How Long Do Falcons Have After Their Latest BLAST Open Spring 2025 Farce?

With as many official complaints filed as they had series wins, it’s fair to suggest that BLAST Open Spring 2025 was a little bit of a farce for Falcons. Exiting in the Group Stage at the hands of an inconsistent Virtus.pro, Falcons look like a team with problems across the board. Nothing is working from top to bottom.

Since entering the scene, it has remained clear that the Saudi Arabian organization will spare no expense to reach the top of Counter-Strike. Their entire 2024 was a wasted endeavor after NiKo initially rejected the team at the start of the year. Fast forward 12 months, Falcons got their man, although the pieces intended to surround him with an elite winning roster collapsed, with Jimpphat and m0NESY rejecting a move.

Instead, Falcons purchased the Heroic core of degster, TeSeS, and kyxsan. Enough to keep invites to CS2 events, but a far cry from a team ready to win trophies. It was clear from the offset that this Falcons team was yet another temporary measure, but how long will they actually get to try and make things work? Despite coming together at the start of January, you could make the argument that changes are needed pronto, but that likely won’t happen.

Falcons will get until the BLAST Austin Major, at least

The nature of the VRS system is that you need to keep your intact to keep your points. This means wholesale changes won’t be made at all, but they could tinker with a piece or two if they wanted to. However, I reckon Falcons will give their team until the end of the BLAST Austin Major at the very least, which finishes up in late June.

Yes, they had a bit of a disaster at BLAST Open Spring 2025. Yes, NiKo’s post-tournament tweet that simply said “Lol” isn’t exactly indicative of a happy camp. But the reality is that their team right now looks locked in for a Stage Two invite to the upcoming BLAST Austin Major, and there just isn’t time to rock the boat and implement a new player with their strats if they want to give a decent showing at the event.

Lol

— Nikola Kovač (@NiKoCS_) March 23, 2025

Ultimately, all priorities for the team will now be on that Major. And I’ll stick my neck out and say that Falcons definitely aren’t winning it. However, a good showing in Austin could buy this team another six months to continue to grow. Anything less, and it’s probably time for some changes.

What changes could Falcons make?

If you’re looking at this Falcons roster right now, the only one 100% safe is NiKo. He’s their star man, the guy they waited 12 months to pry from G2. You could make the case for any of zonic, degster, Magisk, TeSeS, or kyxsan to go, so let’s see about each of their chances.

We’ll start with kyxsan. I actually think of the above names (excluding NiKo), he’s the safest. The IGL market is rough right now, and kyxsan is the best young talent in the position besides siuhy. Even making that move could prove to be a bit of a sidegrade. All in, kyxsan is a solid caller, and not a total bot in the fragging department. He probably stays.

Then, there’s Magisk. His form has fallen off a cliff this year, only briefly showing glimpses of his past prime. However, he’s an important voice on any team, and, similarly to kyxsan, plays a role that doesn’t have many suitors at the moment. BLAST Open Spring 2025 was another tough tournament for the Dane, but just in terms of VRS implications, I imagine that Falcons will role the dice on Magisk until at least the end of the year.

TeSeS. Coming into the team, he blew past expectations and looked an excellent pickup. It hasn’t looked all rosy in the time since, with a 0.98 rating on LAN for Falcons compared to 1.31 in online matches. Prestigious Counter-Strike is played on LAN, so that rating simply doesn’t cut it. For me, he’s a massive question mark when the chopping block does arrive, whenever that may be.

Unfortunately for degster, I don’t think there’s any chance he’s still playing for Falcons next year. This team very clearly has their hearts set on m0NESY, and will remain persistent to get their man as they did with NiKo. His time on this team will be determined by how long it takes for Falcons to get that deal done. It could be after the Austin Major, or it could be the end of the year. Either way, degster isn’t the endgame for Falcons. The good news for him is that he’s actually been pretty good. He won’t struggle to find a team once m0NESY is in Falcons’ colors.

Finally, there’s zonic. The five-time Major winning coach has proven his Counter-Strike credentials plenty of time over the years, but has never made it work for Falcons. The recent clip from BLAST Open Spring 2025 that prompted a complaint from Falcons showed zonic looking out of answers during a timeout, and it could be indicative of his time running out on the team. You could argue he’s never had the elite roster he was promised when joining, but the truth is that he still should have done better with the parts he has had. I think zonic might be the first name out the door if we don’t see big improvements from Falcons by the end of the BLAST Austin Major, despite his past achievements.

Falcons still have plenty of time to get their acts together, with appearances at PGL Bucharest, IEM Melbourne, and IEM Dallas all locked in before the BLAST Austin Major.