It’s a ritual at this point: We’re here to provide infographics and three quick facts about every team at the Cologne Major, starting with Stage 1.
If you’re familiar with these graphics from past Majors, feel free to skip ahead to the first team. If not, here’s a refresher on how it works.
First things first, the number in the top right is the team’s HLTV Power Ranking based on the writers’ subjective placement of all 32 teams at the Major.
Then we move on to players. Their rating this season (since January 1) is in the top left above their role icon and their country flag. You can see their positions on CT and T side, and how many times they have been to a Major. They’re ordered left-to-right by their HLTV database ID, just like they are on team pages.
Role is also visible by color. Like in All-Star articles, Green is for AWPers, Purple for Closers, Orange for Openers, Yellow for Anchors or Supports, and Blue is in-game leaders. In case there are AWPing IGLs, AWPers remain Green (just spot the IGL ‘crown’ on top of the scope) with Blue reserved for the rifler in ‘traditional’ supportive IGL T side roles.
Then we have their five latest (or most notable) event results. After, it’s a rolling HLTV Ranking (using points, not ranking) since January 2026 to see the trend in a team’s year. Circles with their world ranking have been added, with their May 25 ranking at the end.
Map pool is next, using data from this season, starting January 1. It’s sorted by total wins to give you an idea not only of a team’s win-rate, but how often they play there too.
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Introducing HLTV attributes
Our graphics are finished off by three scatterplots, using HLTV Attributes on a 0-100 scale, again since July 1.
First is Firepower plotted against Utility. Firepower is a metric that uses players’ raw statistical output in kills, damage, and multi-kills. Utility favors players who provide high quantities of flashbangs (thrown and assists) and grenade damage. Combined, we can see which players can focus on their crosshair, and which are tasked with grenadier duties.
Next, a proxy for how aggressive a player is: Opening vs Clutching. As it says on the tin, Opening concerns opening duels, the all-important first fights of a round. Clutching is also self-explanatory. When they’re together, you can see if a player is predominantly early-round (bottom right), late-round (top left), mid-round (bottom left), or does it all (top right).
Entrying vs Trading is similar to our aggression chart, but is designed to show which players are most likely to sacrifice themselves going into a bomb-site or risky retake first. Players in the bottom right of the chart are the team’s most likely entry fraggers, who get traded far more than they trade. The top left is the baiters.
Put together, we hope you learn something new about each of the 16 teams about to grace our screens.
Quote: Sebastian “Tauson” Tauson Lindelof at IEM Atlanta: “I think when we had ztr, we were playing very loose, and our game style was kinda dependent on the players, and not the IGL. Right now, Snax is doing a very good job at controlling our mid-rounds and really setting the idea of the round, painting the picture for us.”
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Tauson: “I would like to play NAVI; it [makes it] more deserved for us to win”
Stat: GamerLegion are one of only five teams to average above 50% on T side at MVP events in 2026 so far. This is largely based on their superb 82.5% (1st) record in 5v4 situations.
Fact: GamerLegion started the year with a 0-7 record on Dust2 as they tried to make a seven-map pool work. Since February, they started permabanning Dust2, but they have barely played Anubis (1-3 record) and Overpass (3-3) too.
Quote: Timur “FL4MUS” Marev is still on standby: “I’m a substitute for the Major. If someone will not get a visa, I will fly. If everyone gets a visa, I will not. I do have a visa, it just depends on the main roster.”
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FL4MUS: “I’m trying to show that I’m individually good before the next transfer [period]”
Stat: BetBoom are 14-1 on Dust2 on LAN in 2026, but they only pick it in 23.5% of series. Might teams let it through in BO1s?
Fact: BetBoom have only played two officials with their registered lineup for this Major (the one that includes both d1Ledez and zorte). That came in a loss to Ursa, and even then Daniil “d1Ledez” Kustov was substituted by Robert “Patsi” Isyanov on map one.
