Hello!
Well I think first I should introduce myself to everyone that doesn't know me. My name is Robert Black and my in game alias is Morg.I am 19 years old and live in a sleepy fishing town called Shoreham on the south coast of England.
I started gaming not to long ago when Call of Duty one was released, having played casually in CoD1 UO and CoD2 I became an assistant manager at Infused Gaming and then I moved to 4Kings when I was recently asked to manage the 4Kings CoD4 squad. Having known most of the team for a while in the CoD scene I was pretty happy to come on board with such an illustrious organisation.
The last month for me in eSports
Its been a pretty busy month for me in the world of eSports having recently moved to my new home here in 4Kings I was quickly jetting off to the lovely Netherlands for the LAN event CDC4 run by (url) [www.crossfire.nu] where I was to be the CoD4 admin!
CDC4 and my impressions
I was pretty excited about this LAN even though I was going to be an Admin, I knew I would be able to meet the Enemy Territory Quake Wars team. My flight was on wednesday the 27th of February after a quick train journy to Gatwick airport I boarded my Easyjet flight to the famous airport Schipol of an equally famous city Amtserdam! I landed at Schipol at around 3pm and had to wait about 4 hours for Karl and iRich, two irish CoD4 players from the team Policy that I know from a few LANs. We all then boarded the train to Den Bosch to meet up with another Policy player that lives there, Pal. We spent the night at Pal's just chilling and talking about who we thought would do well at CDC. Our impressions at the time were that it would be a very close exciting tournament, we were certainly right about that!
On the Thursday we got up pretty early and then took the train to Enschede, and to the LAN centre WZZRD where CDC4 was being hosted, this took us a little longer than the 2 hours that was expected due to some unfortunate missed trains on behalf of the only Dutch speaking member of the group...
None the less when we arrived it was great to be there, we signed into the Hotel Eden pretty quick and made the 10 minute walk to the LAN centre, we found WZZRD to be packed with a few teams bootcamping for various games and a lot of other public users at the bar. However by this time it was 6pm and I found there was a lot of work to be done before the event tomorrow.
For the event we had 25 Packard Bell iPower machines for some of the competitors to play on. We had to install XP on all the machines for the event in order to put a 500mhz mouse fix on. However due to an unforseen delay they hadn't arrived until 1pm that day. So the CDC4 crew proceeded to install XP and CoD4 and other programs onto the machines until late into the night.
After finally getting to bed at around 3am I got some much needed sleep in the hotel.
For those of you that don't know much about CoD4 competitive play I will give you a run down. CoD4 is noramlly played in an MR12 format with a knife round for sides. For CDC4 however we used MR10 in the group stages due to time constraints. As well as this the usual tournament structure is that of Double elimination - with an upper and lower bracket, however it was decided that due to time constraints that MR12 Best of three maps would be used for the knockout stages - and it certainly made for some increadibly tense matches! The maps were drawn randomly prior to the event for all the groups and knockout stages. If knockouts went to a 3rd map a system would be used where each team picks a map to eliminate until one map is left to play.
Friday was the first day of event and turning up at 8:30am there were still a few PC that were not fully installed. With games starting at 9am we had to just do the best with what we had. Bring on the first of the delays!!! The plan was to operate 8 sets of 5 PC's and thus have 4 games going on at any one time. But with 5 PC's out of the running this reduced us to 3 games at once. We blasted through the majority of the games until about 3pm where we were around an hour behind schedule. At this point the power for 12 of the iPower machines decided it wasn't going to work. This put us down to 4 sets of PC's and 2 games going on for a good 2 hours or so. By the time Penn and Tosspot had managed to get them back online we were running around 4 hours behind schedule!!! Not something I like when im admin'ing a tournament :P
With some nifty reshuffling of games and the teams that were playing being really quick at getting on and of the PC's we managed to get back to being one game off the schedule by the closing time of 1.30am. Unfortunately at 2am we recieved a phone call from Speed Link captain Trigger - Humm3l one of their players had been taken ill and had to go to hospital back in germany, meaning they wouldnt be able to play their remaining group games until 2pm on Saturday - this was 2 hours after the group games were meant to begin!!
None the less friday was a really good day for matches and saw almost all of the groupstages played. The matches that really stood out for me and I managed to nip a few watches of were;-
eSuba.HAL3000 (11:03) Team Logitech.fi (mp_crossfire)
even though this game looks a little one sided eSuba were really dominant. It was great to see a team that have in the past been labled as "Onliners" performing so well on LAN.
