Intel Extreme Masters: Katowice 2016 - The Disappointements and Surprises

Surprises:

Tempo Storm - finished 5th-6th

Photo by GosuGamers

The team that recently moved to play under the Tempo Storm organization showed the world they're ready to be considered a top team. A few weeks ago they already demonstrated that they're ready for greatness by qualifying for the MLG Columbus LAN qualifiers, as well as winning the North-American qualifiers for IEM Katowice and DreamHack Masters: Malmö, beating top North-American teams such as Cloud 9, Counter Logic Gaming and Team Liquid. Unfortunately for them, at the MLG Columbus qualifiers they first lost to G2.esports, beat Selfless to get to the deciding Bo3 against FlipSide to determine who goes to the major and who doesn't, where they pretty convincingly lost and thus are not going to be attending MLG: Columbus.

Despite the result at the MLG: Columbus qualifier, Tempo Storm came into this tournament ready to show the top European teams that they are no push-over. They started off shaky by barely winning against E-frag, and losing to FaZe Clan in overtime. After the rocky start they definitely showed up by beating both Virtus.Pro and Team EnVyUs. The final match for them in the group was to determine who would win the group, as well as advance directly to the semi-finals and they were beaten by Astralis 16-12 on Cache, thus finishing second.

In the quarter-final they faced of against Natus Vincere that by any means wasn't favoured for Tempo Storm to win. Tempo Storm shocked everyone, by giving Na'Vi a run for their money. The first map was de_Overpass and wasn't in any way a very close game, Na'Vi winning 16-10 and looking to advance to the semis with a 2:0 result. However, on de_Cobblestone Tempo Storm showed to be an excellent T-side team on the map, winning the T-half 12:3. Na'Vi matched their T-side and forced the game into overtime, where Tempo Storm eventually took it 19:15. The last map, de_Mirage, ended 16:13 for Na'Vi but was under the control of Tempo Storm for most of the map. Their inability to get CT rounds proved too much and Na'Vi eliminated them from the tournament.

Overall assessing the matches, Tempo Storm generally played very well and this was but the first of potentially many deep runs at top European LANs. Looking at the players we can see Henrique 'hen1' Teles and Joao 'felps' Cabral had a very good tournament, putting up K/D differences of +37 and +12 respectively, with the rest of the players lacking slightly behind.

At this point we can almost be certain, that this was no one-off performance. They may not be playing in Columbus at the end of the month, but their journey continues on the 12th of April when they again face some of the best teams in the world at DreamHack Master: Malmö.

Mousesports - finished 7th-8th

Photo by Adela Sznajder/DreamHack

Despite mousesports dropping out in the group stage, their performance was anything but bad. Granted the only wins they managed to pick up was a 16:8 vs NiP on mirage, as well as 16:7 versus MongolZ on de_dust2. Irrespective, the losses were great games, apart from the 16:6 loss against Natus Vincere on de_cobblestone. The games against Luminosity and Fnatic were winnable for the team, narrowly missing out, losing 16:14 and 19:17 respectively. Especially on de_dust2 versus Fnatic the star of the team Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač had an absolutely astonishing performance managing to get a whopping 42 frags in the 36 rounds that were played. Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač is a player who arguably could be considered a top 5 player in the world, if not, then definitely top 10. NiKo finished with the best rating out of any player at the tournament, led multiple stat categories, having a K/D difference of +49 behind only Olof 'olofmeister' Kajbjer of Fnatic and Yegor 'flamie' Vasiliev of Na'Vi. All in all the team had a strong performance and showed people they can be a serious top 8 contender at MLG: Columbus.

Looking at the major, mousesports find themselves in group A together with Luminosity, NiP and FlipSid3. In that group mouz have an excellent chance of getting out of the group and getting their first ever top 8 placement at a major. They already beat NiP at IEM: Katowice, demonstrating that beating them is not impossible. The 16:14 result against Luminosity shows that on a perfect day, mouz is capable of beating them too. Although they aren't expected to top their group, this group might be where we find the most interesting storyline out of the entire group stage.

