Talking Counter
Episode 123: VRS deep dive, HLTV, IEM Katowice groups, reviewing new rosters
06 Feb 2025
moses, SPUNJ, and YNk are taking over in beautiful, sunny, bright Katowice for IEM, Talking Counter. Collab episode with Striker of HLTV Confirmed (all sponsors and partnered segments are HLTV's ahahahah) Join our Discord channel to discuss the episode, watch events, and Talk Counter with other viewers! https://discord.gg/wvVQhXQy 0:00 - Intro 2:50 - HLTV Confirmed x Talking Counter! 6:33 - VRS early impact 11:25 - Cluj skips 19:11 - VRS discrepancies 27:35 - VRS effect on tier 2 40:50 - HLTV doesn’t cover enough for rankings? 48:10 - Moses & YNk take Skinionaire 57:39 - No interviews for Striker :( 59:55 - Analysts near players during matches 1:07:14 - Gun update 1:10:03 - SPUNJ’s rage quit after ultimate’s blunder 1:12:30 - “Frenchman finds pleasure in Poland” 1:14:18 - PR’s 1:15:12 - FL4MUS not 1:16:20 - bodyy to join 3DMAX? 1:20:55 - “VP hate undeserved!” - YNk 1:30:00 - Are Liquid cooked? 1:34:05 - Train talk 1:38:41 - FaZe 1:44:22 - G2 1:55:21 - Falcons 2:02:00 - Mongolz 2:06:05 - NAVI vs. Spirit matchup? 2:15:15 - Will donk win MVP? WATO 2:24:04 - sh1ro play style 2:26:22 - ropz’s impact & Porsche meme 2:32:00 - Why don’t we have guests often?
Chapter 1: What is the soft start of Talking Counter?
So this is the soft start of Talking Counter that the HLTV confirmed people won't get.
Whoa, you brought Kinga's water? Kinga water. Damn. Shout out to Kinga one time.
Are we live?
Well, we're live on talking counter, but we're not live on HLTV confirmed. That's how it works now.
I'm so confused.
You don't need to be confused. So right now we're recording. I'm recording from this video feed here.
Yeah.
That video feed will be our version to upload. So it doesn't have all the sponsors and fans.
And then at some point we're just going to, we're just going to be live on the HLTV channel.
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Chapter 2: Why are teams skipping Cluj events?
Chapter 3: What are the discrepancies in VRS rankings?
Probably not. I would assume no.
Well...
Which is good because Lucas says some wild shit.
It's true. He is Danish. He says some wild shit. We've all been around pimp. We all know what Danish Nico said before.
Yeah, definitely because he's Danish, by the way.
All right, intro's rolling, guys. If you got anything you want to say, you got 30 seconds now. This is the last 30 seconds that Hager TV confirmed won't get.
I just want to apologize to you, Chad, for not bringing my headset to also wear on my head.
I have to do this to listen to Lucas.
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Chapter 4: How does VRS affect tier 2 teams?
unfortunate. I don't want to say anything. I have only bad things in my brain right now. I don't want to say I love you and they're bad things. Yeah, it's like the only like I'm thinking like, what should I say? What should I say? And it's all the things that you shouldn't say. So I'm just gonna chill.
Okay, cool. Guys, we're getting ready 543 Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Catatrack fans around the globe, welcome to HLTV Confirmed, ex-talking counter, and that's the greatest reception we've ever had. Quick shout out to our sponsors, One Expert, Remember to Gamble Responsibly, and Skin Place. If you're looking to sell some skins, head over to Skin Place.
We've got Striker on one end, representing HLTV Confirmed, and myself. I'm like 50-50. I'm like Two-Face from Batman, and Jason and Yanko representing Talking Counter, and I'm also representing Talking Counter. So you are outnumbered by one and a half people.
I am feeling like I've infiltrated the competition a little bit.
You're wearing a Counter-Strike t-shirt, which we can respect.
It's a really good start.
There you go. Jason has a Counter-Strike hat on.
I do. What Counter-Strike stuff are you wearing? Underwear?
This is my bootcamp place.
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Chapter 5: What is the Skinionaire segment about?
Chapter 6: How are analysts interacting with players during matches?