Finland Epsilon (11:08) Team Impact Italy (mp_crossfire)
The match between Epsilon and Team Impact stood out in my mind for it was the first time I had seen Italians at LAN and I just thought their attitude team spirit and passion was fantastic. The game was a good one too :D
Sweden fnatic (11:07) SK Germany (mp_citystreets)
Easily the biggest group stage match. The G7 giants battled it out on citystreets. Its a close quaters map which should technically favour SK's style of play, but its also a map with a lot of choke points and is great for quick rotations. The outstanding teamplay of the fnatic team won this one for them.
Germany Team SPEED-LINK (02:11) TheLastResort United Kingdom (mp_backlot)
Other than the fnatic V SK game, this was the one to draw the most attention out of the games on the first day. Speed Link an oldschool powerhouse from the days of Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2 were made to look amature by the co-ordinated attacks, rushes and team play of the surprise victors TLR. Before the CDC tournament TLR were certainly an underrated team, but after that performance they gained a lot of support.
France oXmoze (11:07) H2k.Qpad Netherlands (mp_crossfire)
France oXmoze (11:08) H2k.Qpad Netherlands (mp_crash)
Now this was certianly an interesting one. oXmoze were accused of a script by H2k after a few spectators noticed an odd ingame script. The decision was made by Tosspot to replay the match on a different map. So the second game started and it was then also noted that qwertYYY from H2k had the script during the 2nd game. The decision to let the 2nd game stand was again made.
Saturday was another early start with 4 hours sleep it all kicked off again at 9.30am. On the saturday we were reduced to 6 sets of PC's due to ET:QW taking 2 sets for their games. So we got off to a stuttered start with the group games and didnt encounter a problem until the issue of the ingame script was again cited by H2k against KomaCrew. This drew on for a good long while as things were discussed through by the teams about the best course of action. Due to a prevision decision that Tosspot had made it was decided not to remove either team from the competition. By this time it was around 1pm and we had a few Knockout games starting while we were still waiting on Speed Link to arrive in order to play the remainder of their group games. Once we had the all the group games out of the way the knockout stages really started to get going and we had some increadible matches, which I will go into more detail about below. The matches finally drew to a close at about 1am. With a big storm just rolling in however I managed to get stuck at WZZRD until 5am :\ I had a quick 3 hour sleep and was back in at half 10 on sunday to finish the tournament!
Saturdays notable group game:-
Denmark Roskilde Ravens (11:07) Intense Slovenia (mp_strike)
Probably not something that others would have picked up on. But here I think are the two most underated teams in EU. The game was a real corker, with Intense(a team ill admit id not heard of before CDC4) coming out with some really great tactics and solid shooting, and Roskilde coming out with a deserved win with some excellent tactical play. Two teams to watch out for in the coming months of CoD4.
Saturdays Round 1 knockout games:-
Czech Republic eSuba.HAL3000 (02:00) SPEED-LINK Germany
mp_backlot: 13:11, mp_district: 13:11
After a dissapointing match against TLR and using one merc Speed Link seemed to really up their game with this one. Against a strong eSuba side 13:11 and 13:11 is annoyingly close.
United Kingdom Dignitas (00:02) TEK9 Europe
mp_crossfire: 11:13, mp_vacant: 08:13
For the Dignitas team that were such a dominant force in CoD2 this LAN was not the best for them. They were unfortunate to meet such a strong side, and one of the favorites to take the event, in an early playoff match. TEK9's Kammyz really impressed me in this match showing us all what a top notch CoD4 player should play like.
Countryflag Epsilon (00:02) H2k.Qpad Netherlands
mp_strike: 14:16, mp_crossfire: 03:13
The first map strike was a close one with it going to one overtime and H2k managing to clinch it. Crossfire was very one sided affair as the H2k team spirit and sniping skills of qwertYYY pulled them through to a rapid victory.
Slovenia Intense (01:02) fnatic Sweden
mp_vacant: 13-12, mp_strike: 08-13, mp_backlot: 07-13
An interesting match featuring Intense the Slovenian team I mentioned earlier as being very underated. And the now LAN favorites, after their win over SK, fnatic. The match was one of the highlights of the LAN for me. With the first map being strike fnatic took the map 13-8 which doesnt really do justice to Intense who, with a little more LAN experience and age would be able to take the 1v1 and other clutch situations into their favour. Vacant was very close indeed, unfortunately due to time constraints we had to use a 1round sudden death situation for overtime, intense just managed to clinch it. With the final map being decided as Backlot fnatic played very well and Intense began to loose there grip. Again it was an interesting match and as I said before Intense are certainly a name for the Future in eSports and especially in CoD4.
