CALLED THE CHAMPION
CYBER SUMMER SHUTDOWN 2026
and the blue zone ate the rest of the bet

Studio, studio. A week ago I predicted a champion and got him in fourteenth place. Today I wrote "KONOHA UA will take first" — and KONOHA UA took first.

Do not celebrate for me too fast. Because I named second and third as well.

I put 3ZUB second — they are fifth. I deliberately took a risk and put CPN third, even though my own index held them fifth — they are seventh. I even named an MVP: 4ndr3w_baz00ka, K/D 6.57 in TPP. He made six kills across five maps. Six. That is fewer than bedbo- made in two.

So one bet out of three landed — but it was the one they pay for.

First map, and my favourite ends the argument immediately: KONOHA UA (bedbo-, POBOJKE, flausD, Pes__Patron) take Erangel with fourteen kills.

bedbo- opens the night with five frags — the best result of the map. Behind them Seniors of 3ZUB finish second, and at the time it looked like an accident. It would not have, if I had looked closer.

Meanwhile FURY (UA), whom I kept in mind as the dark horse, finished tenth with ZERO kills. Zero. For the whole map.

The desert, and the best turnaround of the night. Venom Pact (Kaizeen-, VIREX-, dismaynotfound, BANO4KI) were fifteenth on the first map — almost last. On the second they take the dinner with seventeen kills.

Here too — the shot of the night: Solovoin_ of Pokamolodi drops a target from **648 metres** with a Kar98k. Right behind him pokamolodoi_66 with the same Kar98k at 644. Miramar is the map where reflexes lose to whoever sees first.

CPN, my third bet, sit eleventh here. It gets worse.

Same squad, same four players — and a second chicken dinner in three maps. Sixteen kills, bedbo- again the best on the map with six frags.

This is where it became clear my bet on KONOHA was not luck: they do not merely survive, they take the map by force.

CPN drop to fifteenth. My "deliberate calculated risk" turns into deliberate nonsense live on air.

A team that made three kills TOTAL across the first two maps takes Rondo with nineteen. Nineteen is more than any team managed on any map this evening.

KoshA_- and Layrus with six frags each, 2112 damage as a team against 179 on the first map. Hasta la vista, quiet circle.

And that same FURY finish eleventh on the next map. There is the whole team in one sentence.

Erangel for the second time tonight, and the dinner goes to a squad that appeared in none of my bets: Seniors of 3ZUB (mxnto-, Dyssst, BesToLoch-_-, daniloook).

And this is where I truly failed. Look at their placements map by map: **2 → 4 → 2 → 2 → 1**. Average placement 2.20 — the BEST in the tournament. Better than the champion’s.

They did not win the tournament only because KONOHA shot fifteen more kills — and they lost the runner-up spot after the final map, not in the game (more on that below). And now the tastiest part: 3ZUB, whom I put second, finished fifth. The seniors beat the juniors by two positions. Someone in that clan is having a very quiet dinner tonight.

Now seriously, no chicken jokes. Congratulations to **KONOHA UA** — bedbo-, POBOJKE, Pes__Patron and flausD. You won this evening cleanly.

And here is exactly how. They did not creep towards the win — they **seized it immediately**: first place on the very first map, then third, then first again. Two chicken dinners in the first three maps, while the rest of the lobby was still working out what they were playing.

The squad holds the **two best fraggers of the entire tournament**: bedbo- with seventeen kills and POBOJKE with sixteen. Thirty-three frags between two players — more than any team scored except the champions themselves and Venom Pact. POBOJKE also deals the most damage in the squad (2693) and lands twelve knockdowns — he is the one who breaks enemy positions, and bedbo- is the one who closes them.

But a team is not two people. **Pes__Patron** holds nine kills and survives longest on the map, while **flausD** with three frags has **six assists** — this is a squad where the fourth player does not shoot last, he works for those who shoot.

And the most valuable part: KONOHA finished the last two maps eighth and fifth. That means **they did not win the ending — they held it**. Defending a lead when everyone behind you has nothing left to lose is harder than taking a dinner. They defended it.