The problem with the team seems to be what happens after Niko. Inconsistency is the thing that plagues the team. Niko's performance shouldn't be doubted, but after him just about anyone can step up at any game. On the other hand, anyone can have a horrendous map or series. If the rest of the team can start playing at a high level consistently, the team can easily mark their spot as a top 8 team.

Disappointments:

Team EnVyUs - finished 11th

Photo by Benjamin Cotton/DreamHack

The most obvious team to disappoint at Katowice. The poor showing at the tournament also seemed to be the last drop for the team, as this week they decided to replace Fabien 'Kioshima' Fiey with Timothée 'DEVIL' Démolon. One of the favourites heading into the tournament saw themselves getting beaten by every team in their group besides a single victory against FaZe Clan on de_Train, closing it out 16:12. In the last match of the group stage, admittedly nothing but last place in the group at stake, they even lost to the underdogs of the group, E-frag, in a game on de_Cache that was clinched 22:19 with a double-overtime by the Bulgarian side. None of the players had a particularly good showing at the event, with Vincent 'Happy' Cervoni being the only one who ended on a positive K/D at +4. The games they played at the event leave barely anything to talk about. A close map against Virtus.Pro ending 16:14 in favour of the Poles and the double overtime match against E-frag were the only two close maps for them. Against Astralis they had problems getting T rounds in the first half. They made an attempt at a comeback in the 2nd half, but Astralis closed it out 16:11. The game against Tempo Storm saw them lose 16:7 against what seemed like a much stronger team on that day.

Now looking ahead to the major again, EnVyUs should still be considered a good candidate for top 4. The skill of the players hasn't disappeared. The guys who were playing out of their minds a few months ago, winning the previous major, still have what it takes to be at the top. Team EnVyUs themselves, probably most of anyone, want to show they still have what it takes and go deep in the major, which honestly shouldn't surprise anyone. Then again, if the form they have been showing lately continues in Columbus they're going to have to fight hard against Gambit and CLG to get out of the group. If replacing Kioshima and bringing in DEVIL was the right move, only time can tell. But the first test will be in Columbus, a chance to prove they're still a top team.

Virtus.Pro - finished 5th-6th

Photo by GosuGamers

Virtus.Pro are a bit harder to rank either as a disappointment or a surprise. They made it through the group, and had to face Fnatic in the quarter-finals, a match they were unlikely to win. Looking at the big picture, they can be ranked as a disappointment, and here's why. The team from Poland who the fans love and were used to seeing do well at the majors, making deep runs, getting at least top 8, if not making the semis or even the grand final. But that era seems to have come to an end. In 2016 the team has only managed to win 5 out of 25 maps and seems to be in trouble. Out of all the games they played they didn't seem very convincing in any. A tight game against struggling EnVyUs on de_Cache which ended 16:14 for VP, a 16:13 win over FaZe that also didn't have the best of tournaments and 16:9 win over the underdogs in the group, E-frag. The quarter final against Fnatic had the Swedes' names written all over it. It's not the fact that V.P lost that makes it a particularly disappointing series, but the fact they couldn't put up any kind of fight in front of the massive home crowd dressed in Virtus.Pro jerseys makes it disappointing not only for the home crowd, but for everyone. The fact that they only managed to get 13 rounds against Fnatic in total over 2 maps speaks for itself. If VP would have played in group A, they wouldn't have played in the playoffs, and wouldn't have got to play in front of the home crowd at Spodek Arena.

None of the players, statistically speaking, had a good tournament, no positive K/D's, and Filip 'Neo' Kubski as well as Paweł 'byali' Bieliński found themselves in bottom 10 overall in the whole tournament. Heading into Columbus this has to change or their streak of making the playoffs will end. They'll have to play against some very good teams in group C, facing none other than Natus Vincere, G2 Esports and Cloud 9. All three of which, in the current state of the teams, are able to win games against Virtus.Pro.

The bottom line is Virtus.Pro showed that their LAN performance is as shaky as they're online, and that is going to be a key point for them and others in their group at MLG: Columbus.



Headline image by GosuGamers

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