With the Play Offs being full underway, we're at the last straw of the First Round. After all the CiC7 ashes we've already seen Netherlands, Estonia, United Kingdom, France, Poland and Finland moving forward in the Winner's Bracket at the expense of their opponents. That leaves only 4 Nations to decide which 2 may continue on in the bracket and which two will have to hold on their last straws in the Loser's Bracket!

Tonight, one of these games will be played between Belgium and Croatia. Both teams having succesfull season's of participation in the NC behind them. Neither of them, however, managed to get the gold in the NC before, but both did get close. Croatia did this by a 3rd place last season, while Belgium grabbed the 2nd place at NC X and got the 4th place 2 times as well. With this in mind we can expect the teams to give their all for this game to ensure that they can continue in the Winner's Bracket and get as fast as they can to the next round, ready to surpass their previous achievements!

Team Croatia

calisto
komar
gmx
danL
frozz



Team Belgium

siL
Jere
Kevin
mAus
insenXL
vila



Maps:
Not Announced

21:30 CET

With the thrilling conclusions of the Group Stages, the Nationscup is now moving on to the Play Offs! Over the weeks we have seen some epic games, as well as expected one sided games, all leading down to the final 16 Nations who had the skills, gameplay and the luck to go on. With the Play Offs, the danger of losing and falling out of the competition hasn't become any smaller. With the addition of a Double Elimination there will even be more games the before!

It’s not only CIEC games tonight, but in between these awesome and challenging play-offs we also got 2 Nationscup matches going on. With one of them being ‘for the honor only’ while the other game can actually still make a difference for a play off, the evening won’t get less exciting on it!

In the upcoming days, we’ll see more and more exciting games as the Group stages start to go towards the end more and more as well. Following up as quick update for the game of tonight as well as the 2 games which are featured and lined up for tomorrow.

After yesterday’s NC marathon, today brings you lesser games, but not less exciting games! The only 2 games of these evening don’t look much but both have the potential and promise to turn into a great game. In both games we see the top favorites of Group A and Group B ( Netherlands and Estonia) against underdogs of both groups ( Croatia and Sweden). Tonight will be decisive to see who will get the better seed for the Play Offs and who will get a harder time in them.

In the past period we have seen our fair share of the NC, including Expected wins, Surprises and Exciting games we are now up at the final stages of the Group stage, to decide who goes to the Play-Offs and who has to miss out. With that in mind we got a full Sunday schedule to serve to you.

With the sign ups for Captain applications closed, the time has now come to throw in your votes and make sure your favorite man can be the captain of your nation and bring glory in his name! But there's more to it then just the blind voting.... With renewal of the Clanbase ET Crew, we also decided to go a step further and take an interview with every aspiring captain so it will be easier for you as a voter to make your decision. We hope that with the featured questions and answers to them you, as a voter, will be able to make the best decision for yourself and your country with your vote.

The overview of the interviews with the aspiring captains can be found on the Crossfire Article section Here

We also want to remind the aspiring captains that the rules regarding the '3 players from 1 clan' has changed, we advise you to read them thoroughly to stay up to date and get yourself the best line up as possible. You can find more info regarding this rule Here

Overload is once more back to their original roots with an all Benelux Line up, or better said, Dutch Line Up! Making a small trip outside the box with the German Highbot squad to CC5, we are back to the beginnings now.
Without further a due I would like to present to you, the new Overload.ET Line Up:

Tonight marks the end of an era of co-operation for us. As an organization, Overload strifes to reach better achievements and heights through good and fair play. Alas, after tonight, we had to come to the conclusion that one of our teams failed to fill in these principles of our organization and thus have been removed as part of Overload Gaming.

The team we're talking about is the Overload ET team, also known as the Belgian Dreamteam. After several rumours were spreading out across Crossfire about the team using a private bot in their games and them being featured in a newly constructed Cheaterbust List the team confessed the accusations thrown towards them. By doing this they are banned from the upcoming cc5 LAN in Enschede, NL and also banned from any further Clanbase ET competition. The team was:

Overload as an organization also doesn't approve this kind of behaviour and never will, therefore the team will be removed from the MGC. In a short statements the managers had the following to say:

Quote by Sainted

What started as a very happy relation ended in tears and disbelieve. Sadly we put a lot of trust in this team, which they have wasted, taking down part of Overload with them.
We are terribly disappointed in our former W:ET team, and hope to be able to regain the trust of the W:ET community in the future.

Just like last season, the Powerhouse Fear Factory has been raging over the EC. By an unfaithful turn of events they were expelled last season however, but this time all the signs are pointing in the good direction, that of the EC XVIII Finals. And that is not the only direction in which they pointed. Having been spotted several times claiming they didn't get enough support from their current organization, Fear Factory X-Fi, their succes in ET has been picked up by another legendary ET MGC!
It is k1ck eSports who have picked this team up for the remainder of the EC Season and after that hopefully many other events to come! It even meant for some of the players to return to their old roots, since they were in one of the first few ET teams that k1ck has already had. The Manager and Wrobel had the following to say: