When John “Dutchy” Holland and James “Mad” Debono formed the Made in Kettering roster with Richard “zulu” Wood in April, each had former ESEA Advanced experience. Now, the British/Finnish combine are one game away from returning to the division – but they face some surprisingly star-studded opposition in order to get there.
Dutchy (far left) competing with Royals at EPIC.LAN
Made in Kettering
Dutchy left Royals in the middle of their promotion push because he wanted to start his own project with himself as caller. The first name on his list was his former EKO team-mate Mad, who had himself returned from a spell on the sidelines after his benching by EKO in mid-2022, and they were joined by zulu after he parted ways with dripmen. They were rounded out by former JANO youngster Otto “ottob” Virtanen and initially with ex-Arctic Raptors AWPer Will “wfn” Maskrey, but when wfn stood back from the project, his place was taken by another Finn – Kasper “kappe” Lampinen.
With ottob now wielding the “big green” the team set about proving themselves on the server. They qualified for ESL Premiership from the open qualifiers and went on a run in ESEA Open, winning their opening 7 games including a win over Julia “juliano” Kiran’s G2 OYA. Despite losing to REDraGEN, they would not let that phase them, ultimately finishing 3rd with a 13-1 record. On May 15, Next in Line picked the team up for the remainder of the season. Though the team would exit ESL Premiership in groups – a 14-16 defeat by sakana123, who pipped them to a play-offs spot, proving costly – they would nevertheless continue strongly in ESEA Open play-offs. Despite losing map 1 and being in overtime on the second in their semi-final against yologang420, they powered through and rallied back, taking Overpass in a dominant 16-5 fashion to secure a grand final against the new Team ESC lineup.
Edward at StarLadder
Team ESC
Their opponents are the long-rumoured but now official new lineup of ESC Gaming, an organisation that has fielded lineups of varying nationalities including, for a brief period in 2014, a future Astralis in-game leader Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander. Other famous alumni include Fatih “gob b” Dayik, Phil “whindanski” Nicholas, and even Poland’s “Golden Five” in the latter days of 1.6.
Ioann “Edward” Sukharjev was the first player announced for the roster. The 35-year old Ukrainian is known for his two stints with Natus Vincere: a stint in 1.6 that saw them win numerous tournaments including Intel Extreme Masters IV & V and a 6-year stint in CS:GO where they won ESL One: New York 2016 and ESL One Cologne 2018, along with a runner-up finish at the FACEIT London Major 2018. He was benched in 2019 to make way for Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhaylov, and while he has continued playing since, it has largely been in the lower tiers of the game.
After Edward was announced on May 26, the rest of his compatriots followed. Vladsylav “bondik” Nechyporchuk will be the most familiar to fans, having competed with Hellraisers from 2016 to 2018 including a run to the quarter-finals of the FACEIT London Major. Oleksandr “Smash” Turchyn competed with Esports Club Kyiv on and off for the last 3 years, while Maxim “MUV” Ulyanchenko and Daniil “t3ns1on” Kashura are largely unknowns, with each having only competed in a handful of HLTV games. That said, it did not take a genius to figure out the team – they have been competing in ESEA Open all season. After losing their opening fixture to Coolermaster, the Ukrainians have since gone almost unbeaten – dropping only one further game (a forfeit loss at that) and finishing 12th overall in the regular season, and only a single map in the play-offs.
What’s at stake
Well the winners of the best-of-three will receive the tantalising sum of $1,000 – don’t spend that all at once, lads – but more significantly they will also achieve promotion straight to ESEA Advanced, while the runner-up will go to ESEA Main.
This ‘skipping’ of a division is incredibly helpful when climbing ESEA’s ladder. ESEA Main has 188 teams and 48 play-off spots, and in recent seasons those play-off spots have been decided on round differential due to multiple teams finishing on a 9-5 record – UK side BearClaw Esports one such team to miss out in season 45. The state of the division has been criticised as a ‘bottleneck’ for ESEA as a whole, and it would no doubt be massive for Dutchy’s men to make Advanced at the first time of asking, much like UK squad Heaven and Hell Esports did in Season 40, just to avoid the risk of getting caught in that bottleneck. It’s also important because teams in Advanced are more likely to get invited to external tournaments such as CCT. Heaven and Hell became 1PIN and later Coalesce, and from being in Advanced they not only improved from taking on higher-quality opposition, but also were able to receive invitations to international events where they performed admirably, winning Kayzr League Fall 2022 and reaching the quarter-finals of CCT West Europe Series 3.
One thing is for certain. Dutchy, Mad, zulu and company will not be afraid of the star wattage they are facing – the boys who were made in Kettering will no doubt show their more famous Ukrainian opposition that though they may be lesser names, their frags count exactly the same.
