Thunderpick World Championship Talent & First Match Ups Announced

The Thunderpick World Championship LAN finals are kicking off in Malta next week with 8 teams ready to take to the stage. Now we know which teams each will be facing in the first stage of the tournament, due to start with 4 Bo3s played out on Wednesday October 15th. 

It won’t be easy…

Four of the teams qualified have already had to fight their way through regional qualifiers to get to this point in the tournament and it’s not about to get any easier as they now need to face off with their VRS invited counterparts. Here are the 4 games that’ll kick us off: 

• 10:30 CET – FURIA vs. OG 
• 13:30 CET – The Mongolz vs. 9z
• 16:30 CET – Aurora vs. Venom 
• 19:30 CET – Navi vs. Imperial 

Even a couple of weeks ago, most of these match ups would have seemed pretty cut and dry and I’d have expected 2-0s across the board. The Mongolz are not only the defending champions of the Thunderpick World Championship but they also placed 2nd at the Perfect World Shanghai Major earlier this year in a stunning run for Asian Counter-Strike. 

But it seems their “0 practice” meta caught up with them a bit recently and they crashed out in 11th place at ESL Pro League, losing 2-0 at the hands of Navi.   

Hotspawn’s match pick

This is going to be a looong first day and if you don’t have time to catch all of the games, I’d definitely recommend checking out the Mongolz vs. 9z. Maybe they’ll return to form, maybe we’ll witness some great in this David vs. Goliath game).

If you’re up for some CS a little later in the day, Navi vs. Imperial should be a good one. It’s been a rocky year for Navi but perhaps this is a chance to return to their winning ways. It remains to be seen!

Talent announced

There’s a lot of familiar faces coming to Malta next week and not only from the players’ side. Thunderpick also announced the talent line up for the event earlier today with some great additions to the casters, interviewers and analyst desk.

Meet the voices of the Main Event for #ThunderpickWC 2025! 🌐

Here are all the talents bringing you the action live 🔉

🎙️ Casters: @HugoTV @JustHarryGG @SPUNJ @MACHINEgg

📊 Analysts:@YNk @OfficialBleh @allan_hender @TravCS

🧑‍🏫 Hosts:@stunna @techgirlza

🎤 Interviewer:… pic.twitter.com/IGyOLaS00x

— Thunderpick (@thunderpickco) October 9, 2025

It’s safe to say there’s going to be a lot of Counter-Strike next week and you can keep up with all of the action right here on Hotspawn!