Denmark Roskilde Ravens (00:02) SK Gaming Germany
mp_crossfire: 11-13, mp_vacant: 09-13
This match was shoutcasted live on Quadv by Tosspot and was certainly a stormer! With the underdogs Roskilde loosing the first map only 13-11. SK must have been feeling the heat. Credit has to be paid to SK gaming who put out a sterling performance under a lot of pressure to take the game in two maps.
Italy Team Impact (01:02) oXmoze France
mp_crossfire: 04:13, mp_backlot: 13:12, mp_strike: 5:13
What a match this was! Franco-Italiano gaming rivalry has never been so tense! Team Impact really put up some excellent rounds in fighting for this match but like the rugby on the 9th French flare proved to strong for Italian passion.
Poland UF Gaming (00:02) DCC Gaming Netherlands
mp_backlot: 06-13, mp_district: 13-16
UltraFrag gaming are undoubtably one of the strongest team in poland with the other being FF who were unable to get out of the groups, but the self proclaimed "best Dutch Team" DCC managed to take the win in two maps after an overtime on the second.
Finland Team Logitech.fi (00:02) TheLastResort United Kingdom
mp_strike: 12-13 (sudden death round) mp_crash: 06-13
The logitech team were unfortunate to have lost this game in two maps. If the sudden death round had not been used I think they would have had strike - but that is the beauty of hindsight! TLR did play very well and continued to quietly progress through the tournament making upset after upset.
Saturdays Quater Final stage match:-
United Kingdom TheLastResort (02:00) DCC Gaming Netherlands
mp_vacant: 13-08, mp_crossfire: 13-07
It was a late match starting at about 12pm with both teams feeling the affects of gaming and a few other things im sure. TLR really stood up and showed us what they are made of. With some really impressive teamwork on vacant and some great fluid adaptation in attack they took the map comfortably 13-8. Crossfire was a similar story with them using some nicely laid out strats and brilliant sniping by SoCLoN meaning they again took the map comfortably 13-7.
Sunday saw the last day of the LAN and brought with it some of the best CoD4 matches anyone has ever seen.
I was back in at 11 on Sunday ready to oversee the days proceedings. Thankfully there werent any other problems with PC's or power outages, and the games were steadily being played. I was informed in the morning by the TLR players that they had to leave for a train at 6:20pm in order to catch a flight back to england for one of their exams on monday! I duely noted this down and we switched the ET:QW final with the Cod4 final in order to save some time. But I will speak about the final below.
The rest of Sundays results ended up like this :-
Europe TEK9 (00:02) eSuba.HAL3000 Czech Republic
mp_vacant: 08:13, mp_crash: 06-13
eSuba Really showed here that they are a dominant force within Europe at the moment. 13-8 and 13-6 is not something TEK9 will be happy with - even if they are on two close quater maps. But im sure when we see them at i33 next week they will have taken something from this game.
Sweden fnatic (02:01) H2k.Qpad Netherlands
mp_backlot: 13-08, mp_strike: 11-13, mp_crossfire: 13-06
Another epic game to put to the CDC name. This three map thriller was a class affair. With Backlot played first and some nice clutches performed by both teams it was a tense map but the impecable teamwork of fnatic brought this map home for them. Strike up next, a strong map for the fnatic team who have some really great attacking strats, it was a close one but H2k really pulled up their socks and played some great rounds again qwertYYY really impressed with the sniper hitting some sick shots. The final and deciding map was crossfire - one that we have seen H2k really dominate teams on. This time however it was H2k's turn to be dominated. MintR hit some brilliant shots for fnatic with the sniper working some great angles around the map, while zsilts and klanne were working brilliantly in the spec ops role.
Germany SK Gaming (01:02) oXmoze France
mp_strike: 13-02, mp_citystreets: 20-22, mp_crossfire: 03:13
A fantastic match even if two of the maps were a little one sided. oXmoze really showed people they have what it takes to be one of the best in Europe with this match. The long range of strike doesnt favour SK's play style much but dont let that be an excuse - oXmoze would have beaten any team with how they played the map, great communication between players and mao knowledge brought them a deserved 13-2. Citystreets is not as commonly plaid map as the other two and its close quater combat gameplay does favour sk - it was a really close map with it going to a 3rd overtime in which SK came out triumphant. Crossfire was the last map, another generally thought to be long range map. 13-3 to oXmoze again shows how the French team are playing just as that, a team.
