ESL UK Premiership: The Group Stage Week 3

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With two weeks down, and five to go, we are now onto Week 3 of the UK Premiership, the top tier of UK’s domestic calendar. Last week saw some of our pundits get it horribly wrong because Week 1 results ended up being incredibly edgy. However this week should see some of the teams settle into their respective forms and hopefully we should see some emerging title candidates and playoff candidates in the making.

The UK Premiership Finals will be heading to Leicester where only one of these eight teams will get crowned champions, and walk away with the biggest share of £10,500. Only four of these teams can make the play-offs at Leicester and certainly it should be intriguing how this all develops especially with our first two weeks of pulsating action we’ve seen. We’ve had the pleasure of watching some cracking games between AlterYourEgo & United Estonia and of course, United Estonia & Team uFrag where it went down to the wire.

Last week saw the UK Premiership return to some normality, with the “shocking” results behind us, we managed to see two incredibly one sided victories this season, with AlterYourEgo steam rolling Team XENEX, whilst Team CeX managed to turn up this week and absolutely dominate The Working Men. It should be clearly pointed (as we are working with Richard Lancaster’s kpd.io website development with statistics, demo’s and player profiles), that Kristians “CINDER” Bogdanovs is currently the stat leader with +26 K/D ratio at the moment. He has been absolutely going ham this season despite the first match loss for his team.

The matches were going to get better surely? We had two rather old school organisations going up head to head with Infused & Reason Gaming. Reason shocked the first week taking Team CeX down, but they really didn’t manage to take the win here this week as Infused bolstered by James “Lumji” Webb addition on the roster managed to see off Reason on de_cbble. Meanwhile, Team uFrag screwed the pooch quite literally, after leading 14:10 they managed to lose the following 5 rounds to United Estonia. In a rather intriguing and strange turn of events, Team uFrag looked to secure the Overtime with a 2v1 afterplant scenario, however they never heard the ninja defuse, and United Estonia took an incredibly thrilling match 16:14.

Week 2 Results

Team XENEX 3:16 AlterYourEgo
Team CeX 16:4 The Working Men
Team Infused 16:10 Reason Gaming
United Estonia 16:14 Team uFrag

Week 2 Panel Results

Duck – 50% (Overall: 70%)
Emperor – 50% (Overall: 50%)
Ash – 100% (Overall: 80%)

Current Standings

As we can see United Estonia are now the only team with a 100% record, they beat AYE in Overtime in Week 1, and struggled to beat Team uFrag in Week 2 (despite uFrag having the possibility to force the overtime in a 2v1 afterplant). Team CeX, AYE & uFrag currently sit in the playoff positions due to Round difference/Head 2 Head records. Team XENEX are the only team to have lost both games this season so far (although 1 was a default).

The Teams

• AlterYourEgo – Immi, Esio, MightyMax, Peggyyyy, Quiver
• United Estonia (Reigning Champions) – HS, fetjz, Boaster, MCK, Joee
• Team Infused – redsnK, Dream, Roma, Jenko, Lumji
• Team XENEX – Gizmo, logaN, LIFELIKE, JPK, sHAW
• Team CeX – medic, CINDER, Charley, resu, Spandex
• Reason Gaming UK – keita, batham, conoR, miNi, REAZN
• The Working Men – jakem, dUdLeY, tsack, fre1, robiin
• Team uFrag – adamxoxo, HypeIzBack, Yoshi, Powell, xfp

The Panel

Michael “Duck” Moriarty – UKCSGO Journalist

Michael is one of our journalists here at UKCSGO.com, he has written for many different organisation websites including Team Acer, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Reason Gaming. His CS knowledge is relatively restricted to recent times as he has no prior knowledge or playtime in the UK Scene from either CS: Source or 1.6 and therefore his opinion should be treated as a relatively new to the scene.

Luke “EMPEROR” Ingram – Team exceL In Game Leader

Luke is one of the UK scene’s well known fringe players, he currently is playing for Team exceL who will be heading to epic.EIGHTEEN in June later this year. Luke has a rich history in the domestic Counter-Strike Scene, having started playing CS: Source, he has been around the block in many different communities including both Ministry Of Darkness and Rasta back in the day.

