Yesterday I came back from a trip to Cambridge and when I checked the Clanbase site I was pretty surprised to have missed so many matches. But luckily Sainted jumped in for me and wrote a nice post about some of the matches played this week.

Now I'm back for another one of those block rocking beats! And of course we have a Eurocup match upcoming. It's VAE versus FF X-Fi. In the Upper Bracked Round 1; the polish side had to forfeit against Polar due to a lack of players. Very unfortunate. VAE had to take on all finnish side Cadre and they lost to a stronger Cadre. This match is the first one in the Lower Brackets meaning that both teams have allready been eliminated once. Another defeat will mean they are out of the Eurocup. That surely must put some pressure on the players' shoulders. Can they handle it?

The winner of this one awaits a though challenge. They will meet either dignitas or TLR.eSports in the Lower Brackets Round 2. Now theres more. As I allready stated FF X-Fi had to forfeit last match due to a lack of players. Now there has been some discussion about their line-up for this match. Will they be able to challenge VAE with a stable line-up? Or will they forfeit again? We'll see... Don't forget to watch!



Rosters:
VAE: Sheep, Gotti, fireBall, Iron, vegi, fobje.
FF X-Fi: wiesiek, JC, Wrobel, sMi, S4rna, r1co.

Now make sure you all tune on to ETTV to watch this spectacle. GamesTV

Tomorrow is another day of Eurocup. Polar takes on FF X-Fi which will be an exciting match for sure!

Polar took down Incomplete and TLR in a 3 Teams Group after Morrigu had left the building. They advanced to the Play Offs without losing one round and together with Impact and ZeroPoint! they are the only ones who have done so. Polar dropped two players before the EuroCup to make it more of a team and to be honest, it could have worked! Polar has only grown so far and if they keep playing like this they could get pretty far... Now let's have a look at their opponents. The all-polish side of Fear Factory X-Fi. They found themselves on the second spot behind ZeroPoint!. We can surely say that only ZeroPoint! was too strong for Fear Factory X-Fi, but what does that actually say since ZeroPoint! isn't as strong as it used to be and they had some weak performances at CPC2. Does that make Fear Factory X-Fi's second spot weaker? We'll see how they perform against Polar. The winner of this one takes on Cadre. Surely they have proven to be strong after beating vae yesterday.



Update: FF forfeit due to lack of players

Rosters:
Polar: Toxic, razz, sqzz, perfo, snoop, Xylos.
FF X-Fi: wiesiek, JC, Wrobel, sMi, S4rna, r1co.

Rosters:
Cadre: chmpp, kmble, lettu, MulSu, Squall, twidi.
VAE: Sheep, Gotti, fireBall, Iron, vegi, fobje.

And what a match it was. The match started with a delay taking quite long. VAE was ready and waiting on the Finnish side to get ready. Finally both teams were able to play and the match was started. First map Goldrush. Cadre to attack first and they did it fast. I was hardly paying attention when already Cadre had stolen the tank. 00:27 was the official time. Somewhat more then 2 minutes later (02:47) they had blown the Bank Doors with almost no resistance from VAE. Though when the fight in and around the bank commenced Cadre had a bit of a hard time. Still they managed to get the gold to the truck. They took just under 5 minutes (04:53) to secure the gold and the truck fired up. The final time of Cadre was 6:01, a hard one to beat. VAE only managed to steal the tank. But it took them 4 minutes and 25 seconds (04:52) more compared to Cadre to steal it and with Cadre's defense they had no chance of blowing the Bank Doors. They never arrived...

Second map: Radar. Always difficult, for every team, to defend. VAE started their offense. They had to win this one. The first minutes looked promising. VAE had blown the Main Door at 01:51 and they were already heading for the parts. It took them somewhat less then 3 minutes to secure their first parts. After that there was a period of time where the teams were fighting on the West Parts hill. It took VAE very long to get those parts. But finally they made it. At 11:29 the West Parts were secured into the truck and VAE had set a time. But was it enough? Cadre blew the Main Door at 02:14. 23 seconds behind on schedule. They had to get some back at securing the first parts. And they did. They secured the East Parts after 04:07. They were now 17 seconds in front of VAE and they had taken the lead. But there was the West Parts hill again. With the right defense it is as deadly as can be. Time was ticking and it looked hopeful for VAE. They were heading towards a win on Radar which meant a 3rd map. But their dream was crushed. 8 seconds before 00:00 Cadre secured the parts and it was over for VAE.

A very good match with at least one tense map. I'm looking forward to the next matches in the EC.

Original Preview:

Tonight will bring us two matches to look forward to. First of all we'll have Insignia Cadre versus Vicious and Evil. My first reaction when I saw Cadre take the match versus Dignitas was: "lucky number two that has to play the number one of Group A". Which turned out to be VAE. But are they so lucky? Did Cadre take that win because they were that good or was Dignitas just that bad? Tough it is a fact that Cadre is a very strong team that shouldn't be underestimated, which is what I kind of did. After thinking a while I'll have to take back my words because VAE aren't lucky at all to meet Cadre.


Rosters:
Dignitas: Night, r3vers, Reload, Urtier, Senji, Jakazc.
Impact: Raveneye, Mystic, Tiigeri, teKoa, M1lk, Mztik.

Enjoyable from start to finish, a brilliant advert for a brilliant game. Dignitas gave a timely reminder that they can still beat anyone on their day when Frostbite came around. They were cold hearted on defence, giving nothing away, Impact set just over seven and a half minutes and perhaps even that was generous. Dignitas' offence was straight to the point, they took the first stage in little under a minute and never looked back. Senji ran the documents home with Dignitas having minutes to spares.

