Dead simple: three winners and three losers from EPIC 41. Obviously, The Neighbours took home the title, but we’re looking a little lower down the order for this piece.
Side note: we are not counting mixes for the “losers” category – we don’t think it’s fair to hold them to the same standard as proper teams. Regardless of that, pretty much all of the mixes performed within expectations.
Winners
Coalesce
Seeded: 5th. Finished: 3rd
Not a massive over-performance, but they were able to outmuscle The Last Resort (#4) consistently and took down #3 seed Rum Bumpers in a late-running Lower Bracket Final on saturday night. They could not trouble eventual champions The Neighbours, and will rue missed opportunities against K10 in the upper-bracket semi-final – the team in purple let two match points slip and lost in overtime on the third map. Still, it suggests DuckDuckGoose’s run at UKIC Season 0 Finals was not a fluke, and the additions of Matthew “moz” Gelder and Will “wfn” Maskrey look like a success.
Flowstate
Seeded: 13th. Finished: top 6
Another LAN, another over-performing mix from Lorenzo “LTH” Venturini. This one must feel especially sweet as both LTH and Jack “Sorex” Renton-Cooper saw their former teams (Raptors EC and Invictum respectively) exit before them. There was some disappointment at losing a close game to the Rum Bumpers mix, meaning they were knocked out before HLTV, but considering they entered as the 13th seed, they overperformed expectations by a long shot. They even took The Neighbours to overtime in the upper semis. Maybe LTH really is “better than you think”?
Royals (DepressedRoyals_666)
Seeded: 6th. Finished: top 6
The return of Kyle “Swaggy” Wilson to a LAN hall is always a win, but especially this time around. In Wolverhampton at EPIC39, the Royals crashed out in 9th-12th place; back in Kettering, they finished just short of top 4, with wins over Souls Land, Anita Max Wynn and UKIC Div 2 rivals RAPTORS EC meaning that they lived up to their #6 seed, only falling to the previously-mentioned Coalesce. Does that mean we’re putting them here for essentially living up to expectations? Yes, but it’s our list, and also they were probably over-seeded if anything.
And shout-out to The Neighbours too. Yes, they were expected to win. But after the month that the ex-7AM core have had, we can’t leave them out entirely.
Losers
The Last Resort
Seeded: 4th. Finished: top 8
They can claim to be victims of seeding, with three games against Coalesce and a lower-bracket elimination match against #3 seed Rum Bumpers. But as in-game leader Adam “AdamJC” Colwell admitted, they should have won at least some of those matches, especially after taking the lead against The Neighbours on Friday. Considering the core of this team were runners-up last time out under the K10 banner, failing to make the HLTV stages represents a big step down.
Souls Land
Seeded: 8th. Finish: top 12
It’s all gone wrong for last EPIC’s surprise package. After narrowly missing out on the UKIC Season 0 Finals, they failed to pick up a win in Season 1. EPIC started well for the #8 seeds with a comfortable win over mix Anita Max Wynn, but a 13-0 by The Neighbours in the second round seemed to damage their confidence. Further defeats by Shaman Esports and DepressedRoyals_666 condemned them to the lower bracket, and though they pulled out wins over Invictum – thus avoiding the indignity of being grouped – and BTEC NEDS, they could not withstand the Rum Bumpers in the lower-quarters. Last time they made HLTV, this time they left with no prize money at all.
Invictum
Seeded: 10th. Finish: Grouped
Changes were made to this roster at the end of last season after narrowly staying in UKIC Division 1. Unfortunately at EPIC.LAN their struggles continued – admittedly, not helped by flight problems for Turkish player Cansky. Needing one win in two attempts on Friday for play-offs, they fell first to whipping boys Souls Land (see above), and then to the Katana Gaming roster they had beaten just hours prior. To make matters worse, their former captain Sorex made top 6 with the flowstate mix while Invictum could only watch. The tenth seeds brought Israeli fifth Shoval “SuraniZ” Surani over for the event; let’s hope they gave him some entertainment for the long flight home.
We were inclined to put RAPTORS EC on the list, but they matched their seed (top 12 finish / 12th seed) so that seems slightly unfair, especially with the changes that came straight afterwards.
