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Counter Strike Shakedown #5
Feature -- Forrest "var1ables" Campbell releases #5 of his Counter Strike 1.6 Shakedown. This series will look at happenings in eSports the past week and his opinion on what's going on.
Note: None of this is the opinion Insider eSports or its sponsors. This is just my no-named wannabe-journalist opinion.
ESEA Invite Predictions
Well I might as well put my hat in the prediction topic, although I know full well that predicting Counter Strike is like predicting the stock market - you’ll never know what’s going to happen.
Here’s my exceptionally bad prediction at the upcoming season:
1) EG will stay on top, making it to the playoffs with little to worry about and probably win the season unless something unexpected happens and three of their players go missing.
2) coL and loaded will continue to fight for the second spot, but with the recent roster changes that coL made, coL will come out on top taking the second spot overall in the regular season.
3) Area51 will impress again, but fall short to the top three listed above and qualify for playoffs above almost everyone else in invite.
Photo: HLTV.org
4) This is the tricky spot - UE, HRG, finesse, and TAU all have strong lineups with plenty of talent and experience at the highest level of Counter Strike in North America. I think that UE will go - just out of my love of all Ronald “Rambo” Kim’s teams - to playoffs followed by TAU, who should have won main but was overturned due to the epic fail on a LAN pug with a laptop which had been banned for a totally different reason.
HRG will fall just short again and finesse will face roster problems like they have after a successful season in the past.
5) The dons will have a lot of unsuccessful roster changes but will show potential - and hopefully some of their players will be added to bigger teams in the offseason like Jonathan “n0swal” Lawson was after the previous incarnation of the team that was unsuccessful in ESEA Invite Season 4.
6) Hausen eSports and mL.gaming will play well, but like the dons, not well enough to make it into playoffs this season and will be simply outclassed by the more experienced rosters currently on the top of North America.
Something is Rotten in France
Well… not exactly like Hamlet. Am I surprised by this? No.
I knew leaving Millenium - a stable organization which has consistently gotten them to LAN - that this, relatively unknown organization BURNING! wouldn’t survive long. Just like in North America, if a sponsor tells you they’ll give you the world (cough Blight Gaming cough) they are probably going to do none of it.
Their former home, Millenium, formed a strong new team in the chaos. Hopefully their team can compete with their former one with a mix of mojwai and wCrea - two strong teams which played well at both domestic and foreign tournaments that they competed at.
Something is Rotten in Denmark
This is, however, EXACTLY like Hamlet (well…. At least just the Denmark part).
Ravens disband and have their talent go two different ways and twp players are still unheard of. p00nhandlers pick up a sponsorship. So, right as a contender for the second spot is found, another one leaves.
Baljit "zE-" Lal and Marc "nexiz" Woolrych are two really strong players, and I'm surprised that they have not gone to another lineup. Maybe it’s that they may be trying to be a package deal and having trouble finding a team willing to drop two players to pick them up.
It seems to be a common theme every week - a roster change in hopes of making a roster strong enough to be able to take on the strongest team in the country, or in fnatic’s case the world.
Part of me says that these occurrences are in the offseason of eSports - just like the signing of free agents in football, basketball and baseball are in real sports - but part of me wishes teams would stick it out and work out the differences instead of just making a roster change.
WCG Nordic Recap
World Cyber Games Nordic was this weekend, and it was boring.
Outside of the fantastic commentary by Duncan “Thorin” Shields of SK Gaming and Tomi “Lurppis” Kovenan of Evil Geniuses, there was little exciting or surprising from the upset in group stage of H2k Gaming being beaten by Oslo Lions 16-11. SK Gaming swept the group 16-11 and third place was tied between two teams at 2-2 and playzone.fi was the odd man out as the other four teams moved to the bracket stage.
Photo: HLTV.org
In the bracket stage it was Sweden squared, and Finn vs Norwegian as H2k played SK Gaming and the recreated Power Gaming vs. the Oslo Lions in the semifinals. SK Gaming rolled H2k Gaming 2-0: 19-17 on train and 16-10 on nuke.
Power Gaming moved past the beaten lions in 2 maps: 16-13 on inferno and 16-6 on train.
In the grand finals it continued to be 2-0’s with the finals being all SK Gaming’s, beating Power 16-7 on train and rolling them 16-4 on dust2.
P.S. – What’s up with ESWC?
G7 Teams: did any of the teams get their cash money from ESWC yet?
If not - I told you so… If so...
HALLELUJAH! ESWC ACTUALLY PAID OUT!
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