Quote: Andrii “npl” Kukharskyi talking about 16-year-old Danylo “s1zzi” Vinnyk: “He’s not up there yet in terms of tier-1 snipers, but he’s taking huge steps, and I’m happy to see that. As you said, we saw in those tournaments a good level of performance from him, but I’d say that was like 50% of his performance.”
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npl: “We’ve worked a lot and it pays off; it’s great to see”
Stat: npl is B8’s only player above a 1.00 rating (1.08) this year at notable events. Even including all events, their second-best player (Artem “kensizor” Kapran) comes in at 1.03.
Fact: No team in Cologne has won more LAN best-of-ones than B8 (14) since the start of 2025. At Majors, they have a 9-4 record in that period.
Quote: Linus “LNZ” Holtäng at PGL Bucharest: “I feel like I’m very respected here, people value me and my opinions, which is also making me grow more. I didn’t really have that in the same way as I do now, so I’m really happy that I took this chance.”
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LNZ: “I’m respected here, people value me and my opinions. I didn’t really have that in the same way as I do now”
Stat: Klimentii “kl1m” Krivosheev and Felipe “insani” Yuji are one of the deadliest duos in attendance, averaging a 1.18 rating between them at notable events this year. That’s the fourth-highest-rated pairing, only behind Vitality, Spirit, and Falcons.
Fact: MIBR are aiming to come to the Major fresh: They didn’t play any officials for 31 days between PGL Bucharest and CAC while they were bootcamping. A top-four finish at CAC was proof of concept, and MIBR will fancy themselves in Stage 1 at the very least because of it.
Quote: Christoffer “Chr1zN” Storgaard in Astana: “Not knowing if Simon [yxngstxr] is coming or going, if Alkaren is coming back or not, was hard. So yeah, it’s been tough, but it’s also nice knowing now that okay, this is how we’re going to finish the season off, and then we will see what happens after, of course. But definitely, for everyone I can feel it, that it gives a bit more certainty, and that’s nice.”
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Chr1zN: “In Cluj we weren’t ready for it […] now it’s going to be much better”
Stat: Makeshift AWPer Simon “yxngstxr” Boije has the lowest Sniping attribute (71) of any primary AWPer in Cologne. But when he is given the Big Green, he’s done pretty well: He averages 0.83 KPR and 0.52 DPR when he has the AWP on CT side, according to Skybox EDGE.
Fact: This will be Swedish prospect Linus “nilo” Bergman’s first Major after the team missed Budapest, the first post-COVID Major HEROIC did not qualify for. His team are only the second Swedish core at a Major since NIP at IEM Rio 2022, with Metizport going out of Austin’s Stage 1 with a 0-3 record.
Quote: Mason “Lake” Sanderson on having to travel back to NA for ESL Challenger: “We do unfortunately have to play that shit […] You can’t really let it affect you too much. It’s just kind of one of those things. It’s life. You have to make it happen.”
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Lake on Major chances: “We just gotta iron some stuff out, and I think we’ll make a good run”
Stat: We’ve got used to Lake leading the way for M80 but Michael “Swisher” Schmid is outdoing him both overall (1.14-1.12) and at notable events (0.99-0.92) in terms of rating. Since Josh “JBa” Barutt’s addition, the 27-year-old has found a new lease of life in rotating CT roles (1.20 rating).
Fact: M80 have made utility a crucial part of their game, and 0.33 flash assists per round is joint-second in 2026 among Major teams with Astralis. But crucially, they outdo the Danes easily on grenade damage (27.7 to 21.2) while having equal flashbang prowess.
Quote: Dongkai “Jee” Ji after the team exited the Budapest Major: “We will be stronger in 2026, I promise.”
Stat: A 55% T side win-rate this season is joint-top in the Major leaderboard with regional rivals FlyQuest. Of all the teams in Cologne, TYLOO have the lowest ratio (104.5%) between their CT (57.9%) and T side win-rate (55.4%).
