Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend IEM Melbourne 2025 this year for the Counter-Strike 2 events—but hopefully, next year I’ll be there in person to report on it.

It would be my first time covering Counter-Strike events instead of StarCraft, which is what I primarily focus on.

We still don’t know who will be in Group A or Group B yet, but with the European boys from Team Vitality, I do plan to report from home with my thoughts on the event.

That said, I apologize in advance—I don’t follow Counter-Strike all that closely. Honestly, most of what I know about teams like FaZe comes from hearing how mismanaged they’ve been.

As someone who’s been around for a while, my history with Counter-Strike mostly goes back to Counter-Strike: Source and the iconic Joel Gardiner character, Doug (aka fps_doug), who gave us legendary lines like “I can dance all day! It’s like, just try to hit me.” and “I run faster with a knife. Everyone runs faster with a knife.” It’ll be interesting to see how much the game has changed over the years.