Semi-Finals:-
Sweden fnatic (02:01) eSuba.HAL3000 Czech Republic
mp_district: 13-06, mp_crossfire: 07-13, mp_crash: 13-08
A clash of the titans - with the two respective MGO's CSS teams facing off in the Enemy Down Xleague CSS cup a month ago this always seemed a bit of a grudge match to me, even if it is a different game. I to be honest would have liked to see these two line up in the final. The first map was District and fnatic played a tense map winning it 13-6. Next up was Crossfire where we saw fnatic beat H2k earlier in the day, eSuba on the other hand were having none of it and took the map in a nice display 13-7. The deciding map was chosen as crash, a thrilling map to watch at the best of times but with these two going at each other. Mazarini and lucker were brilliant all tournament and throughout this match showed that the Czech republic is not "3rd world".
United Kingdom TheLastResort (02:00) oXmoze France
mp_strike: 13-09, mp_crash: 13-11
An equally good semi final as its sister, we witnessed TLR and oXmoze really go great guns on this one. The TLR Strike defence proved too much for oXmoze as SoCLoN rained down a hail of sniper rounds upon the French team leaving it 13-9 in favour of TLR. Crash the second map was a much closer affair, with excellent teamwork from both sides it was D1ablo and Marks excellent play under pressure that won the map for TLR and put them through to the final with the Swedes fnatic.
After the Semi finals had finished we waited to everyone to be ready for the final and consolation final. As Tosspot got on the server ready to shoutcast argueably the most exciting game CoD4 has seen, the consolation final for 3rd and 4th place got underway between oXmoze and eSuba.
France oXmoze (00:02) eSuba.HAL3000 Czech Republic
The 3rd and 4th place game is one that hasnt really had much attention, but certainly one that deserves it. eSuba again showed a dominant play style against oXmoze who where over run 13-8 on district and then 13-4 on crash. Well played to both teams in finishing 3rd and 4th at the LAN with almost all the top EU teams present.
The Final!
Well what a final - as I mentioned before due to TLR needing to catch a train we tried swapping round the ET:QW final and the CoD4 final in order to give the TLR lads some time to get their train, unfortunatly it didnt quite work out as planned.
Since the ET final overran i decided to play the CoD4 final on Best of 3 maps MR10 which is not ideal, but I thought it might give TLR a chance to finish the game at least.
So we started the match on mp_backlot fnatics map choice, but due to various reasons we still started 20 minuets later than we should have! fnatic started off on defence which is the Marines side on Backlot. 7 rounds in I was looking at the time of 5:50pm and decided it was cutting it too close for TLR to be able to get their train. I made an on the spot decision to change the final to 1 map MR12 - My reasons for this were that I didnt think it would be acceptable to have the biggest European CoD4 competitions final end in a default win.
So I went to ask fnatic quickly if that would be ok, they agreed. And I then went to inform TLR. Understandably they were not that pleased about the decision especially mid game and already 7 rounds in. The team then seemed to relax a lot more in game and we saw TLR pull out all the stops. After the 1st side of TLR being opFor and attacking it was 10-2 in favour of fnatic and looking like a whitewash.
TLR began play on the Marines side and looked to dominate fnatic from the start. They blocked them out which ever way they came to either bomb and had the best comeback considering the pressure and time factor to 12-12.
So the final went to overtime with fnatic and TLR desperately trying to knock the other team back and gain the advantage fnatic got it in the 1st 3 rounds winning 3-0 leaving the score 15-12 and meaning they had to win one round in order to beat TLR. The next two rounds were actually amazing to watch, as im sure most of you reading this will know. I think the pressure TLR were under and the experience of Mint and his team meant that fnatic took it on the day 16-13. It was a real shame that the game could not be played on more than one map, but thanks to both teams for making it such a wonderful final to spectate.
With the upcoming i33 event im sure both teams will be looking forward to meeting each other somewhere in the tournament.
United Kingdom TheLastResort (13:16) fnatic Sweden
mp_backlot: 12-12 (2-10; 10-2), OT: 0-3, 1-1
On the sunday night I went back with fnatic to the Eden hotel where we were both staying, we stayed up have a lot to drink and generally chatting. I awoke in the morning to a rather loud knock on the door with two angry Swedes standing outside, apparently I had "stolen" tidde's fnatic hoodie. I unfortunately have no recolection of this which leads me to beleive I was a lot more drunk than I thought! (insert pic of fnatic hoodie)
The tournament was a really enjoyable one to be a part of, and it was really nice to meet so many of the European teams and their players. Thanks to everyone that came and to everyone else involved in the other game, and of course to the rest of the Crossfire crew!
One thing I have to say is - The sooner admins are paid for what they do at events the better ;)
Hope you enjoyed my first blog - My next one shall be after i33 and is called "The entrepid adventures of a CoD4 Admin".
Well I think first I should introduce myself to everyone that doesn't know me. My name is Robert Black and my in game alias is Morg.I am 19 years old and live in a sleepy fishing town called Shoreham on the south coast of England.
