do something on the PC so they can help me fix it. And I turned off the camera for a sec so I can move around the room. Be right back.
Oh, well, we shouldn't get into that then if he's doing that because we need Janko as part of that conversation, Jason. So shall we go through some smaller news bits that Janko doesn't care about anyway? Let's pivot to some tiny ones.
I can hear you guys. You're all good.
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Chapter 3: What led to Liquid's addition of Suihy?
I'll tell you what, it'll be a cool thing to watch an organization like Aurora to try and figure out how they want to navigate for a Turkish fan base. That's kind of an interesting idea.
Well, they put out a statement in Turkish. So you would want to try and get the power of that fan base on side. As soon as possible.
You want to get all those fans converted as quickly as possible.
Who else in Counter-Strike is even a Turkish representation, right? Like it was Sangal, but then those guys went over to Heroic, right? So like that's changed as well. So that says, I think they should be able to harness the power. You're going to have some really like big, big's the wrong word. You're going to have some hardcore fans who are going to feel like Giga betrayed.
Someone just like linked me a tweet or replied in a tweet chain that I'm in of a guy saying, putting his Eternal Fire jersey in the toilet and it looks like he's pissing on it.
What the fuck, dude?
So, right, that's what I can see. Let me see if I can link that.
That's maybe the edge of too far. I think that's just people sort of copying what they do in sports when a player changes a team or something, right? And then they burn his jerseys and do all this shit. It's like, bro, it's not that... pick of a deal. It doesn't have to be like this. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't have to be like this. You're overdoing it. You're exaggerating.
Yeah, and I think, so obviously Aurora have the 1xbet backing, right? That's one of the main sponsors over there, I believe. Partners. Yeah, 1xbet. Main partner, 1xbet. Aurora is proud to represent the team's title partner, 1xbet. So yeah, in terms of having the cash flow, there's going to be a lot more money for them. But yeah, that's it. Different jersey, more salary.
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Chapter 4: What controversies are surrounding Yalla and Lynn Vision?
You'll have to add it in post, Jason.
I don't think I could add somebody pissing on a jersey. Well, you can't see the dick. You can't see the dick, but you see a nice stream of fucking Turkish pee.
Yeah, they need a drink with some more water, I think. They do. I don't know. It doesn't need to be perfectly clear, but I reckon that's quite yellow. It's got 1.2K likes.
So that's where we're at. I guess this shouldn't be the reason why they skipped Melbourne.
No, I think... Well, I don't know why. I think it's a smart move for them to pull out of Melbourne.
Sure.
Obviously, it's the travel right now. And I didn't get to the bottom of the Zantara stuff, but after they were eliminated from Lisbon, Zantara has put out a tweet saying that he had back issues.
I thought it was a whole lot of issues, man.
He was taking a lot of pills and whatnot. Then there was a picture of him in hospital as well. So I don't know exactly what's...
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Chapter 5: Why was BLAST Monterrey moved to Copenhagen?
yeah so no i just don't know if it's like but then they would have had to change because the invite but it's should be to the players not the org whatever to the core these days right because of the vrs yeah Yeah, but I think they also, Eternal Fire did put a tweet out that, you know, Zantaris is completely fine, healthy to attend Bucharest. So those issues aren't lingering.
But I mean, the schedule was going for them. We don't need to go over it again. I mean, it's very well documented that they were going to play every single tournament they could have, which just in its own right, even if they were all in Europe, is kind of whack.
Yeah, fair. All right. Well, the other big one that came out, and this one was from Nell. This was yesterday. The news itself is not surprising. The timing is. It's about Monacy to join Falcons. I don't think anybody should be surprised that he is joining Falcons. It's more about the fact that we didn't even make it to the end of the season.
I thought that they would have been able to get him to play. This is G2. up until the major and then going into the next season, it would have changed then. The fact that this is happening earlier than that shows, I guess, maybe a few things. One, that Modesty's probably not happy with G2's performances so far.
The other, Falcon's probably not too happy with their performances so far, which have actually been probably on par with what you'd expect for the roster at the moment. and the willingness for a Saudi Arabian-backed team to spend money. So it's rumored to be, what, a several-million-dollar deal? That's what it says in the article?
It says another record-setting for the Counter-Strike scene. It doesn't really give a value number to it. Okay. But, I mean, yeah, you have to imagine it's going to be absolutely massive.
