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9z Team disrupts 98% of players’ Pick’Em predictions in Stage 3
South American underdogs reverse swept Team Vitality at IEM Cologne Major 2026, obliterating community brackets in the process
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
Valve’s Pick’Em challenge is a beloved community feature at Majors. Players predict team records, including which squads will go 3-0, which will land in the 3-1 or 3-2 range, and which will suffer the indignity of an 0-3 elimination. Get enough right, and you earn in-game rewards.
With 98% of participants backing Vitality’s dominance, this wasn’t a split opinion. It was near-unanimous consensus. Social media predictably erupted, with the CS2 community acknowledging what 9z had done to their brackets with a mixture of admiration and despair.
9z’s unlikely road to Stage 3
The 9z Team represents South America, a region that has historically lived on the margins of tier-one Counter-Strike. 9z had already qualified through Stage 2, stringing together strong performances to reach the deeper rounds of the tournament.
The IEM Cologne Major 2026, taking place in mid-June, has already established itself as one of the more chaotic iterations of the tournament format, and 9z’s reverse sweep is the centerpiece of that chaos.
What this means for the competitive landscape
With 98% of brackets compromised, the remaining stages become a free-for-all where almost nobody has a clean sheet. The 2% who backed 9z are sitting pretty, and everyone else is scrambling to salvage what they can from the remaining predictions.