If you filled out a Pick’Em bracket for the IEM Cologne Major 2026, there’s a 98% chance 9z Team just set it on fire. The South American squad pulled off one of the most dramatic upsets in recent Counter-Strike history, reverse sweeping the heavily favored Team Vitality in Stage 3 and torching nearly every community prediction in the process.
That 98% figure isn’t hyperbole. It’s the share of Valve’s official Pick’Em challenge participants who had Team Vitality pegged for a dominant run through the stage. Instead, 9z had other plans, and now the collective confidence of the CS2 community looks like a cautionary tale about consensus thinking.
The reverse sweep nobody saw coming
9z lost the first map, Inferno, by a score of 4-13. On Mirage, 9z found their footing and took the map 13-9. That came on Dust2, where they closed things out 13-11. Three maps, two different teams showing up for 9z, and one of the biggest upsets the Major has produced.
The Pick’Em massacre
