The core of the Surrey Stags’ roster has been kicking around for four years, however, long-term player Sk3l3t4l has been competing for the Surrey Stags since 2017. In the past, there were 2 main tournaments the university teams competed in, NSE and NUEL. This was then joined by UKIC later down the line. Sk3l3t4l has participated in every iteration of these events since he joined the roster.
In terms of the roster, however, 2021 was a turning point. After five years, Sk3l3t4l was joined by two players, forming the start of the winning core, Wilson and MaDt0m. Further on down the road, this core would be joined by two more players, Hashlamon and Jite. Completing the five-man team that would see Surrey have its most success.
SouthLANder: the beginning of Success.
Surrey has been known to be a fearsome force within the University scene, consistently a top team just on the outside of titles. The change began for Surrey in 2024, when they competed in SouthLANder. SouthLANder is a yearly university tournament organised by the University of Southampton, open to teams on the south coast. Southlander contains a single elimination best of three format with, as the name suggests, LAN finals.
Surrey began their campaign in SouthLANder 2024 as they meant to go on, with a quick and decisive 2-0 victory over the Sussex Sharks in the quarter finals, which saw them face the hosts, Southampton, in the Semi-Finals. The Stags continued their winning ways when they reached the Semi-Finals, where they disposed of Southampton in a 2-0 victory, maintaining their 100% map win rate.
Surrey continued their dominance at SouthLANder in the LAN finals too. Surrey Stags had one final hurdle to overcome as they made their way to the University of Southampton campus to do battle against the University of the West of England (UWE), the only team standing between Surrey and the trophy. UWE didn’t stand much of a chance as the Surrey Stags continued their unbeaten map record, winning the Grand Finals 2-0 to claim their first title.
SURREY ARE SOUTHLANDER CHAMPIONS @SurreyVGS @IntelUK @nse_gg @UniEsportsUKI pic.twitter.com/1iE2F3nSd0
— SVGE 🦌 (@UoSVGE) March 23, 2024
Winning Southlander was the first notch on this Surrey team’s belt and a sign of things to come. SouthLANder, as a tournament, is a bit of an outlier, it’s not open to the whole university scene and on top of that it doesn’t have a league phase like NSE and NUEL do and as such Surrey still had more to prove if they were going to cement themselves as a consistent title contender.
NSE Summer: The best of the best.
Whilst typically a much quieter tournament in terms of quantity of sign-ups, NSE Summer maintains the quality that the Winter and Spring leagues get to boast. The mix teams of friends that peaked at Gold Nova 2 in Matchmaking, looking to have a good time, rarely sign up for the Summer iteration of the prestigious university tournament.
NSE Summer, like the term-time variants, contains a league phase where teams with similar records are broken off into divisions, with Division One being the main division where the best teams compete for the title. Surrey Stags have routinely found themselves in the top division of University Counter-Strike, but this summer was different because Surrey would find themselves rising to the top of the top.
Taking down formidable foes that they hadn’t played in SouthLANder, such as Cardiff, Warwick, and Sheffield, the Surrey Stags would find themselves against a familiar foe in the final, Southampton. This rematch would allow the Stags to continue to demonstrate their impressive form as they once again took down Southampton two to nothing to claim their second title as a quintet.
UKIC: The old guard and the new
Coming into 2025, Surrey knew they had a job to do. Three-fifths of this lineup would be graduating in the summer, and their window of opportunity to establish themselves as one of the best university rosters was beginning to close. With a third-place finish in NSE Spring, their focus shifted to UKIC Varsity to claim a title.
Something else was afoot too at the university of Surrey, the Surrey Stags are not the only lineup that the University of Surrey puts forward to enter university competitions. The Surrey Sausages found themselves competing in UKIC Collegiate Division Two, the division beneath their main roster. On the 21st of March, the Surrey Sausages took down University College London in a 2-0 affair, claiming a title. This Grand Final took place a week before the varsity final, and the Stags knew what was at stake: there was potential for a double.
On the 27th of March at 19:30, Surrey Stags had a Grand Final to play. They had made the unbeaten upper-bracket run to get there, and once they arrived, they had a reputation to maintain. As of yet undefeated in Grand Finals and with a double on the line, Surrey Stags would have to come up against King’s College London’s TaoTie roster. The best of three went the distance, with the decider being played on the latest addition to the map pool: Train.
Surrey demonstrated their resolve at the end, Sk3l3t4l also put his longevity and experience to good use in the grand finals to show how much he wanted the win, too. Going 23-18 on the final map, Sk3l3t4l topped the server, and the Surrey Stags won the UKIC Varsity tournament to claim a fourth title for the university and their 3rd as a five-man team.
DOMESTIC DOUBLE DONE 🏆🏆
Congratulations @SurreyVGS who take the Varsity title as well as the Collegiate division 2 title 👏
💚@Jite_cs
💚 @Wils0n443
💚 @MaDt0mXO
💚 Hashlamon
💚 SK3L3T4L pic.twitter.com/Xz3SOFBSvS— UK & Ireland Circuit (@UKICircuit) March 28, 2025
As with all good stories, they must come to an end at some point. With Sk3l3t4l, Wils0n, and MaDt0m graduating in the summer, the Surrey first team will lose a core that has stuck together since 2021. The quintet that won Varsity will stick together, though. Their victory over KCL TaoTie earned them a spot in the regular UKIC Division Two, playing just against some of the best British Counter-Strike has to offer.
Whilst the main five won’t be competing under the Surrey banner due to graduations, the victory in UKIC Collegiate Division two shows a lot of promise and talent still resides at Surrey, especially with Hashlamon and Jite sticking around. There’s definitely the potential for Surrey to maintain their place as one of the UK’s best university Counter-Stirke institutions.
