NAVI lifts the EPL trophy, FaZe in freefall, & 9z stuns MOUZ | This week in CS2
NAVI close out EPL Season 23, 9z stun MOUZ at BLAST Rotterdam, FaZe hit 3-10 on the year, and a busy week of roster moves across the scene.
(Note: if you are looking for our breakdown of Valve's new ammo and reload update, click here to read our full guide on the changes.)
This week was all about Tier-1, with ESL Pro League Season 23 wrapped up and BLAST Open Rotterdam already producing chaos. Here's what happened.
Rotterdam and EPL: the week that was
The European favorites are having a rough time in the Netherlands. Several top contenders dropped out well before the Cologne Major cut-off, and there were some results nobody saw coming. Rotterdam's format is unforgiving, and with Cologne close, teams are feeling the pressure in a way that a regular group stage just does not replicate.
NAVI win EPL Season 23
Before Rotterdam kicked off, Natus Vincere closed out the ESL Pro League Season 23 trophy on Sunday. w0nderful was the standout in the grand finals against Aurora, a dominant individual performance to close out a strong tournament run. Good timing for NAVI heading into the spring.
9z send MOUZ home in last place
9z eliminated MOUZ at BLAST Rotterdam, leaving them dead last. MOUZ have been struggling with consistency for a while, but going out this early, to a South American side, is still a hard result to swallow. 9z have been quietly building a LAN record worth paying attention to. This is the clearest proof yet.
FaZe's bad year gets worse
FaZe lost to TYLOO and are now 3-10 in 2026. They have lost their head coach, they have no deep runs, and Cologne is not far away. A rough patch can be explained. This is starting to look like something more structural.
Spirit spoil Liquid's debut
Team Liquid played their first match with malbsMd and dropped it 2-0 to Team Spirit. First matches with a new player rarely go cleanly, so there is not a lot to read into yet. Spirit looked sharp, though.
Later in the day, Liquid came back and beat NiP 2-1 in the lower bracket of Group B. One loss and one win on debut day is a reasonable start. The new addition is not going to be judged on a single result, and based on the NiP match, there is something to work with.
Roster moves
FaZe part ways with NEO. The results were always going to cost someone in the coaching staff, and NEO is out. Whether a new coach can turn this roster around before Cologne is an open question.
Maden out at Fnatic. Fnatic are replacing Maden with Br4tkO in their active lineup. The rebuild continues.
MOUZ extend sycrone and Xyp9x. Head coach sycrone and assistant Xyp9x both signed contract extensions. The organization is keeping faith with the coaching setup despite the results.
Jackinho benched at Metizport. The veteran AWPer moves to the bench as Metizport look to shake up their roster.
Fire Flux start over. The whole squad was benched on January 9th. The new lineup is Cizzx, Quality, zemix, zer0UKY, xEternaLxx, wecles, and denixant.
VRS and the Major picture
K27 win CCT Europe Series 18, BIG finish second. Both teams collect a solid VRS boost at a point in the calendar where it matters. There are no open qualifiers to the Major, only VRS invites, so events like CCT carry more weight than they might look like on paper.
NIP's position is getting uncomfortable. A narrow loss to PARIVISION and a sweep by Team Liquid left them without a meaningful VRS payout at Rotterdam. If they slip outside the invite threshold, their only route to the Major is grinding open LAN events for points.
FaZe are in worse shape than their ranking suggests. At 3-10 with no deep runs this year, the points are not coming. Teams like 3DMAX currently sit above both FaZe and NIP in the standings.
The top 20 cutoff is tight. Bombing out of events, even smaller ones like CCT, adds up fast. There is still time, but not much room for error.