World Electronic Sports Games 2017 is not too far away, with CS:GO, DotA, Hearthstone and StarCraft II tournaments under one roof, at the Haikou International Convention & Exhibition Center, in Haikou, China. US$1,500,000 prize pool is on offer for the teams, once again the biggest prizepool in any CS:GO tournament. $800,000 will be awarded to the victors and the remaining $700,000 spread around the top 16 teams. WESG 2017 begins on 13th March and will last five days, the grand final being played on 18th March.

The CS:GO tournament features 28 teams, the biggest team list of any tournament. Hong Kong representatives, EMC, pulled out of the tournament for unknown reasons, while Team Ukraine featuring Danylo ‘Zeus’ Teslenko and Yegor ‘markeloff’ Markelov were unable to attend after Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev failed to attend due to ‘personal issues’. Fellow Group E participants Viva Algeria were also forced to pull out because of visa issues for two players, giving Bravado and Team EnVyUs an automatic group stage bye. Norwegian NOREG also pulled out late, again due to visa issues, leaving just two teams in Group H, Australians ORDER and Chinese team MAX, automatically qualifying to the next group stage.

The bottom 16 go home empty-handed, but gain experience playing with some of the most interesting mixes and major champions such as Cloud9, Fnatic, and SK Gaming. French squad Team EnVyUs are the WESG defending champions, but with a different lineup compared to the team that is competing this year. One nationality rule is in play here, disallowing teams with different nationalities. 8 groups of 4 teams will form the first group stage, where the top two of each group advance to another group stage containing 16 teams. Again, the two best teams in the group advance to the 8-team playoffs, with a best of 2 format for group stages and best of 3 for the playoffs. The 6 teams below are worth watching as each of them could breakout or even win the tournament.



Belgium

Kevin ‘Ex6TenZ’ Droolans’ main project is Team Belgium, following the in-game leader benching from Team LDLC in February. The 27-year-old has assembled a team with Belgique flair, with his former LDLC teammate Antoine ‘to1nou’ Pirard joining him. To1nou has delegated his AWP to Younes ‘YOUYOU’ Ait-lalla, the young AWPer from lesser-known Francophone team ARES. His older brother, and teammate, Faris ‘FARIS’ Ait-lalla will flank him, and Adil ‘ScreaM’ Benrlitom, a player who needs no introduction, will round out the roster. Ex6TenZ will expend all energy into helping to1nou, YOUYOU and FARIS to help develop and achieve results in their biggest LAN event in their careers thus far. ScreaM will try to find his star-fragger power again, notorious for his ‘one-taps’ with the AK47. His form was shaky in 2017 compared to 2016, only finding a 1.11 LAN rating compared to 1.14, but still a good score overall.

Team Belgium qualified on virtue of a quarter-final appearance in the WESG 2017 Europe finals, falling to Swedish team GODSENT. Their win against Virtus.pro will surely not earn them many Polish fans but the team still looks to push ahead. Their defeats against fellow mix-team Russia and to French team EnVyUs show their weaknesses. Belgium will need to work hard to beat Group C opponents, another mix-team in the form of Wololos, the Spanish team also having nothing to lose. Chinese challengers ViCi also look like a possible threat, and having never played against Parallax, Ex6TenZ cannot fall back on old demos to help him overcome these threats.

Bravado Gaming

The top dogs of Africa, Bravado Gaming have dominated the nascent scene since 2014. The organization were invited to DreamHack Winter 2014, a Valve major. The team only found three rounds across 2 maps, a slap in the face for African CS. Bravado went home and continued to dominate their home region, their only worthy opponents coming in the form of Damage Control and ENergy eSports. Dimitri ‘Detrony’ Hadjipaschali is the veteran force of the team. He is the only player remaining from the lineup that participated at DH Winter 2014, and serves as the in-game leader and AWPer of the team. He has managed to rebuild a South African team that has plenty of potential to improve as the remaining four players have a mean age of just 20.

