stunna on Thunderpick World Championship Playoffs: “I think it’s a pretty even keel at the top as far as the favourite”

Tres “stunna” Saranthus has been on the Counter-Strike grind for years. He has been a staple of the Tier 1 scene since 2017, and remains a top talent in the upper echelons of CS.

Now, stunna has brought his talents to the Thunderpick World Championship 2025, where we got to speak to him about his early love of CS, the teams in Malta right now, and more!

stunna talks Malta and the Thunderpick World Championship 2025

Sophie McCarthy: Hey, everybody, this is Sophie from Hotspawn and we’re here in Malta at the Thunderpick World Championship with…

Tres “stunna” Saranthus: Hi, I’m Tres “stunna” Saranthus, and I’m the desk host here. This is my second Thunderpick World Championship. I was in the last one in Berlin and pretty excited to be here.

Sophie: Yeah, absolutely. I was in the last one in Berlin as well, I don’t think we crossed paths. 

stunna: I was probably hiding out. But, you know, also sometimes they just keep us talent kind of locked away. Probably either for our own good or your own good, you know?

Sophie: Yeah, it’s one of the two… Okay, so let’s get into it. First of all, how are you finding Malta?

stunna: Yeah, the hotel is pretty cool. Ironically, I’ve been to Malta several times, but every single time I’ve come here, I’ve always stayed at the same exact hotel in a different part of the island than this time around. So very nice change of scenery, very much welcomed and there’s a lot more here to do.

Sophie: Do you get anything like downtime anytime to go see Valletta or anything?

stunna: Well, I’ve seen Valletta before and I highly recommend that you go check out Valletta if you go see other parts of the island. I think some people come to Malta and they don’t really explore, but there’s so much going on. All things considered, don’t usually get the chance to sort of run around and see a whole lot after work hours. But I’ve seen Malta, a lot of history.

Sophie: I mean, it’s a very old island. So, as you say, this is not your first Thunderpick World Championship, and it is by no means your first event.

stunna: Yeah, fair. Guilty!

Sophie: So how does working this event compare to something like a Shanghai Major or an IEM?

stunna: Well, it’s a tough one for the Shanghai Major, since I didn’t get invited, I would say that I’m not too familiar, but I do know the feeling of a Major versus where we are right now. There is something to say about studio environments and LANs that are played underneath conditions like this in which it’s somewhat more personal. Yes, they’re playing on the stage right there. But when your team’s yelling, I promise you the team on the other side has an indication. So I do love it for that and I do love the fact that it’s a much more intimate.

Sophie: As you say, you’ve done a lot of CS, but how did you get started? What was your first, like, “Oh, this game Counter-Strike!”

stunna: Oh my God. So once upon a time, there was a wee little lad, and that was me. I grew up in Alabama and honestly, between, you know, you have recreational things like deer hunting or used to play a lot of paintball or maybe you’re playing army with your friends or something when you’re that age. I grew up at a time when the internet came to prominence. Where it started with like Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear, a game that I definitely don’t want to play now. It turned into Medal of Honour: Allied Assault, which then evolved into finding out how to connect and be, I guess, intrinsic with what’s going on at a professional level in the game Counter-Strike, because it’s a vast game and I don’t mean the maps, I don’t mean the player base. Well, I do mean the player base, but I mean that the audience is very much local. So yeah, I think I just draw on Counter-Strike and as it turns out, it’s God’s game. So it works out for all of us.

Sophie: So we’ve got a really good event here. We’ve got some pretty good teams. We got NAVI, we got FURIA, we got The MongolZ, but we’ve got a lot of teams that are less, you know, shall we say. We’ve got Team Venom, we’ve got 9z. What are your thoughts on how these qualifier teams are matching up against the invited teams so far? 

stunna: Well, I think there is quite a disparity. I say disparity, I mean like that I think there’s quite a drop off in terms of skill, or even what some of these teams in the Tier 1 level are being exposed to over and over again by playing more and more Tier 1 events. So if you are the likes of like a 9z or Venom or one of the underdog teams that comes in here, it’s pretty crucial to capitalise on it. You know, I think your opportunities can be few and far between qualifying for things, VRS points, whatever Valve throws in the direction of a team. It’s important that you come here and hit the ground running because this is essentially your Super Bowl, right? Like you’re not, you’re not playing necessarily for the next event. You’re playing to try to win this event because this is the one and then you’ll think about the next one.

Sophie: Yeah, I mean, I guess some of these teams are thinking about the Major. Some of these teams are just thinking about this event.

stunna: Of course, And again that disparity comes in there. You got The MongolZ, who were runner-up at the last Major in Austin and now they’ve just dropped a map to FURIA. So like the timeline from when that happened to now… Thunderpick is a great gauge for understanding where some of these teams are as well.

Sophie: And The MongolZ, they started off as the winner of the Thunderpick World Championship last year.

stunna: Crazy scenario too, by the way, they won over there. Honestly, really cool. I think it’s LVL in Berlin, super cool venue. I ended up wearing champagne that night because when The MongolZ won, Somebody just decided to shoot it all over the room. Pretty exciting time, would say that that was kind of like a first in that scenario. And the producer goes, “Hey, sign the show off from there.”

Sophie: I mean, I would love to see it happen again! So at this point, we’re doing this interview on the second day of groups, we saw FURIA take down The MongolZ. OG and 9z are playing map two right now, I think. If you were going to call the winner right now, what would you say?

stunna: Oh my God. It makes it difficult, right? And here’s how I’m going to just give myself a caveat before we get too far down the road here. For a team like FURIA having had recent success and then played through ESL Pro League, coming here to Malta, they also have a little facility here as well. But for a team like FURIA versus say where The MongolZ are, just talking about in consideration the last Major, or perhaps for like an Aurora, how they’ve been just also playing Counter-Strike nonstop for seemingly probably the past 300 days plus consecutively. I don’t know, it’s a wild number. But then you have the little NAVI that could. So there are teams that you can’t discount or, you know, count out anything. I think it’s a pretty even keel at the top as far as the favourite. mean, I would have looked at The MongolZ, honestly, but FURIA, there’s something about the team feel that I’m thinking maybe they got this.