image: santaiscomingac5It’s that time again, the last days before CDC and finally the ‘to do’ list is almost gone and I can actually sit back and think about the tournaments, and we really do have a mouth watering line up of teams in all the games. If you’re someone that looks at a tournament and thinks what a match that will be then you’re in for the weekend of your life!

Firstly in ET, ET has been crying out for a mouth watering tournament lineup for a long time. The last Eurocup season and the QCUP were fantastic but they were in December, since then nothing has caught my eye in ET. However the big boys are back in business and there are three teams that people will be thinking are likely of winning the tournament.

New Project offer experience and for the first time actually go into the tournament as favourites, something that wasn’t thought of them in the two previous events which they have won. However New Project are beset with activity problems, talisman dAv1d has changed jobs and can only play on two nights a week. That is a huge problem going into the event, but if you remember CDC3 the team had all sorts of roster problems ahead of the tournament and weren’t expected to perform as well as they did. These guys have been together long enough that they can read each others mind and there comes a point when there are only so many times you need to practice a map, give them a few games to into their stride and I think they’ll be as deadly as ever.

The Last Resort are too heavily underrated for my liking, I don’t care who your other 4 players are when Night and FeruS join a server you’re in for a hard time. The fact that the other 4 players are class is what is amazing me that they’re being underrated. Toxic on LAN is a deadly prospect, Matias is a proven champion with Iron and Sheep completing a phenomenal lineup. This lineup in my mind is stronger on paper than New Project so why they’ve been dismissed is beyond me. This team will be in the final, and are my personal favourites to win it. Their weaknesses lie in their age as a lineup together and whether Night cares enough to crack his Estonian whip. If he has cracked it and has gotten the likes of Sheep and Iron to play to his style then the rest of the tournament has got problems.

Vicious and Evil have been quiet and diligent in their preparation for the tournament and thats maybe because their lineup doesn’t have anyone loud in it. Senji, Jak, Reload were not the players in Dignitas that stole the headlines as often as their teammates. However they were just as good and just as important, at the end of the day those three players are some of the most successful and talented the game has ever seen. Their Finnish teammates are hugely talented but have never experienced the dizzy heights that their the ex Dignitas crew have and that’s their weakest point. However if this team fails it wont be the fault of the finn’s – this side lack practice and lack cohesion and thats because the Dignitas Quakewars team have been practicing ‘around the clock’

Don’t rule out Overload either, they may not win the tournament but they’ve the potential to cause an upset when faced up against a strong opponent, the strength of m1lk and lunatic are summed up well by a quote from The Departed, “when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?” Whats the difference if they’re no longer playing for the likes of Impact – they still know what they’re doing. Something EDiT can do also, their success in the Eurocup season may in many owe a great deal to mAus but it helped them as a team grow, they are far stronger than the cZar of old.

The Quakewars tournament is perhaps the easiest to predict of the three. If Dignitas don’t win it will in their eyes be a travesty, they are well practiced on the server and they well practiced in the art of winning. The Digimons have in their arsenal the art of stamina and this is something I’ve not seen in any other champion. If you start to beat them, you’re only making your job harder! At Quakecon they played for hours to defeat HOT and take home the cash and at i32 they had all sorts of problems and GROF were getting the better of them yet they came back to make it look easy. If you beat Dignitas you will have had quite a workout!

So who may be able to do just that? Well 4kings have had the most recent jab at them and have weren’t able to dent their armour. 4k have risen well up the ranks since being picked up by the British Multigaming organisation and seemed to have bucked the trend of recent high profile 4kings squads. Whether they can actually beat Dignitas is a different question, however on paper they’re probably the closet to them!

Very quickly behind them are the former Kompaniet team, Epsilon, a team who by being Swedish have a genetic advantage over the rest of the world. It may be naive but you really cannot ever rule out a Swedish top team in any game! Regardless of that nonsensical hoo-hah the side are equipped to beat the Dignitas side. They’ve an excellent lineup that on their day could find the key to the Dignitas door, however the problem is they’ve struggled to find their day recently and defeats to 4kings in online competitions have hurt consumer confidence in their ability to rise to the occasion. Never the less they will be there or there abouts, if anyone is going to beat Dignitas my money is on it being the Swedes.

