Well, well, well boys. LAN time is upon us. Today is the official start of the ESL One tournament in New York starting at 16:00 UK time. Offline tournaments are always an exciting time but while we’re waiting for it all to kick off, I thought I’d write a little summary of all the storylines and teams we can expect to see this weekend for any newcomers:

Virtus Pro

VP have a reputation in the CS community as one of the most inconsistent online teams but among the best offline teams in the big leagues. The team have taken many o’ tournament and hold very seasoned players in TaZ and neo who have been playing together since 2004! That’s 12 years. If you need any evidence of their inconsistency look no further than the past 6-7 weeks. First going out last place in SLI Starladder then a week later, crowned champions at Dreamhack Bucharest. The general consensus amongst the analysts and casters of counter strike is that if VP show up this tournament. They’re in the favourites to at least hit the final.

Fnatic

Fnatic – This organisation was home to living legends before the big Swedish roster swap between Fnatic and Godsent. At one point Fnatic ruled an entire era of CSGO winning 3 majors back to back with their old roster Olofmeister, Krimz, Flusha, JW and Pronax. Unfortunately at the beginning of the year pronax announced his departure from the team (later to form Godsent) and Olofmeister’s and Krimz’ former LGB team member Dennis replaced him. Bit all confusing to follow I know. Any how, even though the team was an undeniably strong force, disaster struck when Olofmeister suffered a wrist injury and were taking out of the years first major MLG Columbus by Astralis (Who later choked vs SK; at the time Luminosity). Olofmeister’s injury was a trifling time for these guys. After all, Olof was once considered the best player in the world. Star player down they reverted to stand ins. Wenton (also former LGB teammate) finally became their mainstay in while Olof recovered. The team continued to do well in some online leagues but never returned to their former close-to-90% win rate. After getting knocked out by Liquid in the semis of ESL ONE Cologne, three members left and joined Godsent (Flusha, Krimz and JW) to be reunited with their old captain Pronax (easily one of the strongest IGL’s who lived). Fnatic then took on Twist and Lekro of Godsent and promoted Wenton as a permanent player. Now in their first Offline tournament with the new roster they consider themselves ready to win. Lets see how it goes.

G2

Award goes to the prettiest team here. But not only do they have good looks they are also one of the most insane teams to watch on the server. All of their players are capable of pulling off crazy clutches and VAC worthy shots. The only problem they have is doing this consistently and the main bulk of the hard work comes down to their IGL Shox. This man is probably in the top 3 best players in the world right, now showing up every match almost consistently. He is a force to be reckoned with any weapon, he has ridiculous entry power and his game knowledge is among the greatest in Counter-Strike. After recently picking up Body they have been looking stronger and stronger as time goes by despite going out in the group stages of the last Major only a few months ago. Unfortunately no tournaments have been won by G2 apart from ECS 4 months ago. Really unlucky too as they carved a path through SLI Starladder not dropping a single map until losing 2-0 against NiP in the finals, they fought tooth and nail through Overpass aswell with Shox fighting until his dying breath. Glorious match. Let’s hope for their sake they can finally take this one as I believe this team has made the most progression than any other in the past 6 months, despite not showing any 1st place results to show from it.

Astralis

Once the undisputed kings of Danish CS and dominating in their old organisation TSM, Astralis have not yet fallen from grace. But lack the confidence to really take a title just yet. Another example of random roster swaps; the Danish swap between these guys and Dignitas (the current number 1 Danes in my eyes) involved the trading of now Dignitas’ best player and primary AWP, CajunB for Kaerbye. Now, Kaerbye is a solid player and a super star fragger when he wants to be, but they haven’t really shown a consistent form with him just yet. The thing is Astralis always do well in tournaments, their consistency lies with being able to reach Semi-finals and Quarters but haven’t had a Final since their TSM days in 2015. They get that far, and then somehow choke and get smashed by someone like SK, Na’vi or Fnatic. I think they just need to get over that mental block they seem to have when they reach that far. You can see how devastated they are when that happens too and that must cause some strain on the players. All this said, I have massive respect for Karrigan, the man managed to complete a Masters degree while still maintaining his top-level CS, competing in tournaments around the world. He’s a solid IGL too and I also like that he’s picking up the AWP more. Watch out for this guy, he can go off. Other shout outs include Dev1ce and Kaerbye. If all three of these turn up, we have a tournament on our hands as that is one weak link not so weak.

SK Gaming

Well, what can I not say about these guys. There is so much to tell. Strap yourselves in, this is going to be be a long one. SK Gaming are a Brazilian team born from Fallen’s brainchild Games Academy. When the scene in Brazil started to die out in 2013-2014 Fallen took it upon himself to reach out to others to teach them about the game. Gamers would pay for this service which then led on to Fallen creating LAN tournaments for up and coming Brazilian players. When he first appeared outside of Brazil, he almost became a prophet in a sense. That may be a massive over exaggeration but that is my personal opinion. To quote Taco (his team-mate), “When I decided to become a great player, I had to learn from someone else, mirror them and play to their standard. That player was Fallen.” Everyone heard about this guy watching his videos in Portuguese just to become better at the game, casters and analysts were talking about him even though he did not belong to any team. He started out with 15 students of which now has over 2k (maybe more). When he formed the team that would later become Luminosity he decided that the opportunities in Brazil were not open enough and the team decided to move to the US. Using what money they had they managed to bag a small apartment which they all slept on the floor, played on PC’s that would run at 60 fps (the standard for a professional is known to be 300fps and no less) and used garden furniture as desks and chairs.