In January, the team decided to make a change and ventured out of their comfort zone, moving to North America to develop their skills and talent, and compete against more experienced teams and players. The team has only played online and are based in the West Coast, but has competed favourably against Premier competition, winning against the likes of Team Dignitas and ex-Iceberg, and close losses against Pro League teams such as compLexity and Torqued show this team has some potential to become a force against NA teams. The team failed to qualify for ECS Season 5 after falling to Brazilian crew TeamOne. Aran ‘Sonic’ Groesbeek has looked very decent against tier 5 teams online, getting a 1.29 rating in his 17 maps in NA so far, but it is important that this form translate offline. Similar sentiments go to Ruan ‘ELUSIVE’ van Wyk, who was generally the best player in their best of 3s against compLexity and Torqued.

Detrony and his team qualified by winning the WESG 2017 African finals. Bravado’s caliber of opposition will be raised once more, as they are matched with EnVyUs, who could take the tournament outright. They will be practising and getting their house in order, now that their second group stage spot is secured due to Team Ukraine and Viva Algeria pulling out.

Russia

A mix-team consisting of Natus Vincere, Gambit, and Flipsid3 players, Team Russia appear to be a dark-horse to take the tournament. Gambit’s Denis ‘seized’ Kostin serves as support, with Flipsid3’s Georgi ‘WorldEdit’ Yaskin at the AWP. Mikhail ‘Dosia’ Stolyarov and Natus Vincere’s Denis ‘electronic’ Sharipov will deal damage and clean up frags. Egor ‘flamie’ Vasiliev will not be attending, due to ‘personal issues’ causing him to withdraw. As a result, Dmitry ‘hooch’ Bogdanov will be his replacement, making the team weaker than its planned iteration despite his planned leadership. The team placed in the playoffs spot at the Europe finals, losing 2-0 to fnatic but beating Belgium and Hungarian team GameAgents. As with Gambit’s issues, the main focus will be on consistency, something that Dosia and seized have struggled with over the last month on Gambit. Overall, the whole team needs to step up from their performance with their usual teams, a big requirement for a mix-team like Russia.

The team is set in Group D, featuring SK Gaming, the strongest team at WESG in terms of past achievements. Ricardo ‘boltz’ Prass, in particular, will try to regain his form from 2017. Russia will also face off against German stalwarts BIG, who have two new, hungry players in Tizian ‘tiziaN’ Feldbusch and Niels ‘luckeRRR’ Jasiek, trialing for the team. Both players are out to prove themselves and aren’t afraid to do a lot of damage against experienced teams. Chinese team New4 round out the group, the team playing with promising rifler Yi ‘gas’ Ding, and 5Power’s Peng ‘xiaosaGe’ Song, a highly dangerous marksman. Overall, Group D should provide some fireworks in their matches, and Russia will be careful to avoid getting hit with their weakened lineup.

SZ Absolute

Japan has never produced a CS:GO team of repute, but upstarts SZ Absolute are looking to change that. The quintet was not invited to the Asia Minor – Boston 2018, and this will be their first time against experienced opposition. The average age of the team is 20, and is headlined both in age and frags, by Koji ‘laz’ Ushida. The 22-year-old AWPer has gotten only positive stats at every event in his career thus far. This will likely change, playing against Major champions at WESG, but it is still an interesting fact. His LAN rating is 1.32, showing legitimate skill. However, as in-game leader, his teammates help support him unlike the support IGL player structure used by western teams. Tomoaki ‘crow’ Maruoka is the second best player on the team, the rifler displaying a 1.05 rating. 17-year-old Takemori ‘t4k3J’ Shogo is the key to winning, as his inconsistent LAN form led to a 1.02 rating. Only 50% of his ratings at LAN were above 1.00 and it usually led to a win or a loss. Support player Ryo ‘barce’ Takebayashi, and entry-fragger Shibasaki ‘poem’ Yumeki, both have a 1.00 LAN rating.

SZ Absolute qualified by winning against Middle Eastern team Chosen5 2-0, in the Asia-Pacific Regional finals elimination match. Before that, they only won against GameTV from Vietnam. It was a stroke of luck that they managed to qualify, but the beasts from the Far East will be hard pressed to keep the good fortune going as they are up against two Major champions; Cloud9 and fnatic. The draw was very unlucky for them, and they’ll need to practice hard in order to upset these two teams. Canadian pug team The Onliners are the last team in Group G, and SZ Absolute must fight tooth and nail to win their match-up. The best scenario is to get double digits in all of their matches, and learn from this experience. They will return to their homeland, a far better team, if that comes to pass.

