Thorin — Esports-Style Semi-Realistic Digital Illustration
Duncan “Thorin” Shields has put the spotlight back on Team Falcons’ biggest weakness ahead of the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025.
Commenting on social media and in recent talk shows, the British analyst summed up the problem bluntly: Falcons “destroy everyone in the group stage, but fall apart in the key matches,” pointing to a now-familiar pattern of dominant early runs followed by painful collapses when trophies or Major progression are on the line.
Superteam built to win everything
Falcons entered 2025 as one of Counter-Strike’s most ambitious projects. The Saudi organisation rebuilt around coach Danny “zonic” Sørensen and sports psychologist Lars Robl, adding long-time G2 star Nikola “NiKo” Kovač in January.
The roster took another huge step in April, when Falcons signed Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov from G2, reuniting him with NiKo just weeks before the BLAST.tv Austin Major. The final Major-ready lineup of NiKo, m0NESY, TeSeS, kyxsan and kyousuke immediately looked like a title favourite on paper.
Results came quickly. Falcons lifted their first CS2 S-tier trophy at PGL Bucharest 2025, sweeping G2 3-0 in the grand final to claim the organisation’s maiden international LAN title.
From hot group stages to cold Sundays
Where Thorin’s criticism bites is in what followed Bucharest.
At IEM Melbourne 2025, the new-look Falcons reached the grand final against Vitality. NiKo’s biography notes that Falcons threw away a 12-6 lead on the decider Nuke in map five, allowing Vitality – now powered by ropz – to reverse-sweep the series 3-2.
The story repeated at BLAST Rivals 2025 Season 1, where Vitality once again edged Falcons 3-2 in the final. In both events Falcons had looked imperious in the group stage, dropping very few maps on the way to the podium.
The lowest point came at the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025. Seeded directly into Stage 2 off strong Regional Standings, Falcons were widely tipped as one of the main contenders. Instead, they crashed out in 20th-22nd place with a 1-3 record, beating only OG while losing to B8, Lynn Vision and MIBR – teams they were expected to handle comfortably.
In the aftermath, captain Damjan “kyxsan” Stoilkovski admitted the team had not coped with the occasion:
“Maybe it was because of the pressure and the high expectations, I’m not sure. But we didn’t play close to our usual level at this event,” he told BLAST, apologising to fans for the early exit.
IEM Chengdu: pattern repeats, but Falcons stabilise
Falcons’ most recent LAN, IEM Chengdu 2025, perfectly illustrates why Thorin chose to focus on their split personality.
In China the superteam tore through the group stage with a flawless 6-0 map record, beating Spirit, TYLOO and Astralis without dropping a single map to lock in a top seed for the playoffs.
Once again, however, the bracket exposed their fragility. In the semi-final they were swept 2-0 by a resurgent FURIA, who claimed their third consecutive series win over Falcons on the back of a dominant Inferno and a tight Mirage.
Falcons recovered to beat MOUZ 2-1 in the third-place decider, finishing the event with bronze.
But the sense of a missed opportunity lingered – especially with the Budapest Major just around the corner.
Speaking to HLTV after that series, kyxsan openly addressed the elephant in the room:
“Sometimes when it comes to these high pressure games, sometimes we make some mistakes that we usually don’t do… Something is definitely happening to us in these important games, and we’ve been working on it to fix it.”
Thorin: “Everything but an elite striker”
Thorin has been one of the most vocal critics of Falcons’ inability to convert their talent into titles. On X, he recently described Falcons as “a team with everything but an elite striker,” arguing that fans are focusing on the wrong cuts when they call for roster changes.
On his shows Feed the Trolls and Snake & Banter, Shields has repeatedly highlighted three main issues:
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Big-match nerves – pointing to Austin, Melbourne and now Chengdu as evidence that Falcons’ level drops sharply once the stakes rise beyond the group stage.
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Star output under pressure – community statistics shared on forums note that m0NESY’s playoff rating against top-10 competition has been closer to 1.00 than the 1.20+ numbers he posted at G2, while rifler kyousuke is still building experience on big stages.
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Closing ability – Falcons have squandered multiple big leads in finals, most notably that 12-6 Nuke advantage versus Vitality in Melbourne and another late stumble in the BLAST Rivals Season 1 decider.
The Russian-language CS community has already turned his latest line – “they destroy everyone in groups but fail in key matches” – into a widely shared summary of the Falcons problem ahead of Budapest.
Falcons’ response: fixing the mental game
Inside the team, there is clear recognition of the issue.
Kyxsan’s Chengdu interview emphasised that Falcons and their mental coach are focusing heavily on pressure scenarios:
“We are just talking about it. Everyone is sharing how they feel… [Our coach] is trying to help us be more relaxed, calm, to play the game like every other game, because the game against FURIA didn’t feel like every other game for us.”
The numbers suggest there is still plenty of reason for optimism. HLTV’s stats show Falcons as a top-three team in the world, with only a handful of series losses since m0NESY’s arrival, and a trophy already in the cabinet from Bucharest.
But until NiKo and company lift another big trophy – or at least deliver deep Major runs without imploding – Thorin’s verdict will continue to hang over them. For now, Falcons may be the scariest team in any group stage, yet their biggest challenge remains the matches where legacies are actually written.
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