Fact: Anchor-lurker Su “Zero” Jingshen earned his spot on TYLOO by posting a 1.29 rating on LAN in 2026 with Change The Game. He also dropped 107 ADR against TYLOO themselves in May last year.
Quote: Benjamin “blameF” Bremer: “BIG right now is the perfect lineup. We have an anchor, a support player, an entry fragger, and a star AWPer who has a lot of space. We have me, who can be in the middle and also have a lot of space sometimes, but also sometimes take a step back and focus on calling because we have a lot of firepower. For me, we have such a good balance of who does what — who’s aggressive, who’s passive, who’s supporting, who’s entering. For me, it’s perfect.”
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blameF: “I played many playoffs on stages before, and nothing felt like this”
Stat: blameF is by far the best fragging IGL attending Cologne at a 1.25 rating this season. But he’s facilitated by Johannes “tabseN” Wodarz going into a fully supportive role, getting 26% of his deaths traded and still excelling in utility (4.98 utility ADR, 0.81 flashes thrown per round).
Fact: BIG are the only European, and one of only four teams at the whole Major, who are yet to show up to a notable event so far in 2026. They qualified having played just five maps against top 20 opponents, which is less than 5% of their total, nailing the VRS planning just in time for their home Major.
Quote: Kamil “siuhy” Szkaradek in Atlanta: “Confidence dropped throughout the last couple of months because of the results. Now, when we come into a tournament, although home practice is going fine, we come to a tournament and it feels like we’re kinda back to maybe reminding ourselves that in the last couple of tournaments we bombed out and we’re still not playing good.”
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siuhy: “It’s a very tough moment for the team”
Stat: A 42% T side win-rate this season is the worst at the event, and 53% on CT side isn’t much better (28th). Here on a technicality, Liquid are also fighting against a dreary record in best-of-ones (4-10 W-L, 29%), with only themselves and Lynn Vision having so many LAN BO1 losses since the start of 2025.
Fact: Liquid (Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski and Keith “NAF” Markovic) and Falcons (Finn “karrigan” Andersen and Nikola “NiKo” Kovač) are the only teams to sport two players who played at ESL’s last Cologne Major in 2016. Liquid, of course, placed second ten years ago with Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev as a stand-in.
Quote: Yifei “GUM” Dai after going out of Budapest: “This time, we were just lacking some thinking. We do actions like… I forgot the word, but we just react like animals, like… oh! Instinct. Just follow the instinct, not follow the brain. It’s quite strange for this time, and we want to find the cause of it. We will try to fix it.”
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GUM: “We were just lacking some thinking; we followed the instinct, not the brain”
Stat: LVG average 0.37 flash assists per round this season, easily the highest among attendees, with AWPer Sike “z4KR” Zhang somehow providing 0.15 per round on his own.
Fact: Lynn Vision qualified for the Major in bizarre fashion, after three opponents forfeited at Season 3 of the Yuqilin Pinnacle of Battle to let them stroll to the trophy. But the team also picked up more legitimate wins at XSE LOOP Cup and the Asia Champions League, putting them in great form right ahead of the Major.
Quote: Sebastian “beastik” Daňo on going international: “It was way easier than I expected, and I think it’s way better to be honest than talking in Czech. We also brought international people with different mentalities and different energy than we had with the Czech. Czechs, we are mostly like, I would mostly say, a bit dead inside. We like to tilt a bit. It was sometimes hard to make it work with Czech people, and these guys are quite opposite. When I’m tilting, they hype me up a bit, so it’s way easier for me also.”
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beastik on Major qualification: “I want to have some deep run, or I will not be satisfied”
Stat: SINNERS are 8-1 on Overpass in the last three months, and have picked up wins over G2, BIG, and BetBoom on the map. Their most notable win on the map was the 13-11 on the deciding map of the BCG Masters grand final versus BIG, where they eventually converted a 9-3 T side start.
