EPIC.LAN 45 saw a massive jump in VRS points available due to the extra HLTV games featured. Usually, only the top four teams play on HLTV, and with four matches featured, the maximum wins you could get were two. This time around, 12 teams featured on HLTV, and the maximum games you could win was six.
The reason for this major change was the introduction of European Tier-2 competition like Iberian Soul, ranked 41st in the world before the event.
This means that EPIC.LAN now has more max LAN wins than Fissure Playground I, IEM Cologne, Blast Bounty Season 2, Esports World Cup, BLAST Open London, and ESL Pro League Season 22 Stage 1. For teams that are yearning for VRS points, coming and competing at EPIC.LAN can push them into Tier-2 or even Tier-1, perhaps.
The main incentive for EPIC.LAN is the Valve Ranking system, including an extra modifier, which increases the relative power of LAN results over online results. Combine this with the prize money curve function, and teams can benefit massively from a successful trip to Kettering. But victory is not guaranteed.
The question is, who benefited, and did European teams reap all of the rewards and leave the local teams in the dust?
AaB, the overnight sensation
The young Danish team were the dark horses of EPIC.LAN 45, making it all the way to the grand finals after beating Iberian Soul in the upper bracket final. Unfortunately, they couldn’t lift the trophy as Spaniards got revenge to win out in Kettering.
Even though AaB didn’t win the whole event, they gained the most VRS points from the event, and will benefit from their trip to Kettering the most.
The reason why they gained so many points for making it to the finals, and Iberian Soul got almost six times fewer points for winning, is that AaB were one of the lowest-ranked teams in the world. Ranked 223rd in the world, AaB gains so much more from the wins on LAN, the head-to-head reward, and the prize money earned.
So, therefore, because AaB beat Glitchtech, 8Sins, and Iberian Soul, they now put themselves within the threshold of European Tier-2 invites. Starting at 115th in Europe, AaB now leapfrog up to 55th in Europe, which allows this team to compete against the best teams in Europe for the first time.
It is very easy to say that AaB won EPIC.LAN 45 without lifting the trophy.
AaB getting into the EPIC.LAN spirit
UK CS still…did well?
At face value, NXT and 8Sins did worse than the last event because of their placements. NXT, the three-time winners, only placed fourth, and 8Sins, the previous finalists, only got 5-6th. Funny thing is, these two teams benefited more from EPIC.LAN 45 than they did playing in the grand finals of EPIC.LAN 44.
Last event, when NXT (then ALASKA) won, they only got 55 points from beating CAD and 8Sins to win the event. In comparison, this time around they scooped up a whopping 116 points by beating Recognised Talent, The Last Resort, and 8Sins.
This means Tom “arTisT” Clarke and co sit 63rd in the European VRS rankings, only 12 places behind their peak of 51st at the beginning of the year. This is a massive jump up for this squad, which has been struggling to gain VRS invites over the last month or two. All in all, NXT has benefited massively from EPIC.LAN going international, despite placing lower than usual.
8Sins still gained 40 points, even though they only got one win on HLTV against Max “MiGHTYMAX” Heath’s bezos bois, and lost to AaB and NXT. This, unfortunately, didn’t impact their VRS rank too much as they go from 96th in Europe to 90th, still outside of the invite threshold.
Teams like AaB and The Last Resort would have benefited massively from the prize money earned, as they hadn’t earned any before. 8Sins wouldn’t have been able to benefit from that feature to the same extent, as they already have money earned from EPIC.LAN 44.
NXT gains more points from a 4th place finish at EPIC.LAN 45 then a win at 44
Prize money earned is king
The Last Resort, objectively, had a bad event. But because of how the VRS system works, due to winning one game against Adam “AdamJC” Colwell, they get massive gains from EPIC.LAN 45.
Prize money works in a bit of a strange way in the VRS. There is a steep curve function for when prize money is first earned. Therefore, because TLR hadn’t won any prize money, their earnings of $102 equate to 42% of the points you’d get if you had $50,000 in winnings. As a result, even though The Last Resort only won one game, the $102 they earned in prize money adds up to almost 100 VRS points [see graph below].
To show how valuable winning just $102 is, it evens out to 31% of 150k in winnings and 26.3% of 250k in winnings.
Now, if you were going to win the LAN and hadn’t earned any money beforehand, the $2348 would give you as many VRS points as 59% of 50k in winnings, 44% of 150k in winnings and 37.2% of 250k in winnings.
X axis is prizepool earnt / clamp (currently 500k) – Y axis is output value. Times by 400 for points – Credit: Mischief
Therefore, The Last Resort still come away from EPIC.LAN 45 nine places higher in the European VRS leaderboard, placed at 76th. This isn’t a guaranteed spot in Tier-2 European tournaments, but it is right on the threshold, which means if a few teams turn down the invites, they will be next in line.
This result from TLR could be enticing for newer teams who don’t think they can place within the top four, but still high enough to get prize money and gain major VRS points from that.
The Spaniards and Swedes move up the rankings
Compared to some of the others who attended EPIC.LAN 45, Iberian Soul and Alliance were looking to gain VRS points not to compete for Tier-2 events, but rather to push themselves into Tier-1 Counter-Strike.
Iberian Soul is at the forefront of this, as they secured their place within the top 30 of Europe after their victory in Kettering. Alliance, on the other hand, might not be too pleased with their third-place finish. The only way that either of these teams could walk away from EPIC net positive is if they win the event. Sure, Alliance got 76 points, but they only went from 35th to 33rd in Europe.
They would have been coming over with one thing on their mind: to win the event and jump into the top 30. Regardless, they didn’t lose anything and still gained points, but does that validate the costs of coming over to Kettering?
Iberian Soul edge their way closer to Tier-1 Counter-Strike
FUT can’t do it on a rainy night in Kettering
The new French super team embarked on their second trip to a BYOC LAN this year, and similarly to their performance at Glitched Masters, they are not walking away pleased. It is good to keep in consideration that Nabil “Nivera” Benrlitom couldn’t attend last minute, and Christophe “SIXER” Xia had to fly over as an emergency substitute the morning of day one.
Regardless, even though FUT gained an eye-watering 205 VRS points, this only puts them 83rd on the European rankings, which might not be high enough to start receiving invites for Tier-2 European tournaments.
It is certainly a step in the right direction, as they started 134th in Europe before EPIC.LAN 45, but they will not be satisfied with a 5th-6th place finish.
FUT don’t leave EPIC.LAN 45 with what they wanted