I started gaming not to long ago when Call of Duty one was released, having played casually in CoD1 UO and CoD2 I became an assistant manager at Infused Gaming and then I moved to 4Kings when I was recently asked to manage the 4Kings CoD4 squad. Having known most of the team for a while in the CoD scene I was pretty happy to come on board with such an illustrious organisation.
The last month for me in eSports
Its been a pretty busy month for me in the world of eSports having recently moved to my new home here in 4Kings I was quickly jetting off to the lovely Netherlands for the LAN event CDC4 run by (url) [www.crossfire.nu] where I was to be the CoD4 admin!
CDC4 and my impressions
I was pretty excited about this LAN even though I was going to be an Admin, I knew I would be able to meet the Enemy Territory Quake Wars team. My flight was on wednesday the 27th of February after a quick train journy to Gatwick airport I boarded my Easyjet flight to the famous airport Schipol of an equally famous city Amtserdam! I landed at Schipol at around 3pm and had to wait about 4 hours for Karl and iRich, two irish CoD4 players from the team Policy that I know from a few LANs. We all then boarded the train to Den Bosch to meet up with another Policy player that lives there, Pal. We spent the night at Pal's just chilling and talking about who we thought would do well at CDC. Our impressions at the time were that it would be a very close exciting tournament, we were certainly right about that!
On the Thursday we got up pretty early and then took the train to Enschede, and to the LAN centre WZZRD where CDC4 was being hosted, this took us a little longer than the 2 hours that was expected due to some unfortunate missed trains on behalf of the only Dutch speaking member of the group...
None the less when we arrived it was great to be there, we signed into the Hotel Eden pretty quick and made the 10 minute walk to the LAN centre, we found WZZRD to be packed with a few teams bootcamping for various games and a lot of other public users at the bar. However by this time it was 6pm and I found there was a lot of work to be done before the event tomorrow.
For the event we had 25 Packard Bell iPower machines for some of the competitors to play on. We had to install XP on all the machines for the event in order to put a 500mhz mouse fix on. However due to an unforseen delay they hadn't arrived until 1pm that day. So the CDC4 crew proceeded to install XP and CoD4 and other programs onto the machines until late into the night.
After finally getting to bed at around 3am I got some much needed sleep in the hotel.
For those of you that don't know much about CoD4 competitive play I will give you a run down. CoD4 is noramlly played in an MR12 format with a knife round for sides. For CDC4 however we used MR10 in the group stages due to time constraints. As well as this the usual tournament structure is that of Double elimination - with an upper and lower bracket, however it was decided that due to time constraints that MR12 Best of three maps would be used for the knockout stages - and it certainly made for some increadibly tense matches! The maps were drawn randomly prior to the event for all the groups and knockout stages. If knockouts went to a 3rd map a system would be used where each team picks a map to eliminate until one map is left to play.
Friday was the first day of event and turning up at 8:30am there were still a few PC that were not fully installed. With games starting at 9am we had to just do the best with what we had. Bring on the first of the delays!!! The plan was to operate 8 sets of 5 PC's and thus have 4 games going on at any one time. But with 5 PC's out of the running this reduced us to 3 games at once. We blasted through the majority of the games until about 3pm where we were around an hour behind schedule. At this point the power for 12 of the iPower machines decided it wasn't going to work. This put us down to 4 sets of PC's and 2 games going on for a good 2 hours or so. By the time Penn and Tosspot had managed to get them back online we were running around 4 hours behind schedule!!! Not something I like when im admin'ing a tournament :P
With some nifty reshuffling of games and the teams that were playing being really quick at getting on and of the PC's we managed to get back to being one game off the schedule by the closing time of 1.30am. Unfortunately at 2am we recieved a phone call from Speed Link captain Trigger - Humm3l one of their players had been taken ill and had to go to hospital back in germany, meaning they wouldnt be able to play their remaining group games until 2pm on Saturday - this was 2 hours after the group games were meant to begin!!
None the less friday was a really good day for matches and saw almost all of the groupstages played. The matches that really stood out for me and I managed to nip a few watches of were;-
eSuba.HAL3000 (11:03) Team Logitech.fi (mp_crossfire)
even though this game looks a little one sided eSuba were really dominant. It was great to see a team that have in the past been labled as "Onliners" performing so well on LAN.
Finland Epsilon (11:08) Team Impact Italy (mp_crossfire)
The match between Epsilon and Team Impact stood out in my mind for it was the first time I had seen Italians at LAN and I just thought their attitude team spirit and passion was fantastic. The game was a good one too :D
Sweden fnatic (11:07) SK Germany (mp_citystreets)
Easily the biggest group stage match. The G7 giants battled it out on citystreets. Its a close quaters map which should technically favour SK's style of play, but its also a map with a lot of choke points and is great for quick rotations. The outstanding teamplay of the fnatic team won this one for them.