 

Ashley “ashhh” Battye – Former Team uFrag player

Ashley has often been on the fringes of the UK Scene, however made his official break out in last seasons UK Premiership with Team XENEX. He also featured in the Team uFrag lineup which courted headlines at epic.SEVENTEEN but then flopped massively at insomnia57. Nowadays, he can most likely be seen playing with the likes of long term friends Eddie “eddie” Dixon and Richard “Rhaz” Hazzard as they formed previous teams such as Team MINISTRY and often go to iSeries tournaments as a group of friends enjoying their dynamic style of CS. Ash can rifle incredibly well and is one of the few people who can frag well enough when calling.

Guest of The Week – Neil “nEiLZiNHo” Finlay – Former fm-eSports/BEASTS player

Neil is one of the most familiar names in the UK Scene. He has a career that has spanned nearly 10 years now, and with that career he has achieved so much most notably under the fm-eSports tag,where he has won multiple insomnia LAN events and managed to make headway in the Counter-Strike:Source scene back in the day. He has a wide knowledge of the scene, and how some players interact with each other. His calling abilities were called into question during the early days of the UK CS:GO Scene, and many people didn’t rate Neil much, but he managed to perform admirably in iSeries events such as insomnia48 & insomnia49.

 

United Estonia Vs The Working Men – 7pm

Michael “Duck” Moriarty

Time to get back into form and get something right this week. United Estonia are currently top of the table after two extremely close games, with the first week heading into overtime and their second week ending just before OT where luck ended up on their side. TWM on the other hand, had a disastrous second week performance against a CeX side who are still getting used to their new ranks, where after demolishing Infused the first week they themselves got demolished. If UE can keep up their steadfast and unrelenting form that they’ve been showing (including HS who recently was recently let go from his CSGO2x team) they should take this from a mix side who are, arguably, pretty strong.

Luke “EMPEROR” Ingram

Well The working men decided that turning up to week 2 wasn’t on their agenda at least not mentality, United Estonia managed to pull off a comeback against ufrag with the dubious defuse stick with 2 members of ufrag claiming to not of heard it. Either way this game to me is pretty straight forward week 1 working men show up and we will have a game on our hands, week 2 and United Estonia won’t have to much to worry about. Having said this United Estonia so far have only really shown up in the second half of their matches and they will need to stop this trend as teams such as the working men you can see work well off momentum. I am sticking with a UE win 16:10.

Ashley “ashhh” Battye

I’m not quite sure how UE are 2-0 right now, but somehow they are and with TWM losing heavily to CeX last week I expect them to go on and make this three wins out of three. By no means will this game be a whitewash but the UE guys have mostly played together for a long long time now and I don’t think TWM will be the side to stop them.

United Estonia to take this 16:12.

Neil “nEiLZiNHo” Finlay

I can’t really see estonia losing this one. I think Boaster has been the standout player for the estonian side in the last few weeks and I expect him to continue his good form. Working men do have some talented players though so I can see them stepping up if they are on form. My players to watch would be Boaster and of course robiin but also fre1 from Working men, i think he has a lot to show. Could potentially be a close game but i think it’ll be 16:9 / 16:10 to Estonia.

Team XENEX Vs Reason Gaming – 8pm

Michael “Duck” Moriarty

Well, XENEX being the weakest team in the tournament should hand this to Reason Gaming. However, with what was a fairly poor performance against Infused the previous week anything could realistically happen once again… But Reason simply have the quality to overcome XENEX, setting themselves up for three losses in a row.

Luke “EMPEROR” Ingram

I thought xenex would get beat last week and i think the same this week however they didn’t seem to do themselves justice and i predicted them to get more rounds than they did, hopefully they put up a bigger fight this time around. Reason questionably ended up on cbble last week against infused which i thought was a mistake and if they can stick to the tried and tested maps then they will overcome xenex with ease, even still i think landing on unorthodox map reason will come out on top but why risk it? I am going with 16:7 again this week towards Reason.

Ashley “ashhh” Battye

I don’t think anyone expects this Xenex side to win a game this season and as I’ve said before I think they just need to use this experience to get better as a side as they are out of their depth as it is. Reason will win this very comfortably and their loss last week to Infused will be nowhere near enough to cause a potential upset. Maybe Xenex will come out of their shells a bit more this week and show what they can do, but I think this Reason side will shut them down quickly and end the game before it properly starts.

Reason should take this 16:5.