The team exploded on to the scene and eventually got picked up by Luminosity Gaming. Entering the FACEIT Champs DreamHack Winter 2015, most people believed after their first game vs NiP they were going out on a 2-0. But no. LG then smashed them over two maps straight and getting all the way to the finals eventually losing to Fnatic (who were winning everything at this point). A massive moment for these boys no less. After that they showed no signs of stopping. Reaching finals for another three tournaments and a semi in another. And then, finally, the climax to this Cinderella story, they took MLG Columbus beating Na’vi 2-0. They not only took one major of the year. They took the second too after transferring to a new organisation SK, beating Liquid 2-0. These guys are easily the best team in the world right now and what Fallen has done for Brazilian CS is nothing but exemplary. If that’s not enough praise for you, he is also one of the strongest players with an AWP which he does while in-game leading. Any CS player would tell you that’s a feat in itself. Although as of late they have had some issues. Not too long ago one player (Fer), required surgery on his ear which left them having to use a stand-in. Things did not go well getting 16-0’d and 16-3’d by Renegades and losing to Optic quite recently. There first game is up against Optic though so, revenge is sweet as they say. Or can Optic pull off another upset? What a time to be alive. NEXT!

Optic Gaming

Guys, I’m not going to lie to you here. What I do know about these guys is very limited as I have not really seen any matches recently. From what I hear though they have had some strife as of late and recently picked up Tarik, a superstar fragger that seems to be working in their favour. They managed to get in to this tournament by pulling off an upset against the ever-growing danger of Cloud 9 in a last chance qualifier the other night, I genuinely believed Cloud 9 would be here and they could go far. But this is what is so exciting about this beautiful game, these upsets happen from nowhere, teams get knocked out. Fans get pumped to see their favourite team and my god are Optic fans pumped right now. I find it quite unfair they have to go against SK though, the best team in the world apparently being seeded against the winners of a last chance qualifier? Makes no sense. Anyway, there always has to be a push away team. In this case it might be Optic. But could you imagine how glorious it would be if they knock SK out?

Natus Vincere

The CIS giants, Na’vi are the definition of beautiful CS, each one of their players are capable at pulling of insane plays and as one of the more strategic teams they are certainly difficult to beat. They also have probably the most devastating “Double AWP” combo with Guardian and S1mple next to Fallen and Coldzera of SK respectively. These two players are often held up in the top 10 players list by many. But, and this is a big but, all this sounds fantastic on paper and in theory. But in practice they have not managed to find their footing quite yet. Going out in last place in SLI Starladder a couple of weeks ago and a string of tough losses in other leagues and tournaments, Na’vi don’t look as comfortable as many would expect in their new line up after picking up S1mple. Also with a line of changes such as, Siezed handing the Secondary AWP role to S1mple and becoming the IGL and then Na’vi not allowing S1mple to unleash as we have seen so much in the past in teams like Liquid. Now, this brings me to the REAL interesting piece of Na’vi’s storyline. S1mple was recently picked up from Team Liquid when S1mple decided he did not want to live in the US anymore and wanted to move back to the CIS region. Although during his time in Liquid he formed a close bond, a brother hood if you will, with H1ko, Legendary clutcher and IGL for Liquid (and in my opinion the best NA player in terms of versatility) and in the last Major, Na’vi had been knocked out by Liquid with S1mple as part of that temporary roster. They had managed to make it to finals, which was an incredible feat for any NA team to do. This will mark the first time S1mple will play against H1ko. This will be a hard one to watch boys, expect tears. I really hope Na’vi find their footing here. Because on paper, they could totally take this tournament.

Team Liquid

Last but not least. Team Liquid. Not a lot I can mention here as I had spoken about these guys quite a bit above. Although after the loss of S1mple, Liquid are yet to show us their full potential. Pimp was the chosen player to replace S1mple and as of yet we are yet to say many results from the team. Lets not count them out though, they are still an incredibly strong team, JDM has come on leaps and bounds since his CLG days and seems to fit perfectly in the new Liquid roster. Plus H1ko is straight up insane. If I had to pick something to watch from these guys it would actually be the Elige + N1tro combo. These guys are like two peas in a pod and play around each other like they were dancing in moonlight. Not many teams have the same duo that these two produce. Basically they both play Entry Fragger together most of the time, backing each other up as they mop up a site on the T-side. Beautiful to watch. As said before. Brace yourself, this may get emotional.

And that’s it. If you’re still reading thank you for sticking all the way through this, there was a lot of information but I think all that has been described above just paints a picture on how interesting the ESport world is and how passionate we all are about it.

The games kick off tonight at 11:00am EDT. So that’s 4:00pm for my UK compadrés. You can watch it right here .

Thank’s for reading, I hoped you’re as hyped as I am right now. Enjoy the tournament and may the best team win.

Tl;dr – CS is awesome. Time to get hyped up for some great story lines and great CS.

Peace and Love guys,

Wacka