Pick’Em StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 Stage 2. The Main CS Monsters Enter the Game!
For the second week, we’ve been watching events in the Hungarian capital, and the results continue to surprise the entire community. The first stage triumphants – M80 and FlyQuest, after confident 3:0 starts, couldn’t advance further, while the failures of Aurora and Astralis became the main sensation of the tournament. Four teams advanced to Legends starting from the very beginning, and it will be interesting to see if they pass the real test against the world’s best teams. What form did Vitality, FURIA, Falcons, Spirit, and MOUZ arrive in? What’s the chance that favorites will continue to fail and one of the top teams won’t make playoffs? We’ll break it all down in this article and, as usual, share not only our thoughts but those of other influencers as well.
Pick'Em Challenge from SIH
- 3:0 – FURIA, Falcons
- 3:1/3:2 – Vitality, MOUZ, Team Spirit, NAVI, G2, The MongolZ
- 0:3 – Liquid, paiN
In our previous pick’em, we successfully predicted FaZe at 3:0, which was quite risky after their performance in the previous round. It seems the 3:0 curse should work now and karrigan’s squad won’t conquer the next stage. Remembering how well the Falcons guys play the group stage, we boldly put them at 3:0. They have a fairly passable first opponent – B8, against whom they shouldn’t stumble even in BO1. The same can’t be said for FURIA, who drew NAVI. But we believe in papa FalleN, and even such a difficult debut game doesn’t concern us at all with this choice. Plus, if any of the top teams are destined to fail in the group stage, it should be FURIA, and putting them at 3:0 looks safer. The elimination of other participants won’t be as surprising, as we’ve already seen failures from Falcons, Spirit, MOUZ, and even Vitality.
Moving to playoff advancement, we decided to add the objectively strongest teams. Yes, according to Major laws, one of them will definitely be left out, so rather than guess, we decided to add all the strongest. The hardest part of this pick is that any of these teams could claim 3:0, but the new system forces risky picks. The MongolZ raise the most doubts, but we decided this is an excellent pick to play “reverse psychology” and choose a fairly strong team as an “non-obvious” contender.
As for teams from the first and second stages, looking at the level of play in these matches – we don’t want to believe they deserve playoffs. Consider it a protest or denial of their strength, but the quality of CS was one of the weakest in recent Majors. Perhaps it’s due to the end of the season, but a year ago in Shanghai the matches were very bright and the audience acquired new favorites, while now everyone is waiting for the top teams to enter the game. PARIVISION with Jame is the main discovery of the 10-day event, but here it’s more pleasant to watch the reincarnation of the main hero who was undeservedly forced to leave his home. This story somewhat resembles Zeus with NAVI/Gambit in 2017, but hardly anyone is capable of believing in such a fairytale happy ending.
For 0:3 we chose paiN because karma should send them home after cleverly getting into Stage 3 by skipping tournaments, and Liquid simply has one of the toughest brackets.
Pick'Em Challenge from Thorin
- 3:0 – FURIA, Vitality
- 3:1/3:2 – Falcons, MOUZ, Team Spirit, NAVI, G2, Liquid
- 0:3 – Passion UA, Imperial
Let’s look at what the British talent chose. As you can notice, he agrees with our choice of 7 teams for playoffs, though for some reason he likes Liquid more than The MongolZ. Also, there’s more faith in Vitality at 3:0 than in Falcons, but even in their prime, Vitality managed to stumble against Legacy in BO1. The epic end of their winning streak at the last Major will remain in every fan’s memory, and this trauma didn’t allow us to make a similar choice. The main difference from our thoughts – the 0:3 picks, and here we’re already experiencing phantom pains from the previous stage. Two stages in a row we chose Imperial for 0:3, and they came out twice with a 3:1 record. We don’t believe in repeating the result a third time, but it would be foolish not to draw conclusions and stop considering the Brazilians underdogs. Passion UA truly looks like a black sheep here, but they have good experienced players, and their low seeding will allow them to get weaker opponents.