It says to be a multi-million-dollar deal and the biggest transfer in Counter-Strike history.
makes sense i mean it's one of those situations where for falcons you know they're showing their commitment to building a contender lineup right and sort of the the promise in a way that they made uh to nico when he joined the team like this is them um coming true on that promise and you know people talk about i know i'm gonna get a lot of hate for this but
with their backing and whatnot, they did win the World Cup, guys. That's over $7 million in prize money that they got, right? That you get to invest in your divisions if you want to. And most of their divisions are doing fine, I think. I don't think they don't need sizable upgrades. So that enables them.
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Chapter 6: What is the current status of FaZe in the esports scene?
I think, if anything, for me, it's more about... g2 and and sort of how this reflects on them i saw swanee's tweet man uh just like while we were at rehearsals and it was the photo of them lifting the cologne trophy and that was not even two years ago only one person from that squad coach included in still on g2 and that's hunter No Niko, no Monessi, no JKS, no Huxley, no Swanee, obviously.
And it's like, I mean, that team was really, really good. I mean, you win Katowice and Cologne in one year and then sure, you had the fuckery with like, is Niko going to leave? Is he not going to leave? Then they remove JKS for whatever reason. And then everything, you know, goes downhill from there. But...
It's just crazy to me that you lose sort of the best rifler we've had, you know, in Counter-Strike really. And you lose the, you know, probably best topper at the moment or at least one of the young stars of the game. You have them both on your roster and they both are out of the team in a matter of a couple of months. And sure, like you got... compensated for them.
That's great, but you can't replace, as I think G2 has figured it out, you just can't replace a player like Niko. You can't replace a player like Monacy. There's no one out there that, you know, you'll be like, okay, now we have all this money, let's pay for this guy.
No, like, there's no one like that out there, and for an organization that sort of is aspiring to lift trophies, you know, every tournament they attend, that's just a very... bad light that they put on themselves.
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Chapter 7: What are the key points of discussion for PGL Bucharest?
These are franchise-shattering losses to lose these. I think it's almost sad, funny thinking back to the statement when the negotiation with Niko and they were just like, yeah, we don't mind losing Niko. And you fast forward six months and it's like, well, I bet if we told you that Niko was the key to having Modesty on your team, you'd mind losing him because now you've lost both.
And I don't know how you rebuild from this. We talk a lot about the potential and how good some of the players have looked, but you lose Niko and then you lose Monacy. That's so much firepower. That's so much talent just leaving your team that is going to make everyone's job harder now. Like, Mobs is going to have more pressure on them. Heavy God's going to have more pressure.
It's just going to get worse. When you don't have someone like Monacy, you can just bail you out, or someone like Niko who can take control and bail you out of a situation. So I think G2's going to enter a pretty rough stretch
Yeah, it's going to be hard to bail themselves out of this. Maybe they have to try and do what Aurora just did, the next kind of national team that's on the rise that they can take. Remember with the French back in the day, and then when things start to simmer out with that, start plugging and playing where you can. But I think there's a few things to get into here.
So one of them, I guess, is the chain reaction of events, because If we go way back with what you were just talking about there, Janko, in terms of the roster that was together that won Cologne, the whole thing with JKS getting benched, the way that that story seems to have aged, at least from the information that's come my way or different tidbits we've gotten over the years.
And it'd be great to get some clarification from the people in the team at the time, because now it's ancient history.
but it felt like that was when nico was first going to go to falcons right like that that back then was when nico was meant to be going to falcons the first time round and then that fell through but they thought nico was going so then they weren't just going to find a player to replenish nico they were going to make more changes within the team and jks was going to be one of those names removed and they were going to bring in a couple of extra players right around hunter around monacy around hooksy um
and then build from there. Then that didn't happen. Niko stayed, but they had already worked on getting rid of JKS. And then they needed to replace JKS with somebody. And then what would the short timeframe and players that are available, they just ended up on Nexa, which didn't work out perfectly. Didn't do anything. That's what happened.
But that was like the first thing that like, that was the first time Niko was being courted by Falcons. It didn't land. And then it was a kind of a chain reaction from there. The thing that I think is interesting is obviously the CEO saying, oh yeah, we could have kept him if we wanted to.
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