Goldrush however saw a different Impact, their first stage defence was good and offensive stopping dignitas getting the tank once and then finally crumbling with 2 full minutes played. They had the barrier and they had the clock on their side, for Dignitas they just didnt click the way they would have liked and the end couldnt come soon enough. Impact's offence was fast and furious right up until the gold stage, Night played a privitol role in that taking down the command post at least twice, dignitas had just about swung the game in their favour when Tiigeri rose to the occasion taking the documents home shooting anything down in his path. Dignitas werent done yet though and slowed the truck down, what was just a minute or more longer seemed like an hour as impact slowly but surely got the truck to the exit with just 4 seconds remaining.

Possibly the most exciting game of Braundorf yet decided the game, Raveneye and r3vers both enjoyed fruitful moments with the rifle and added flair to the occasion. Impact on their offence dragged their feet, particularly in the first stage and once they did have that they couldnt quite get the side open quick enough to set a lightning fast time. Even whilst they didnt have the side entrance their dutch players were able to enjoy great freedom pushing into the dignitas defence, but still couldnt find the key. When they did unlock the defence it was after 7 minutes and it was going to take a resolute defence to stop Dignitas winning. Resolute was exactly what it was and dignitas got nowhere fast and it went down to the wire with 2 minutes to go. Dignitas planted twice only to have raveneye strike a double rifle to then defuse both with tiigeri. Not to be out done, Dignitas planted twice again and this time r3vers struck double to save the dynos and win the game. Dignitas win one of the most exciting games in a while!

Original Preview:

But this great match isn't all the Play Offs have to offer. There's another match tomorrow night and this one is going to be tense. It's Dignitas versus Impact. With Dignitas recently losing to Cadre nothing is sure and Impact could well take it. The poll on Crossfire.nu shows that the majority of the community thinks that Impact will take it. Though Dignitas is still a very strong side! They will have to prove they still got it against a very young side which is growing every match. Are they capable of doing so? We'll see.

You don't want to miss these two matches. Make you sure you tune in on time! GamesTv.org

Another two days of Eurocup Matches are almost here. A total of 6 matches are to be played on Sunday and Monday. We are closing in on the end of the Group Stage and there are still a few spots free in the Play Offs. Who will take them is the big question... This round of matches could decide alot. I'm sure we'll see some great matches. Now for a quick overview of the upcoming matches:

Sunday:
20:30 CET Bremen / Karsiah
Impact Gaming
Vicious and Evil

22:00 CET Bremen / Karsiah
K1ck eSports
Elite

22:00 CET Braundorf / Radar
zeroPoint!
Retroactive

Post Match Article:

It wasn't ment to be for Incomplete. They fought hard, showed some incredible defensive masterminding on Braundorf and tried to stop Polar with all means they had. But it wasn't enough. In an impressive match the partially new lineup of Polar eSports showed that they improved their teamplay. With the new likes of sqzz and razz Polar defeated Incomplete with 4-0.

This score gives us the following ranking of Group C in the Eurocup XV:

1. Polar eSports - 1 - 0 - 4/0
2. TLR.eSports - 1 - 0 - 4/2
3. Incomplete - 0 - 2 - 2/8

With no more matches to play, Incomplete is out of the Eurocup. Good luck with further tournaments Incomplete!

Polar eSports and TLR.eSports will have to decide who will take the crown of Group C in a direct duel. Good luck to both.

I caught up with Polar Toxic and Polar Adacore to have a little chat about the match.

CLICK
Polar Toxic

-First of all... Sigh of relief?

Well, we knew we had the power to win, being the first official for us with the new lineup we didnt know what to expect but i can say that we showed a pretty nice performance and its comfortable to know that we are already through to the playoffs.

-Did you feel any pressure before this match? Because losing it would mean you'd have to win over TLR, which is always hard.

Well obviously, we started off nervous on braundorf as we knew that a loss would be devestating so we didnt want to do any mistakes. So ye I guess you can say we felt the pressure.

-Now sqzz performed a very strange role this match, he played the personal health manager of all engineers. Was this assigned to him or did he volunteerd to play like this?

He has natural instincts about his own players, when they're going to die, when they are in need of backup. Its just the way he plays, besides being the best medic in ET, his aim isn't too shabby either.

-Adacore said before the match, and I quote: "The pressure is another matter though - polar have a track record of performing inconsistently in officials, it remains to be seen if this will phase the new lineup" Do you agree with him?

Well it was pretty clear that we used to play inconsistently with the old lineup but I hope we fixed this now, but its yet to be seen.

-After capturing the flag at Braundorf you rushed into the bunkers with great pace only to be stopped by INC in the bunker controls room. What went wrong?

They had a nice defence basically, they played braundorf really nicely.

-Thank you for your time, congratulations again! Good luck against TLR.

Polar Adacore

-Was this the type of play by Polar you hoped for?

Yeah, although sqzz was playing worse than normal :D But you can't have everyone having good days at once. Oh - and Braundorf wasn't exactly perfect.

-Sqzz played a really significant role with the healing though...

Yeah - he was as good as normal with medwork, but normally his aim is better ;)

-It seemed as though Polar got stuck at Braundorf in the end. What do you think finally broke INC's defence?

But they got it in the end, which is what matters I guess. They worked out that INC were heavy in the boxes room and Xylos took them out there.

-What's the thing you're most worried about looking at the performance of Polar?

Nothing really, so long as they keep doing what they're doing everything should be great.

-What's your prediction? How far will Polar come in the Eurocup?

I think we have the potential to go all the way, but of course anything can happen and there will be a lot of very good teams in the playoffs stage.

-Allright, thanks for your time.