Pick'Em Challenge from StRoGo
- 3:0 – FURIA, Falcons
- 3:1/3:2 – Vitality, MOUZ, Team Spirit, NAVI, Imperial, The MongolZ
- 0:3 – Passion UA, FaZe
The streamer and partly semi-professional player from Eastern Europe is known for his creativity. Even ZywOo and apEX fell for his “traps” in the form of graffiti, so this guy understands something about CS and clearly knows how to surprise. The Pick’Em Challenge was no exception, and Ivan put Imperial through to playoffs. Remembering how scenarios unfolded in our pick’ems with this team – it looks like a logical outcome, but we wouldn’t dare make a similar choice. FaZe Clan at 0:3 also seems like a very appealing pick to us. We already mentioned the 3:0 curse, and the team’s uncertain and unstable performance only adds confidence that such a finale is quite realistic.
Pick'Em Challenge from Mauisnake
- 3:0 – Vitality, Falcons
- 3:1/3:2 – FURIA, MOUZ, Team Spirit, NAVI, G2, FaZe
- 0:3 – Imperial, paiN
The Western analyst doesn’t agree with the distrust of karrigan and put FaZe through to the top 8. Well, fair enough. Though it’s absolutely unclear how broky in his current form can oppose any sniper from opponent teams. The performance of m0NESY, molodoy, torzsi, ZywOo, sh1ro, and other players shows that AWP even in CS2 is the most important device that greatly affects the game of the entire team. Therefore, FaZe’s advancement with broky’s current form still looks more like an adventure. The main candidates for elimination are considered to be the Brazilians. Interesting what the main Brazilian fan thinks about this.
Pick'Em Challenge from Gaules
- 3:0 – FURIA, MOUZ
- 3:1/3:2 – Vitality, Falcons, Team Spirit, NAVI, Imperial, paiN
- 0:3 – Passion UA, Liquid
Of course, all three Brazilian organizations should be in playoffs – we didn’t expect anything else from Gaules, but we had to check. We’re sharing the pick’em with you, and despite the “fan” approach, there’s something to latch onto here. For example, MOUZ at 3:0 – why not? The first match against PARIVISION should be manageable, they have a fairly successful seeding to avoid early meetings with other top teams, and if you recall history, MOUZ rarely stumbles in Swiss format. Personally, we liked that we’re similar in thoughts regarding Liquid; now our choice looks less risky and has more right to exist.
Pick'Em Challenge from degster
- 3:0 – Vitality, G2
- 3:1/3:2 – FURIA, MOUZ, Falcons, Team Spirit, NAVI, FaZe
- 0:3 – Passion UA, Imperial
We couldn’t maintain the tradition and get a pick’em from stage participants (apparently at this stage the guys have more important tasks), so we decided to look at a pro player. Even though Abdul is on the bench, he’ll definitely be on the radar of top teams after the Major and must find a team. We already turned to him in the first stage and even criticized his choice a bit, but that time he was right, guessing M80 at 3:0. We think the G2 pick was made precisely based on recent successful experience, or is it a display of loyalty to the organization to undermine the shaky SunPayus? Otherwise – everything is fairly routine, so let’s summarize.
Statistics on the Most Popular Picks:
- 3:0 – FURIA (4 votes), Falcons (3 votes), Vitality (3 votes)
- 3:1/3:2 – Team Spirit (6 votes), NAVI (6 votes), MOUZ (5 votes), Vitality (3 votes), G2 (3 votes), Falcons (3 votes)
- 0:3 – Passion UA (4 votes), Imperial (3 votes), Liquid (2 votes), paiN (2 votes)
Author: Alex
Alex is an author and esports observer with more than seven years of experience. He specializes in analyzing new releases in the world of computer games, gaming services, and in-game economies. Alex shares practical experience and an expert perspective on the development of gaming, helping readers understand complex mechanics and stay up to date with the latest news.
