epic21: What you need to know?

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In a time where our coverage has been severely lacking over the last couple of months, it seems that epic.LAN has crept around the corner and is pretty much upon us. This week will see plenty of teams head on down to Kettering Conference Centre, and it seems to be one of the most stacked events we have seen in a long time, albeit helped by the good solid mixes we are seeing.

epic.LAN is having it’s twenty first LAN event, and it has been a steady growth plan. With 10 events now being hosted at Kettering Conference Centre, there is still time for the epic.LAN boys and girls to expand and grow organically in the venue. The key areas has of course been esports within the UK, with Counter-Strike, Dota2, Overwatch, Starcraft2 and Hearthstone all returning to the event again. There will be just short of 440 participants which makes it epic.LAN’s largest Summer event to date, and whilst not quite a sell out, it certainly will be a busy LAN event, with almost 28 teams in Counter-Strike there at the event.

The Counter-Strike community has continued to rally behind epic.LAN events and for that I am personally thankful. We know that teams take time out of an already hectic schedule to keep supporting our events and that we do appreciate. We spent the best part of a good two or three years trying to entice people to come to our events and now we can safely say that we can keep growing with some interesting developments being made behind the scenes both for epic.LAN as a whole and even at Kettering Conference Centre (for those unaware, KCC was bought up by a company called Compass who have proposed plans to build a new 190 room hotel on site). If you want to spend a good amount of time, best to check out this relevant interview done by our friends over at Esports News UK who grilled Jon “Winbar” Winkle over epic.LAN and our plans going forward.

The Teams (some of them anyway)

Radix eSports (r0m, Danceyz, ozzyxd, dreaming, dOMM)
Reason Gaming (Kray, Thomas, HoodluM, kARMApangya, CINDER)
Team CeX (resu, Astroo, LiamS, hemzk9, L1NK)
Impulse Gaming (xpecx, Rybak, oli, BluRRyy, Alf)

Enemies In Disbelief (logzi, tamsteR, dafsani, Trials, Ruleh)
Cardinals (neggies, Puls3, logaN, Ryde, Gizmo)
Name Undecided (Pommey, roma, JDD, jadam, Boaster)
Another Name Undecided (Sliggy, MightyMax, Jenko, Kryptix, TBA)
exceL & Infused (Luzuh, Whindanski, conoR, MCK, ec1s)

Danny Dyer’s Chocolate Homonculus (Jacky, Snodz, Jak3y, Yoshi, JT)
The Goose House (TGH, Jackblk3, AcEY, LukeJM, EddieK2)
Saviours of the UK Scene (maarc, Linky, rcunliffe, hazbiNNNN, cunliffe)
Team Descend (MontSta, 5haBo, dino, DM_God, Kai)
Team RevolutioN (breezee, Kempy, cookeh, halz, dream—)

All other teams can be found on the relevant page on the epic.LAN Tournament System.

The Casting Lineup

Jamie “SwitchBladeJay” Martin
John “JohnAllen” Allen
Jamie “Squid” Stewart

Producer: Jordan “OfficialMisty” Johnson#

There will be various guests throughout the weekend, from Jack “Jacky” Peters and Ryan “Flakes” Oliver.

The Admins

This LAN will see two brand new admins thrown into the deep end. With Jasmine “Veracity” Kanuga and her brother out of the picture due to going on holiday and prioritising other events, an extensive search was to be had for suitable replacements. It didn’t take long before certain people got involved and asked to help out. The following two have an extensive background in playing within the scene and are looking to providing the CS:GO community a pair of safe hands when it comes to tournament running.

James “wAVE” Dunn
Jon “CynicJon” Burvill

The Format

We always are welcome changes to our LAN formats, and we have often changed it based on previous LAN feedback (from surveys or at the event), and this LAN will be no different to that. The format for this LAN is going to be much of the same from epic20.

Group Stage

• Groups of 5/6
• Best-Of-One
• Top 4 go through

Elimination Stage

• 16 Teams
• Best-Of-Three
• Double Elimination

Please note, that this format is subject to change due to sign ups on the day or dependent on admins. Make sure you attend the Team Leader briefing at 10:30am on Friday morning to find out how it all pans out.

The Schedule

Thursday

• 2pm – Downstairs Bar Open – Checkin commences
• 4pm – Event Opens
• 8pm – Opening Ceremony
• 10pm – Tournament Sign ups CLOSE

Friday

• 10:30am – Team Leader Briefing
• 11am – CS:GO Group Stages Begin
• 5pm – CS:GO Group Stages Finish (expected, could change depending on sign ups)
• 9pm – Round 1 Elimination Bracket commences

Saturday

• 10am – Elimination Stages kick off again
• 12noon – Intermediate Tournament kicks off
• 9pm – Upper Bracket & Lower Bracket Finals kick off

Sunday

• 9am – Lower Bracket Final (aka Third Placed Playoff/Consolidation Final)
• 12noon – Grand Final
• 4pm – Event Closed

Generic Information

epic.LAN Central Stream
epic.LAN Counter-Strike Stream
epic.LAN Twitch Hub (if you are into all your esport titles)
epic.LAN Twitter
epic.LAN Facebook
epic.LAN Instagram
epic.LAN Tournament Website

What is there to do at epic.LAN?

For those of you who maybe are less interested in the Counter-Strike tournament at epic.LAN, there is a whole host of extra activities at the LAN this weekend. Here are some of the plus points throughout the weekend.

Opening Ceremony (Thursday 8pm)

Always something you should get involved in, it’s filled with a bit of banter, some freebies, and a lovely speech from certain people at epic.LAN. It gives you the basic heads up of what to expect at the LAN over the weekend.

Pub Quiz (Friday 8pm)

Something that is quickly becoming a staple of the epic.LAN events, it has it’s share of “in jokes” between staff and dedicated community members, but it is a great chance to relax, chill out and get drunk.

Beach Party (Saturday Evening)

Kettering Conference Centre are going to love this aspect. On Saturday evening, there will be a beach party theme running throughout the LAN event, there will be karaoke, a poor playlist from the 90’s, catering provided by KCC, who will be cooking up some BBQ treats for the masses, and even better, lots of beach themed cocktails from the bar. Make sure you wear your Hawaiian shirt, as the worst Hawaiian shirt will get a drink at the end of the night.

Overclockers UK

Overclockers UK will be at the event providing a Virtual Reality “lounge” and chill out area inside the event, and will be a great chance to have a play with some of the latest technology in the gaming world. They will also be having a noblechairs chair on display for those of you who enjoy giveaways, so make sure you give them a cheeky check out.

d20 Board Game Stall

d20 were hugely popular last year at our Summer event, and they are returning to show off some of their latest board games, with some enticing demos, and other products that you can buy and play with. They will be hosting a “Pandemic Tournament” which should last a few hours and provide lots of fun.

Board Games Area

Our hugely popular board games area is always full throughout the event, and we expect it to be no different. Where you can participate in games of Cards Against Humanity, or a wider variety of board games, there always seems to be something for everyone.

Fun Tournaments

Something that a lot of our regular casuals seem to fill out, but we do have smaller fun tournaments with prizes up for grabs, if you aren’t playing in Counter-Strike, there is always some fun to be had in games such as Rocket League, Street Fighter, and League Of Legends.

We will be having more coverage, interviews, reactions and many other things over the coming weekend with a variety of teams, so make sure you keep in touch with UKCSGO in the run up and during epic21 through our Facebook & Twitter pages.