Both Speedlink and Logitech cannot be ruled out of the equation all together, both sides have improved recently and Speedlink’s Urtier will be wanting to bury the memories of defeat in Enschede in ET and overcome his former employers. The Finns like the Germans aren’t expected to win it, but when they face off against any of the big three, it will take a strong performance to see them off.

Lastly and most difficultly, Call of Duty. Call of Duty history has been plagued by periods of very uncertain champions and this is no different. Now we’ve got an excuse, the game is new and the game is evolving which is why you’ve seen rotating winners, and that trend isn’t about to end this weekend. I honestly believe that almost any team from Seed Poules 1 & 2 can win the tournament, and the wildcard that is SK Gaming down in Poule 5.

Firstly lets look at the local teams, home advantage is a big advantage if you look through gamings history. And there are a few local teams who can do the business at CDC4. None other than CPC2 champions, Serious Gaming who’s inactive end to CoD2 & roster changes has seen stock in the team drop. I can’t quite fathom why though, they’re an excellent team who could do the business once again, for me their history and experience puts them right up there with a chance of winning. With a similar chance of winning are DCC who feel aggrieved to be in poule 2 of the seeds after some excellent online results. The reality is since shuffling their lineup they’ve come up trumps and are a very underrated threat this weekend.

H2k-Gaming have both reputation and experience to win the tournament, however with one notable problem over their history, something has always stopped them from truly achieving their potential. Its potential they still have, I still believe they’ve the right team that could win any event on any given Sunday, but you just never know whether they’re going to do it or not! H2k could go all the way or they could come a long way for nothing. qwertY is usually the man to watch out for in H2k, but I feel that a more consistent team performance is what is needed to win the tournament.

Moving slightly further afield and the biggest name in the game, TeK-9. Favourites for
any event not only because of their CoD2 history but because of the way they’ve started CoD4. A little over a month ago I asked Davy how the team were doing and he said, we’ve had some problems staying active because of exams and such but we’re still winning matches! A point quite rightly proved in the CoDQCup winning all bar 1 of their matches. If you’re not able to practice and you’re still winning then just imagine what will happen with a bit of practice? Scary stuff. Their performance will be dependent on whether KammYz takes to lan as he takes to online, if it’s like a duck to water then TeK-9 are the team to beat.

SK-Gaming are next on the list of favourites, their win in the CoDQCup surprised everyone what then surprised everyone even more is their subsequent loses to teams like OMG_Ninja. Someone please tell me what the heck happened there? The popular theory seems to be that the team aren’t adapting well to the games evolution, they are a team that needs to rush and rushing will only ever work so many times. Whether that’s true or not is to be seen, but there are question marks against SK after recent losses.

Dignitas and Speedlink lead by the two old warhorses Mick and Trigger come next. Veterans of the Call of Duty scene and legends in their own right, despite their efforts neither side enjoyed success in CoD2 since after CPC1 and you have to feel that’s just too long for teams of undoubted quality. In CoD4 they are both rejuvenated and ready for the challenge once again. Speedlink have been happy to wrap themselves up in cotton wool and not let anyone touch them since their roster changes. They’ve bootcamped and prepared probably more than any other team, you just feel they need a top 3 placing here to make it all worth while. Likewise Dignitas do aswell, they’re improving greatly and will look to take this trend to Holland and then to their home turf of i33 later in March.

How can anyone forget Fnatic? The team that set the pace at the start of the game are now needing to find their feet once again. Their bootcamp with Roskilde will have helped and they really do represent a well rounded option for the title. Their poor performance in the CoDQCUP needs to be forgotten about quickly, this is a top team and they will place well. Their performance this weekend rests on mint, a man who has the experience to raise the spirits around anyone and a man that knows all about fighting pressure.

eSuba, Epsilon, Logitech, TLR and oXmoze are all there and perhaps don’t have the right amount of people shouting from the rooftops about them and their potential. eSuba will always perform better on LAN than they do online simply because of the improved connections. Likewise UF gaming and Impact will receive those same benefits as eSuba and should always be feared.

CoD is so open and really could go right down poules , the only team I am ‘sure’ of being in the top 3 is TeK-9, the rest? Anyones guess and I’m looking forward to finding out!

CDC4 is almost upon us, miss it and you really will miss out