For any undecided 0-3 picks out there, this is your guide. We’ve got 4 likely suspects to crash out in Stage 1 of the IEM Cologne Major.
Gaimin Gladiators, Sharks, FlyQuest, and THUNDER dOWNUNDER are already filling pundits and influencers’ 0-3 pick’ems, but choosing the truly worst comes down to some eye test and some statistics.
We’ll be choosing from the highest ranked VRS team to the worst of these 4. Technically, NRG has a worse VRS ranking entering the Major over Sharks and should be up for consideration as well. March 20th is the last time NRG beat any team in Major attendance. It’s been pretty bad for them too lately.
Sharks (gafolo, koala, maxxkor, rdnzao, doc)
- Average age: 23.1
- HLTV Ranking: 51
- Valve Ranking: 41
One thing that this team has going for it is that they’ve been together for a significant amount of time. This roster has played 204 maps together in the last 8 months, the time that maxxkor joined the team. The other core 4 have been playing for 2 years now.
read more
This team has always been hovering around the 70th HLTV ranked team since July 2023, but their recent addition of maxxkor helped them rise the ranks and find stability around the 30th Valve rank. The team plays a mix of LAN and online events, primarily in South America although they have played two international LANs this season (never in the A-Tier, however). They finished in 9th-12th at FRAG Miami. CCT Season 3 Global Finals was a different story, though. They found a single win over Apogee Esports to find BIG in the LB Quarterfinals where they nearly won the series in a narrow 1-2 loss (8-13 on the 3rd map).
This is the series that I’m looking at to find out more about Sharks. Let’s start with Map 1, their pick. Sharks lost 1-13. They got a single round on their own map pick of Inferno. The one round they won was a gun round B rush.
Now for the problems. This team does not walk nearly enough. Sharks will take space on the map and then just keep running even with advanced positions that they may have taken without being noticed by opponents. For a core that’s been together for as long as they have, you would figure that they would have worked through more of these situations and felt more calm through them. Another issue is lurking presence. koala does not take space nearly as safely as you would hope from a lurker. Sharks can find man advantages and lurkers like koala and rdnzao will do everything in their power to give back the advantage to the opponents.
read more
You can tell that their players are working independently from the number state situations across the map. I also look for statistics that would be worthy of an upset and one that is concerning is how ineffective this team is on half-buys/ecos. They only win 20% of their half-buy/eco rounds and have a 35% winrate even when finding the first pick.
Gaimin Gladiators (JOTA, HEN1, fer, Luken, NEKIZ)
- Average age: 30.7
- HLTV Ranking: 46
- Valve Ranking: 52
The simple reason to not believe in this team is that they’re replacing felps with fer about 1 month before the Major even begins. fer’s latest interview with HLTV said that they had 2 weeks of practice leading into the BCGame Masters and they lost series to Acend then Inner Circle. Neither of these teams were good enough to qualify for the Cologne Major themselves.
They did take one map to overtime, but they have yet to win a single map as a 5-man lineup. Both of their matches were played on Mirage and Overpass. They’ve shown Overpass to be their pick and also to note, that will frequently be vetoed by opposing teams in a Best of 1 format veto style.
In the 10 months since Overpass has been added to the Active Duty pool in Bo1s, it is the 6th most played map and the only maps that have less play on them have been Train and Anubis which both rotated in and out for each other during this time period. That is 8.5% of Bo1 maps being played on Overpass. 12.5% is the average you’d hope for.
read more
Looking at Gaimin Gladiators playing Mirage, which they definitely will have to face in the Bo1s, there is a lack of confidence in the mid-late round. Confidence is thrown around too loosely when talking about Counter-Strike so I’ll just boil it down. Individuals aren’t sure how they’re supposed to respond to opponents and players on Gaimin do not know all of their procedures for pulling off a retake. This is exemplified in their match vs Inner Circle where they lazily will re-clear middle on Mirage after losing the space one by one and HEN1 did not even know which way he wanted to approach an A retake from which wasted valuable time and cost them a potential defuse.
This is a team that just clearly does not have the reps yet to be challenging rosters who have been together upwards of 6 months.
THUNDER dOWNUNDER (dexter, Liazz, aliStair, asap, TjP)
- Average age: 27.1
- HLTV Ranking: 80
- Valve Ranking: 56
It’s legitimately impressive that this team has passed FlyQuest in the VRS despite the fact that three of their players were previously employed by the named organization.
As I look into this team I tend to find more positives than negatives for a team of this stature. They made a deep lower bracket run at the Asia Champions League 2026 winning 4 consecutive series after being sent to the lower bracket before losing respectfully 1-2 to Lynn Vision who were the tournament’s champions.
read more
When I watched this team play Lynn Vision, what was refreshing was that this team didn’t lose due to a lack of plans. They had a variety of different ways to start rounds with pace or to more slowly play map control takes out. Their loss mostly came down to player quality. Individuals not checking particular angles, initial kills deciding rounds, key trades being missed.
The more I watch this team, the less I want to slot them in my 0-3 pick.
FlyQuest (jks, INS, Vexita, nettik, story)
- Average age: 25.3
- HLTV Ranking: 56
- Valve Ranking: 76
FlyQuest’s 2026 has been focused on maintaining dominance in the Asia-Oceanic region so that they can hold their position to qualify for the Major. I have no other way to put this other than it being a fairly short-sighted move that may earn them several waves of sticker money now, but it will lead to an atrophying of player and team ability. Those effects came much faster than they expected.
Now, with FlyQuest losing to Asian teams, what more do they have? FlyQuest had a disastrous result at the Asia Champions League and that’s why they are going to be on my 0-3 Pick’Ems for Stage 1. Losing to JiJieHao is already a bad enough reason to be sent to the lower bracket, but losing to 5star eSports which is probably the 4th best Mongolian team makes one nauseous.
read more
In their loss on Inferno, they kicked off their gun rounds with a 5v3 advantage turning into a loss due to standard counter utility as they were trying to get into the B bombsite. Another round began with 3 of their players dying at the end of an apartment smoke as they attempted to walk through it and fight through it. One of the worst T-side starters I’ve ever seen in 2026. It wasn’t a full gun round, though so I’ll try to show some forgiveness. Now, in the next gun round they lost fights on multiple fronts as 5star went for an aggressive smoke down middle, catching FlyQuest off guard with what is really a fairly common play.
Overall, I’m debating whether to put Gaimin Gladiators or THUNDER dOWNUNDER as my 0-3 pick, but one thing is for certain: FlyQuest will occupy one of those slots.
