Insomnia56 is round the corner and will be taking place at the National Exhibiton Centre in Birmingham on December 11th – 14th and this looks set to be one of the most fiercely contested iSeries in recent times. For the last week, there has been rumours that several European teams were going to make the trip over to the wet and windy shores of the UK. We can now put to rest some of the rumours that both Team Vexed of Poland and Gbots of Spain, will not be in attendance as previously feared. However onlineBOTs of Estonia and the former Team ROCCAT (now under the name Team MIXCAT) of Finland will actually be coming to insomnia56. We’ve also recieved confirmation that the Belgium/Dutch team AT-Gaming will be making another attempt at an iSeries experience, after they have previously been at insomnia53 where they had lost to the fm-eSports roster at the time in the upper bracket before being defeated by the TLR roster at the time in the lower bracket.
We don’t often get a chance to talk about European teams, as these teams nowadays tend to look at the bigger picture instead of going to more local LANs, but iSeries has proved this year they can attract some of the European’s brightest from the depths of Tier 3 and school some of our more notable teams. Of course, this is actually the second time this year we’ve seen EU participation at an iSeries event, as insomnia54 played host to the Spanish team x6tence and the Portugese team k1ck. x6tence went on to win the tournament over fm-eSports in the final with a 3:0 whitewash series. Meanwhile k1ck had only managed third place after beating Team Infused before succumbing to fm-eSports at the time.
This article will look at the various teams coming over and what their chances are realistically like even though this maybe covered in more depth in an iSeries Preview we have penciled in for the moment.
onlineBOTS
Nuga, Cheti, Fetjz, HS, Alex
The bulk of this team is built around United Estonia so we should be incredibly familiar with some of these names. They of course managed to recently win the ESL UK Premiership LAN finals back at the end of October and since then they’ve been desperate to replicate this form elsewhere. Whilst they are a pretty solid team, their pedigree is marred with the fact that they don’t have real LAN experience in spades, and when I mean real LAN experience, I mean the days where delays can happen in spades (usually at an iSeries event) and that matches can be lengthy, with 15 hour days being a real possibility with CS.
onlineBOTS did recently attend the Portugese LAN event called AlienTech AllStars where they came through a group with Publiclir.se with 2:1 record, before making it through to the Semi-Finals of a Single Elimination bracket by beating AlienTech 2:0 and then losing to k1ck 2:0 which ended their run through to the final. They squared up with Publiclir.se once again in the third placed decider but couldn’t muster up the win after a rather closely fought match losing 16:14 on de_cache & 16:10 on de_inferno.
With more of a UK field at this insomnia56, I wouldn’t be surprised seeing these guys make a good deep run (benefiting from our rather archaic double elimination format) in the bracket, and scaring a few potential UK hopefuls.
Team MIXCAT
suNny, stonde, CISU, juho, xarte
The former Team ROCCAT are also in attendance and with their line up, I seriously wouldn’t be surprised if they were potential winners elect here. One of the team members here suNny actually has attended an iSeries before when he and Max “ruuit” Aspe joined forces with JT, vertiGo & Jstar in PCHire.net at the time where they managed to grab third place on the podium at insomnia52 last year.
Suffice to say the other players haven’t (I believe anyway) attended an iSeries so maybe ready for a shock when they arrive on our shores to be greeted with the usual 10 hour delays (it won’t happen this time Jon will it?) and teams who shout “go back to your own country” (Oh Kritikal). Still this team has the potential to rip any of our best teams at this event to shreds and stop a UK team from winning the event.
Two of this side actually played against a UK team in the form of CAZ eSports back in August in the DingIT Weekly Cup, where the Team ROCCAT actually had jOELZ & JALLU assist the side to win in a comfortable fashion of 16:6 and 16:11.
MIXCATs last set of results though was back in November where they were at the ASUS ROG Nordic Challenge LAN event, where they actually managed to win over Publiclir.se 3:1 to win the event and scoop $5k in the process. The only difference to the line-up that won that event is a swap from disturbed to CISU. It should be interesting to see what the Finn’s manage to do at insomnia56.
AT-Gaming
slaYn, flashzor, luosrevo, xilo, amose
The last time AT-Gaming came to iSeries, was last year at i53 (the Winter event then) where they managed a respectable 9th – 12th. Despite several roster changes since then they will certainly be looking to really go further this year, and arguably they could achieve that. Their previous line-up did manage to take a map off fm-eSports at the time and will be looking to turn the screw even further at this event.
However their results online really have been lackluster, and I’ve not found much out on them LAN wise. They did manage fourth at Frag-O-Matic and recently won The Reality LAN but both of those events are small scale in terms of EU competition, they are the Dutch versions of iSeries, and I’m a bit wary of making those finishes into a potential UK topper here on our own turf. They do have potential to be quite dangerous to some of the fringe teams who maybe hoping to get Top 8 finishes and get in the money.
It will certainly be interesting following how AT-Gaming do at the event and whether they can do better than their finish last year.
Will you be watching the final? (Source: Multiplay Flickr)
With these three teams heading to insomnia56 it means that once again the UK will have European teams in attendance which is great news considering we also played hosts to x6tence & k1ck at insomnia54 earlier this year, which means iSeries is somehow gaining some Tier 3/4 EU teams to help raise the competitive level of our own scene.
The UK CS:GO scene will certainly be put to test in Birmingham, and of course it will interesting to watch if both Team Infused and fm-eSports can crack the defense’s of all the EU teams, or whether such teams as CAZ or CeX can take a anything off them at all.
We will be on site to give everyone full coverage of insomnia56 so make sure you stay tuned to our website UKCSGO.com.
