BanKs on the 2026 Esports World Cup for CS2: “As for the best-of-1, I’d have to defend Team Spirit here.”

As for the best-of-1, I’d have to stick up for Team Spirit here. Sometimes a team makes a few mistakes, they might just be unlucky, or something goes wrong. <…> Honestly, I don’t understand how the map veto process ended up on Mirage—it doesn’t make sense. It would have been better if it had been Cache—Team Spirit performs quite well on that map, so that was an option. I saw people posting clips of sh1ro constantly missing his shots. But the point is, most people were only paying attention to how poorly Team Spirit played. But I think JiJieHao read that game perfectly. She pushed and took space away from Team Spirit many times when she was on the attack. Nine times out of ten, she knew what Team Spirit was going to do.

In the first game, Luminosity Gaming was simply crushed, losing 3-13. In my opinion, that’s a bad sign. ...> They had time to prepare; they played in the XSE Pro League 2026. We expected lux to be able to step up as IGL, but something is definitely wrong with the team.

I expected M80 to perform better against Aurora Gaming, which is still trying to find its footing. It seems to me that we’re constantly saying the same thing about M80: they have potential, judging by a few matches—they win some of them—but it’s as if something is still missing.