I'm quite sure you've met them: winners. People who always seem to be successful at what they do, who never lose and where competing against them is a lost cause. Nobody really likes these people. You won't score a girl around them. You'll lose any competition in their company. Only if you're really, really ambitious you'll eventually beat them at some point, but mostly there is an easy solution: Just don't let them take part in anything you do.

So what is it about winning? I say winning sucks. Oh, not on a general level. For any competition there is there has to be a winner. It just sucks if it is the same winner every single time because it disqualifies the term "competition" itself.

We were at that point with idle/Dignitas in the past twelve months. Can anyone honestly say that he has followed one of the two past EuroCups without expecting or even knowing that Night and his fellow players would come out on top in the end? Or the first Crossfire LAN? Or the shgOpen? There were some exciting matches, yes, but nothing that could rock the foundations of the so solid all European team that did not lose once in a full year of playing 6on6.

There might be those who think it's appropriate that the best team wins all the time. I won't contest that. It's just that there shouldn't be one team that is the best every time. Look at the Counter-Strike community: Pentagram are arguably a very good team, placing first at WSVG London and WCG 2006. But at the WSVG Finals the tide turned and the German mix team of aTTaX won. A week later at the CPL Finals fnatic were the victorious team. And so the story continues, with MIBR winning shgOpen and the paradox situation at the CeBIT, were Pentagram won the Extreme Masters while SK Gaming took the SEC although both teams took part in both tournaments.

Some might argue that this is because Counter-Strike is a tad more random than Enemy Territory. I don't know about that. Maybe it's just that ET teams have to practise more than they'd possibly need to in some other game. But if there was one thing that the CPC 2 showed us, it is that dedication and practise can transform a good team into a team that can beat Dignitas. We did not have the final we all dreamed of yet, but I'm sure it's no longer impossible. The upcoming EuroCup has all of a sudden been blown wide open with a couple of teams able to take it home.

So what did CPC 2 have that other ET tournaments didn't have? A fancy config, a lot of new maps? I don't think so. A nearly standard config (if it wasn't for CB), four well-established maps and one custom map made the mix that provided some high quality action.

What do we learn? You don't need new maps or some weird config to see awesome matches. You need teams that stick together and practise until they beat the reigning champion. The situation at the moment is as good as it gets and hopefully none of the players decides to resign right now. With three teams at the very top level and a lot of hopefuls only close behind, it is far from impossible that there will be more tournaments that are as enjoyable as the Crossfire Prizefight Challenge 2.

Winning sucks. It is okay to lose every once in a while. Every superhero has a weakness and so do the best ET teams. Let's hope that it was not just Night's absence that let Dignitas struggle but that the other teams have actually reached their level. If that is the case, the coming months of Enemy Territory look extremely promising.