Germany Team SPEED-LINK (02:11) TheLastResort United Kingdom (mp_backlot)
Other than the fnatic V SK game, this was the one to draw the most attention out of the games on the first day. Speed Link an oldschool powerhouse from the days of Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2 were made to look amature by the co-ordinated attacks, rushes and team play of the surprise victors TLR. Before the CDC tournament TLR were certainly an underrated team, but after that performance they gained a lot of support.
France oXmoze (11:07) H2k.Qpad Netherlands (mp_crossfire)
France oXmoze (11:08) H2k.Qpad Netherlands (mp_crash)
Now this was certianly an interesting one. oXmoze were accused of a script by H2k after a few spectators noticed an odd ingame script. The decision was made by Tosspot to replay the match on a different map. So the second game started and it was then also noted that qwertYYY from H2k had the script during the 2nd game. The decision to let the 2nd game stand was again made.
Saturday was another early start with 4 hours sleep it all kicked off again at 9.30am. On the saturday we were reduced to 6 sets of PC's due to ET:QW taking 2 sets for their games. So we got off to a stuttered start with the group games and didnt encounter a problem until the issue of the ingame script was again cited by H2k against KomaCrew. This drew on for a good long while as things were discussed through by the teams about the best course of action. Due to a prevision decision that Tosspot had made it was decided not to remove either team from the competition. By this time it was around 1pm and we had a few Knockout games starting while we were still waiting on Speed Link to arrive in order to play the remainder of their group games. Once we had the all the group games out of the way the knockout stages really started to get going and we had some increadible matches, which I will go into more detail about below. The matches finally drew to a close at about 1am. With a big storm just rolling in however I managed to get stuck at WZZRD until 5am :\ I had a quick 3 hour sleep and was back in at half 10 on sunday to finish the tournament!
Saturdays notable group game:-
Denmark Roskilde Ravens (11:07) Intense Slovenia (mp_strike)
Probably not something that others would have picked up on. But here I think are the two most underated teams in EU. The game was a real corker, with Intense(a team ill admit id not heard of before CDC4) coming out with some really great tactics and solid shooting, and Roskilde coming out with a deserved win with some excellent tactical play. Two teams to watch out for in the coming months of CoD4.
Saturdays Round 1 knockout games:-
Czech Republic eSuba.HAL3000 (02:00) SPEED-LINK Germany
mp_backlot: 13:11, mp_district: 13:11
After a dissapointing match against TLR and using one merc Speed Link seemed to really up their game with this one. Against a strong eSuba side 13:11 and 13:11 is annoyingly close.
United Kingdom Dignitas (00:02) TEK9 Europe
mp_crossfire: 11:13, mp_vacant: 08:13
For the Dignitas team that were such a dominant force in CoD2 this LAN was not the best for them. They were unfortunate to meet such a strong side, and one of the favorites to take the event, in an early playoff match. TEK9's Kammyz really impressed me in this match showing us all what a top notch CoD4 player should play like.
Countryflag Epsilon (00:02) H2k.Qpad Netherlands
mp_strike: 14:16, mp_crossfire: 03:13
The first map strike was a close one with it going to one overtime and H2k managing to clinch it. Crossfire was very one sided affair as the H2k team spirit and sniping skills of qwertYYY pulled them through to a rapid victory.
Slovenia Intense (01:02) fnatic Sweden
mp_vacant: 13-12, mp_strike: 08-13, mp_backlot: 07-13
An interesting match featuring Intense the Slovenian team I mentioned earlier as being very underated. And the now LAN favorites, after their win over SK, fnatic. The match was one of the highlights of the LAN for me. With the first map being strike fnatic took the map 13-8 which doesnt really do justice to Intense who, with a little more LAN experience and age would be able to take the 1v1 and other clutch situations into their favour. Vacant was very close indeed, unfortunately due to time constraints we had to use a 1round sudden death situation for overtime, intense just managed to clinch it. With the final map being decided as Backlot fnatic played very well and Intense began to loose there grip. Again it was an interesting match and as I said before Intense are certainly a name for the Future in eSports and especially in CoD4.
Denmark Roskilde Ravens (00:02) SK Gaming Germany
mp_crossfire: 11-13, mp_vacant: 09-13
This match was shoutcasted live on Quadv by Tosspot and was certainly a stormer! With the underdogs Roskilde loosing the first map only 13-11. SK must have been feeling the heat. Credit has to be paid to SK gaming who put out a sterling performance under a lot of pressure to take the game in two maps.
