Ahead of EPIC.LAN 38’s start tomorrow the teams will be eyeing up their competition, as the groups have been released. The seedings have been set and this article stands as a summary of some key storylines heading into tomorrow, more of which can be read about here:
Group A
The three top seeds of Group A are eMasters, shushgg and Legates. Once again, Legates have found themselves being seeded into pot three for a second event running which, much to their dismay, puts them up against fierce opposition. Alfie “Rayman” Bench and company will have to silence their doubters and prove that they belong higher up in the rankings. This comes in the form of Shuaib “shoobie” Saddique’s shushgg, who, powered by the newly crowned BLAST RMR player of Rory “cryths” Ursell, are poised to inflict some serious damage to funded teams attending the event once more. eMasters have been seeded first, and as the favourites of the group, are expected to complete a flawless run of matches tomorrow morning. ManHo “mrhui” Hui will have his work cut out for him and his team as the pressure is on, but after being in this position many a time before, eMasters will expect to comfortably earn their spot in the upper bracket of the playoffs.
Last, and certainly not least, is Alexander “SashAFP” Fomin’s 25AVG. Undoubtedly one of the loudest players to grace the halls of the Kettering Conference Centre, SashAFP and his brothers-in-arms find themselves seeded fourth in the preliminary group of the tournament. With Legates and eMasters trapped in the same group as him, will we be blessed with another iconic upset at EPIC.LAN 38?
Group B
Headlined by Arctic Raptors, Group B looks to be one of the tougher groups to traverse on the journey to playoffs. The Rasmus “zodi” Frølich-led squad lead the group’s seeding, and rightfully so, as the only representative to be playing in ESEA Advanced. ROYALS are a close second, currently on a tear in Main with an outstanding 10W-0L record. Despite using two stand-ins for the event, Kyle “swaggy” Wilson looks to solidify his reputation as a consistent force among the iconic UK name by using the firepower at his disposal to sail into the upper bracket of playoffs.
Clique are another team in Main, however, have not seen the same level of success as ROYALS. Their record sits at an impressive 7W-3L, and have managed to field their full 5 man roster for the event. Elias “Rack” Karttunen and Christopher “VireZ” Wegmann have been imported from their respective countries, and Clique have their sights set on the top two seeds in their group.
A multitude of mix teams fill out the remaining spots in the group, one of importance being Binmen International. Joshua “Dweg” Nathan has called for multi-national reinforcements, and with almost 100 hours under his belt leading up to the event, the possibility of Dweg finally making it out of groups may not seem as insurmountable of a feat as before.
Group C
Group C features one of the title contenders for the tournament, Coalesce. Despite Ryan “dox” Young being absent from UK LAN events for as long as a few years, the British-European team aim to translate their online success to the offline server. The team predicted to make them fight for the honour of top team in the group is 3 Friends 2 Foreigners, a mix team sporting various UK talent such as Mr Kettering himself, Jack “JackB” Burton, and new dripman Arkadiusz “ifan” Dabkowski. With European support, this mix team of household names in UKCS will hope to give Coalesce a run for their money in the group stage.
Seeded third is 7thCore, who look to bounce back from a period of instability in Main. Despite a successful opening to the season, the team have suffered somewhat painful losses in succession after four opening wins, bringing their current record to 5W-5L. With top-four player Adrian “Cha0s” Zielinski from EPIC.LAN 37 now part of the team, 7thCore prepare to prove their worth with a solid run in Group C.
Group D
The final group of the tournament is highlighted by Viperio, fresh off of qualification to the BLAST RMR only last weekend. With Javier “Ping” Griffiths as their fifth player for the event, Viperio expect to make a deep run through the event, and stand aside Coalesce as a potential title contender for the tournament.
Seeded second, Vitalize wield Fraser “Frazehh” Sollom as a substitute for their main AWPer for the weekend. Earl “Earl” Stephenson as a player is very familiar with leading mix teams to deep runs at UK LAN events, and with extremely limited practice time in the past few weeks, it is expected that he returns to Kettering to do this same this time round.
Next in the pecking order is K10, who find themselves using two stand-ins for EPIC.LAN 38, in the form of Parco “Xarco” Lee and Andrew “Wolfie” Allan. Coming off of a hot streak in Main as the second best UK team in the division, K10 hope to overturn their third seed and make a statement as one of the teams to beat on LAN this weekend.
Schedule
The gruelling group stage starts 10am on Friday, with best-of-ones decided the standings for the games. Each team will play seven games to dictate their placement. The EPIC.LAN stream kicks off with Jezzies “R” Us Red facing off against K10 on EPIC.LAN’s twitch channel.
