The First Day of XSE Pro League 2026 Turned Into a Technical Nightmare

The start of XSE Pro League 2026 was remembered not for the matches, but for a series of organizational and technical problems. On the very first day of the tournament, players faced faulty equipment, hour-long delays, and even a fire in the building.

One of the first issues was the extremely poor quality of the desks. After David “frozen” Čerňanský complained, the organizers needed almost an hour to replace his setup. It was later discovered that Counter-Strike 2 had not even been installed on some of the tournament PCs, so the game had to be downloaded shortly before the matches.

During one of the matches, Neyyan “Neityu” Dimitrov’s computer stopped working. Administrators replaced the RAM and graphics card several times while trying to restore the system. Further delays occurred because some players’ configs failed to load.

The most alarming incident involved Kirill “Magnojez” Rodnov’s account. According to available information, his profile was compromised immediately after he logged into Steam. Users suggested that the computer may have contained malicious software, although there has been no official confirmation of this.

Communication problems also affected the tournament. One coach’s headset did not work throughout an entire map, preventing him from properly communicating with the team through TeamSpeak.

XSE Pro League 2026: Teams, Format, and Prize Money

Toward the end of the day, a fire also broke out in the building for an unknown reason. Against this backdrop, users discovered XSE job postings seeking volunteers for important positions, including engineers, which raised even more questions about the tournament’s preparation.