Italy Team Impact (01:02) oXmoze France
mp_crossfire: 04:13, mp_backlot: 13:12, mp_strike: 5:13
What a match this was! Franco-Italiano gaming rivalry has never been so tense! Team Impact really put up some excellent rounds in fighting for this match but like the rugby on the 9th French flare proved to strong for Italian passion.
Poland UF Gaming (00:02) DCC Gaming Netherlands
mp_backlot: 06-13, mp_district: 13-16
UltraFrag gaming are undoubtably one of the strongest team in poland with the other being FF who were unable to get out of the groups, but the self proclaimed "best Dutch Team" DCC managed to take the win in two maps after an overtime on the second.
Finland Team Logitech.fi (00:02) TheLastResort United Kingdom
mp_strike: 12-13 (sudden death round) mp_crash: 06-13
The logitech team were unfortunate to have lost this game in two maps. If the sudden death round had not been used I think they would have had strike - but that is the beauty of hindsight! TLR did play very well and continued to quietly progress through the tournament making upset after upset.
Saturdays Quater Final stage match:-
United Kingdom TheLastResort (02:00) DCC Gaming Netherlands
mp_vacant: 13-08, mp_crossfire: 13-07
It was a late match starting at about 12pm with both teams feeling the affects of gaming and a few other things im sure. TLR really stood up and showed us what they are made of. With some really impressive teamwork on vacant and some great fluid adaptation in attack they took the map comfortably 13-8. Crossfire was a similar story with them using some nicely laid out strats and brilliant sniping by SoCLoN meaning they again took the map comfortably 13-7.
Sunday saw the last day of the LAN and brought with it some of the best CoD4 matches anyone has ever seen.
I was back in at 11 on Sunday ready to oversee the days proceedings. Thankfully there werent any other problems with PC's or power outages, and the games were steadily being played. I was informed in the morning by the TLR players that they had to leave for a train at 6:20pm in order to catch a flight back to england for one of their exams on monday! I duely noted this down and we switched the ET:QW final with the Cod4 final in order to save some time. But I will speak about the final below.
The rest of Sundays results ended up like this :-
Europe TEK9 (00:02) eSuba.HAL3000 Czech Republic
mp_vacant: 08:13, mp_crash: 06-13
eSuba Really showed here that they are a dominant force within Europe at the moment. 13-8 and 13-6 is not something TEK9 will be happy with - even if they are on two close quater maps. But im sure when we see them at i33 next week they will have taken something from this game.
Sweden fnatic (02:01) H2k.Qpad Netherlands
mp_backlot: 13-08, mp_strike: 11-13, mp_crossfire: 13-06
Another epic game to put to the CDC name. This three map thriller was a class affair. With Backlot played first and some nice clutches performed by both teams it was a tense map but the impecable teamwork of fnatic brought this map home for them. Strike up next, a strong map for the fnatic team who have some really great attacking strats, it was a close one but H2k really pulled up their socks and played some great rounds again qwertYYY really impressed with the sniper hitting some sick shots. The final and deciding map was crossfire - one that we have seen H2k really dominate teams on. This time however it was H2k's turn to be dominated. MintR hit some brilliant shots for fnatic with the sniper working some great angles around the map, while zsilts and klanne were working brilliantly in the spec ops role.
Germany SK Gaming (01:02) oXmoze France
mp_strike: 13-02, mp_citystreets: 20-22, mp_crossfire: 03:13
A fantastic match even if two of the maps were a little one sided. oXmoze really showed people they have what it takes to be one of the best in Europe with this match. The long range of strike doesnt favour SK's play style much but dont let that be an excuse - oXmoze would have beaten any team with how they played the map, great communication between players and mao knowledge brought them a deserved 13-2. Citystreets is not as commonly plaid map as the other two and its close quater combat gameplay does favour sk - it was a really close map with it going to a 3rd overtime in which SK came out triumphant. Crossfire was the last map, another generally thought to be long range map. 13-3 to oXmoze again shows how the French team are playing just as that, a team.
Semi-Finals:-
Sweden fnatic (02:01) eSuba.HAL3000 Czech Republic
mp_district: 13-06, mp_crossfire: 07-13, mp_crash: 13-08
A clash of the titans - with the two respective MGO's CSS teams facing off in the Enemy Down Xleague CSS cup a month ago this always seemed a bit of a grudge match to me, even if it is a different game. I to be honest would have liked to see these two line up in the final. The first map was District and fnatic played a tense map winning it 13-6. Next up was Crossfire where we saw fnatic beat H2k earlier in the day, eSuba on the other hand were having none of it and took the map in a nice display 13-7. The deciding map was chosen as crash, a thrilling map to watch at the best of times but with these two going at each other. Mazarini and lucker were brilliant all tournament and throughout this match showed that the Czech republic is not "3rd world".