Seventy-four points, forty-five kills, two chicken dinners. Champions of Cyber Summer Shutdown 2026 — and honestly, I am glad that for once I bet on the ones who actually went on to win.

Congratulations to **Venom Pact** — Kaizeen-, VIREX-, dismaynotfound and BANO4KI. Second place and **the most kills of the night: 46**, more than the champions. Kaizeen- dealt the highest damage of the tournament (3052), VIREX- adds 2601. And all of it after starting **fifteenth of sixteen** on the first map — few teams climb out of a hole like that to silver.

Congratulations to **Seniors of 3ZUB** — mxnto-, Dyssst, BesToLoch-_- and daniloook. Third place — and a number even the champion does not have: **average placement 2.20**. Look at their evening: 2 → 4 → 2 → 2 → 1. They never once fell below fourth. That is the most consistent squad of the tournament, and they earned the final map.

**And here an honest note is needed.** On points scored in game, Seniors of 3ZUB were second with 68. But the organiser deducted **6 points for breaking the in-game chat rules** — and the 62 that remained placed them third, handing the runner-up spot to Venom Pact.

I am not a referee and I do not comment on the ruling. I will say only what the table shows: the team with the best average placement of the tournament is not standing second, and the reason is not how they shot. Lobby rules are part of the game too, and they cost exactly what the protocol says they cost.

Three different ways to live through an evening: KONOHA took it with aggression, Venom Pact with character, the Seniors with discipline on the map. That is what a proper tournament looks like.

On points scored in game, Seniors of 3ZUB were SECOND with 68. The tournament administration deducted 6 points from the team for breaking the in-game chat rules — and the 62 that remained placed them third, with the runner-up spot passing to Venom Pact.

The rule in question: any language is allowed in the in-game chat except Russian; disputed cases are decided by the tournament administration. Separately: the player taizonoko is banned for three tournaments for disrespect and arguing with the administration.

This is not a counting error and not a broken table. The team with the best average placement of the tournament is standing third — and the reason is not how they shot.

Honestly, no wriggling.

**KONOHA UA — I said first, they finished first.** A direct hit. The basis was not the ranked ladder but our own tournaments: 1.81 kills per match and 21 chicken dinners. History delivered.

**3ZUB — I said second, they finished fifth.** I wrote myself that they "shoot like a top-2 team and finish like mid-table", and I bet on them anyway. Their placements tonight: 7 → 8 → 3 → 9 → 7. Not a single dinner. I knew and did not listen to myself.

**CPN — I said third, they finished seventh.** This is my main mistake, and it is instructive. I took them TWO positions ABOVE my own index, only because all four know TPP and the tournament was TPP. Their maps: 4 → 11 → 15 → 16 → 3. Knowing the mode and knowing how to win a tournament are different things, damn it.

**MVP 4ndr3w_baz00ka — six kills.** A K/D of 6.57 in public statistics did not survive contact with a real lobby.

And now what I did not see at all: **Seniors of 3ZUB**. My index did not even have them in the top eight. They are second, with the best average placement of the tournament. And **Venom Pact**, whom the index held seventh — they are second and with the most kills of the night (46).

**And now about the index — it is far more interesting than my three bets.** I calculated the index for all sixteen teams, and it came out like this: exactly one landed on its own place — KONOHA UA in first. But five more missed by exactly one position: FURY (UA) (3rd by index → 4th in real life), IKLA (8 → 9), doofuses (12 → 11), SICH Riflemen (13 → 14) and Team Witness (14 → 15).

So **six teams out of sixteen were placed by the index either exactly or within one** — that is every third team. The average error across the whole table is exactly 3.00 positions.

And three places where the index did not merely miss but looked the other way: **Seniors of 3ZUB** (10th by index → 3rd), **Маленькі Кніпочки** (9th → 16th) and **NO MERCY UA** (4th → 10th). The first one hurts most — the podium was hiding right there, and I kept them in the bottom half of the table.

NaN