ViCi Gaming

A team often overlooked by their own social media team, Zhuo ‘advent’ Liang and his group have a chance to prove they are worthy of the ViCi Gaming moniker after being shunned by their official Twitter account. The team made a roster change, replacing George Zhi Hong ‘aumaN’ Liu with Zhen ‘HZ’ Huang, whom some fans have referred to as the ‘Chinese dennis’, drawing comparisons between Dennis ‘dennis’ Edman’s pistol play and HZ’s. The new-look ViCi roster hasn’t played an official match after the Chinese New Year of the Dog, so this tournament is where 2018 truly begins for them. AWPer Bin ‘Savage’ Liu, in-game leader advent, and Bingyuan ‘tb’ Li, have all served as IGL at one point at ViCi, showing no lack of leadership within the team. This will be important to get HZ, Savage, and WeiJie ‘zhokiNg’ Zhong to play at their full potential.

Hong Kong native Wing Hei ‘Freeman’ Cheung, has been the star player of the team, finding a 1.39 online rating thus far in 2017, only getting negative ratings against Korean number.1, MVP PK. However, he is disqualified from playing due to the one nationality rule, meaning ViCi will have to dig deep and put zhokiNg and Savage into star positions that Freeman usually plays. The 24-year-old rifler has a 1.21 average rating in 2018 and hopefully can translate his form to LAN. Although Savage is the most experienced AWPer, his form dipped in the 17 maps that the team has played. Half of his games resulted in negative ratings, a very bad look for China’s best AWPer.

ViCi qualified for WESG 2017 through winning the China finals against Flash Gaming, a hotly contested best of 3. They have little experience playing against top-level teams, which will definitely be a disadvantage and softens them up against world-class players. ViCi have played against MVP, fellow WESG participant New4, Red Wolf and ex-T.O.T, relatively low-level teams. It will be a rude awakening playing against the likes of ScreaM and mixwell. The Kiwis, Parallax are their best shot to take a win in Group C and advance out of the group. They’ll have to win against either Belgium or Wololos, which is an uphill task but not impossible. ViCi are a dark horse to go far, but the most likely outcome is a group stage exit, something the home crowd don’t want to see.

Wololos

The Iberian force of Wololos has convened for WESG. Óscar ‘mixwell’ Cañellas, formerly of OpTic, has made it his mission to show Spain is a country to be reckoned with in the CS scene. Mixwell has recruited Christian ‘loWel’ Garcia Antoran, another player cast away from a top team, for his attack. LoWel has something to prove after being dropped from mousesports and a failed project at Team Dignitas. Aitor ‘SOKER’ Fernández and IGL David ‘Kairi’ de Miguel come from x6tence White, while AWPer Rajohn ‘EasTor’ Linato finishes the roster, hailing from G2 Esports.es, the Spanish team of G2 Esports. Having been burnt by bad teammates, mixwell is especially anxious to see how his team performs, especially their work ethic and attitude. In an interview with HLTV.org, mixwell remarked, “While I think it’s possible to make a Spanish team, eventually, I have to see it with my own eyes, first”. WESG will be a major test and evaluation for mixwell’s gang, to say the least.



The team placed in the quarter-finals at the Europe finals to claim a spot at WESG, winning against past and current Major legends, BIG and Quantum Bellator.Fire. They crushed Belarusian team Nemiga and drew against Space Soldiers. In the playoffs, they fell to eventual Europe winners, Team Ukraine. LoWel, mixwell, EasTor, and SOKER have stepped up individually in their wins but against Team Ukraine, no one particularly stood out. This may be a problem going up against Team Belgium, their main rivals in Group C. ViCi and Parallax look to be smaller threats but still dangerous, as ViCi is widely seen to be China’s third best CS team. Wololos look likely to make a deep run in the playoffs, or fall in the group stages. It will be up to the Spaniards to draw out their fire and use their swords carefully.