United Kingdom TheLastResort (02:00) oXmoze France
mp_strike: 13-09, mp_crash: 13-11
An equally good semi final as its sister, we witnessed TLR and oXmoze really go great guns on this one. The TLR Strike defence proved too much for oXmoze as SoCLoN rained down a hail of sniper rounds upon the French team leaving it 13-9 in favour of TLR. Crash the second map was a much closer affair, with excellent teamwork from both sides it was D1ablo and Marks excellent play under pressure that won the map for TLR and put them through to the final with the Swedes fnatic.
After the Semi finals had finished we waited to everyone to be ready for the final and consolation final. As Tosspot got on the server ready to shoutcast argueably the most exciting game CoD4 has seen, the consolation final for 3rd and 4th place got underway between oXmoze and eSuba.
France oXmoze (00:02) eSuba.HAL3000 Czech Republic
The 3rd and 4th place game is one that hasnt really had much attention, but certainly one that deserves it. eSuba again showed a dominant play style against oXmoze who where over run 13-8 on district and then 13-4 on crash. Well played to both teams in finishing 3rd and 4th at the LAN with almost all the top EU teams present.
The Final!
Well what a final - as I mentioned before due to TLR needing to catch a train we tried swapping round the ET:QW final and the CoD4 final in order to give the TLR lads some time to get their train, unfortunatly it didnt quite work out as planned.
Since the ET final overran i decided to play the CoD4 final on Best of 3 maps MR10 which is not ideal, but I thought it might give TLR a chance to finish the game at least.
So we started the match on mp_backlot fnatics map choice, but due to various reasons we still started 20 minuets later than we should have! fnatic started off on defence which is the Marines side on Backlot. 7 rounds in I was looking at the time of 5:50pm and decided it was cutting it too close for TLR to be able to get their train. I made an on the spot decision to change the final to 1 map MR12 - My reasons for this were that I didnt think it would be acceptable to have the biggest European CoD4 competitions final end in a default win.
So I went to ask fnatic quickly if that would be ok, they agreed. And I then went to inform TLR. Understandably they were not that pleased about the decision especially mid game and already 7 rounds in. The team then seemed to relax a lot more in game and we saw TLR pull out all the stops. After the 1st side of TLR being opFor and attacking it was 10-2 in favour of fnatic and looking like a whitewash.
TLR began play on the Marines side and looked to dominate fnatic from the start. They blocked them out which ever way they came to either bomb and had the best comeback considering the pressure and time factor to 12-12.
So the final went to overtime with fnatic and TLR desperately trying to knock the other team back and gain the advantage fnatic got it in the 1st 3 rounds winning 3-0 leaving the score 15-12 and meaning they had to win one round in order to beat TLR. The next two rounds were actually amazing to watch, as im sure most of you reading this will know. I think the pressure TLR were under and the experience of Mint and his team meant that fnatic took it on the day 16-13. It was a real shame that the game could not be played on more than one map, but thanks to both teams for making it such a wonderful final to spectate.
With the upcoming i33 event im sure both teams will be looking forward to meeting each other somewhere in the tournament.
United Kingdom TheLastResort (13:16) fnatic Sweden
mp_backlot: 12-12 (2-10; 10-2), OT: 0-3, 1-1
On the sunday night I went back with fnatic to the Eden hotel where we were both staying, we stayed up have a lot to drink and generally chatting. I awoke in the morning to a rather loud knock on the door with two angry Swedes standing outside, apparently I had "stolen" tidde's fnatic hoodie. I unfortunately have no recolection of this which leads me to beleive I was a lot more drunk than I thought! (insert pic of fnatic hoodie)
The tournament was a really enjoyable one to be a part of, and it was really nice to meet so many of the European teams and their players. Thanks to everyone that came and to everyone else involved in the other game, and of course to the rest of the Crossfire crew!
One thing I have to say is - The sooner admins are paid for what they do at events the better ;)
Hope you enjoyed my first blog - My next one shall be after i33 and is called "The entrepid adventures of a CoD4 Admin".
mp_strike: 13-02, mp_citystreets: 20-22, mp_crossfire: 03:13
doesnt reall fit the description!?
should maybe be:
Germany SK Gaming (01:02) oXmoze France
mp_strike: 02-12, mp_citystreets: 22-20, mp_crossfire: 03:13?
Until next time!