We were lost in the bush one time.
Found my way out, though. Just so everyone is aware, we're doing this live and direct from my hotel room in Katowice, Poland. Prof was on vacation. He's not here. But Striker, you're here covering everything for HLTV as you normally would. So we've combined forces. Why are you laughing, motherfucker?
I think it's funny. There's a lot of intersections going on. It's cool. I'm excited by the collaboration. I'm just happy to be here.
Wow. Okay. Well, thanks. Okay.
What I want to do is... I feel like there's been a big, big communication between you guys. I'm just like, I've come in and I've just gotten a peek behind the curtain of what Talking Counter normally is where everybody's late. People just decide last minute. Not everybody.
Two of the three were on time.
Jason is not 100% today because the sun is down. He didn't get the buzz going. It's literally just coffee here, guys. I know talking counter viewers are going to be... They're not going to believe this, but it is only coffee. So he's like... He didn't get his medicine today.
I was going to say, imagine a world where you're effectively hitting on him for getting coffee at night instead of booze.
Welcome to my life.
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Chapter 7: What are the latest updates on gun mechanics?
See you guys as well on your podcast. What's right. He just sits there and fucking stirs the pot.
Yeah, that's what he does. Not as much. But you know how it's funny that he started off that point and he was just about to say it. I'm like handing it off to you and you just put it on me. I called it a cabal. That's probably enough. I mean, that's effectively what's happening.
Which is like, okay, so we should probably be careful when we talk about this stuff.
We shouldn't. We're not fucking ambassadors of any of the teams.
No, but what I mean is if we're throwing out wild accusations, Janko... that are unfounded, maybe we'll get sued. You want to get sued?
That's the most fun part about it. That and speculating about the VRS without knowing how it actually works.
You can't do that anymore. He's here. So now you can ask all the questions.
Look, I mean, we knew we were talking about this for the last two months, right? We said it last year. We've been saying it for fucking months now. We know that the top teams are not happy with PGL just putting everything in the prize pool, right? And we are seeing the results of that. That's effectively what's happening here. They wanted some revenue share.
They didn't end up getting it, so they're skipping PGL. Whether they're going to keep skipping PGL, I mean, for some of the teams, I outlined it in my column. I mean, that could be pretty fucking disastrous now that even Furia just dropped out, right? Like those two teams. But FaZe did. FaZe is the exception. No, but we know how FaZe operates. They've always been kind of... whatever.
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Chapter 8: Why don’t we have guests often?
Really important.
But yeah, just to get back to my point though, like I think had that not happened, we would really be in a place where the biggest problem is the teams that are just starting from nothing. Because for those teams to get ranks or to get into matches that are ranked is very difficult because you effectively do have to start, you have to play through open qualifiers. We don't cover all of them.
I think this is like, this is something that I will actually get into as well at some point. We don't cover all the open qualifiers. Obviously we can't fucking cover a thousand team brackets and whatever. We only cover them from a certain point. Some of them we don't even at all because just we have to prioritize in some way, right? So those don't really end up, turn up on the ranking.
And then, you know, so where do you go? Like you have to go through an entire open qualifier to even get into the close qualifier, which we will then cover. And you're going to play, what, three games there? You need 10 games to be ranked, right? So that's the problem. That is where I understand 100%.
Every, you know, organization that wants to come into the space and they're like, okay, I'm going to pick this player, but this player, that player, because I like them and I think they will work.
it will take you an entire season at least even just maybe even just to get ranked unless you really just blow up from the first place and then you just go through from some open qualifier you go straight to some land you do well enough there to get some points right and instantly you're going to be on the ranking you're going to enter the at least the tier two circuit if not already the tier one if you just blow up from the beginning right but if you want to be somewhat consistent it's going to take you fucking forever it's going to take you a long time
Buckethead, and Buckethead's a trusty man, he says only 15 teams signed up for the North American Blast Open Qualifier.
Yeah, that tells you something too, right? NA's dead.
Well, I think they had an issue with the Asian one as well, didn't they? You could only sign up for their Asian Open Qualifier if you had a mainland Chinese number, so a bunch of teams couldn't actually sign up for the qualifier.
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