Fact: SINNERS came inches away from making the Major with a Czech lineup on two occasions, first in Antwerp and also in Shanghai. As an international team, they’ve got over that hump, and it was a true team effort: The difference between their highest (1.10) and lowest (1.04) rated players is just 0.06; the next lowest range on an attending team is 0.11.
Quote: Michael “Grim” Wince on Nick “nitr0” Cannella: “I really like nitr0. Honestly, he’s a great captain, a great guy. And he’s very similar, calling-wise, to JT. So that’s why what I said of how I fit in very easily is because most of the stuff he’s calling is what I was already used to on Complexity.”
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Grim: “I think the future is going to be brighter when we can get more time”
Stat: NRG are the most reliant team on their defensive sides at the event; their T:CT win ratio is 135% due to their 58% win-rate on CT and 43% on T. The highest K/D of one of their players on T side is 0.84 (Alexander “br0” Bro).
Fact: NRG head into the Major having lost five matches in a row, albeit having been forced into using Damian “daps” Steele for their most recent series. Against top 30 teams, their last win was against B8 on March 20.
Quote: João “koala” Pfeffer on qualifying: “It’s been over 6 years since I was in my first open league, and today I qualify for the Major in Cologne. I only have thanks for my team and everyone who was with me on this journey.”
Stat: Sharks are 25-10 on Nuke this year, but have lost three of their last five matches as teams cotton on to their patterns. Given their dependence on the map they pick in 54% of series, life in best-of-ones may prove difficult.
Fact: koala has been the top Brazilian on the HLTV Prospects list since the first edition, and reached a peak of 8th this January. The 21-year-old has a 1.13 rating this year, with a great series against NIP just the other day.
Quote: João “story” Vieira on a lack of practice at the start of May: “We’ve had some visa issues. We’ve barely practiced in Europe. Or rather, we’ve barely practiced as a team. We’ve had like three or four weeks of practice, and I’m including our practice time in China. For a team that wants to be competitive, that’s nothing. I tell them sometimes, ‘Right now, we’re in survival mode. Then, what happens, happens.'”
Stat: While opposition hasn’t been the toughest, it has been encouraging for FlyQuest to have an 11-1 record on Anubis and 10-3 on Dust2. But their third most played map is Mirage, with only six reps all year; vetoing against FQ in BO1s is a shot in the dark, for good or for ill.
Fact: 46 maps is the lowest count among Major attendees, and FlyQuest have fallen to 78th in the VRS due to that inactivity. The team is yet to play a single top 20 team this year, and has only played five maps against top 30 ones.
Quote: Fernando “fer” Alvarenga: “I didn’t have any idea what was going on in the team with felps. I think felps is a really really good player, like inside the server, of course he plays like really aggressive, and sometimes people [aren’t that happy] with aggressive players, even more when you are not putting results in the server. But I don’t know if it was about results in the server that they have to replace felps, or if it was something else outside the server.”
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fer: “I can’t handle the player life nowadays, so I told them I could practice for a month and play the Major”
Stat: Gaimin Gladiators are by far the oldest team at the Major, with an average age of 30.7. Their youngest player, Jhonatan “JOTA” Willian, is 28 while star fragger Luca “Luken” Nadotti is 29.
Fact: GG will be hoping to resurrect the ESL One Cologne 2016 champion fer, who returns 10 years later to the scene of his second Major victory. But his debut at BCG Masters was far from encouraging, as the 34-year-old ended on a 0.98 rating.
Quote: Christopher “dexter” Nong on LinkedIn: “Being glorified as a major participant is the greatest honor any gamer can recieve. The goal of everyone in competitive games is to be remembered in some way. The only time I humbly brag about something so cool, to be apart of the game I love, the passion and energy that has given me an extra life I could not appreciate more.”
Stat: THUNDER dOWNUNDER won 20 consecutive series at the start of the year, as they dominated the local Oceanic scene.
Fact: We can hope that Tynan “TjP” Purtell brings his best trash talk to the Major after going viral in March for some choice words at the DFRAG LAN. Put them 0-3 at your peril.