Neil “nEiLZiNHo” Finlay

I don’t really think i can see reason losing this one, they are definitely under-rated and despite the hiccup vs Infused last week, I don’t think they’ll be in any danger vs XENEX. I think miNi is probably my player to watch for this week from Reason and lifelike seemed to be a decent player from XENEX although I’m not sure if he’s still in the lineup. 16:6 to reason.

Team Infused Vs AlterYourEgo – 9pm

Michael “Duck” Moriarty

With both sides bouncing back after a difficult first week for the pair of them, it’s all up in the air over who will win between the dominating AYE and an Infused who are finally finding their feet. Given the talent and success that AYE have had in the European scene (including qualifying for the ESL Major League on Friday night and only just missing out on qualification for ESEA Premier) as well as quiver and Esio both performing well in both their games, and if they keep that up it’s set to be a whirlwind fixture with AYE taking it.

Luke “EMPEROR” Ingram

As i thought Alter your ego looked like a team wanting to get rid of their first week choke and xenex were the punching bag for this. This game to me will be a sign of where Infused are right now because they looked comfortable on cbble and the previous nerdrage team favoured it so will be interesting to see how they do on the likes of D2/Mirage/cache and Alter Your ego is a team to test them on any map. Alter your ego to me has the advantage here and i am feeling a win for them. Score for this game? I am going with 16:13 to Alter your ego.

Ashley “ashhh” Battye

I would have liked to have seen this game come up on the last week of the season to really give both these new rosters time to grow and structure themselves, and because Infused have been forced into a roster change in bringing back Lumji for Ozzy just over a week ago I think AYE will have the edge in this fixture. Good wins for both sides last week but I think as it is now that AYE take this fairly easily.

AYE 16:11

Neil “nEiLZiNHo” Finlay

This is the by far the most interesting game of the week. Both teams have solid ingame leaders in Immi and redSNK and I think it’ll come down to who is more on point aim wise on the day. I think if Lumji is playing then that will tilt the scales in favour of Infused – if not then I can see AYE taking it. Mightymax is one of the players I rate the most in the UK right now so I think him and Lumji are the ones to look out for. Whatever happens it’s going to be a close affair – I think 16:12/13 for AYE.

Team CeX Vs Team uFrag – 10pm

Michael “Duck” Moriarty

CeX had a blinding performance against TWM last week, which should set them up for another good week this time. However uFrag are still looking for a stable fifth to add to their roster, but would definitely be looking to bounce back from their disappointing display against UE. However, CeX have been showing some solid performances (their first week loss was pretty close) and have CINDER performing exceptionally well for them as well, I can only see the CeX side winning it I’m afraid.

Luke “EMPEROR” Ingram

Where to start with this one? ufrag will be gutted after last weeks antics and no doubt it will be in the back of their minds. CeX decided to give me a massive middle finger to my prediction last week and turn up to the game looking a team we more expect from a CeX line-up but it all comes down to if they can convert this into consistency. ufrags roster for this game is unknown and i feel CeX are on the rise. I want to vision both teams with a victorious outcome but I can’t see past CeX.

Team CeX to take this 16:12.

Ashley “ashhh” Battye

CeX slaughtered TWM last week in a game I thought would go to the wire… Charley has been in fantastic form so far and leads the entry fragging charts and he will most likely run wild here as this is the perfect time to play a depleted uFrag whos roster has had further issues. I really hope uFrag can sort things out, as recent bad luck and players changing their minds has put them in a really difficult position and this might just kill any recent motivation they’ve built up… If they get a good start then maybe uFrag can sneak this one but I think CeX will be delighted at the timing of this fixture and that they will take this one without needing to break sweat.

CeX 16:6.

Neil “nEiLZiNHo” Finlay

Another decent matchup on paper, I think uFrag are playing this out as a mix and haven’t really been playing much lately so I think CeX will probably take this one. Cinder is by far the standout player for CeX and just seems to be getting better and better everytime i watch. Charley is also a notable mention for someone who can step up. Stann1ey is a really good up and coming talent and he could do some damage for uFrag, so can players like Powell so maybe this has the potential to be close but I think if anything CeX will still see it out with a 16:10 scoreline or thereabouts.

This concludes our predictions for Week Three in the UK Premiership, to follow the progress of all of these matches, then make sure you tune into the ESL UK Twitch Stream on this evening from 6:50pm, as each week will have all four matches going until 11pm.

For those of you who haven’t been able to watch the games each Monday, ESL UK have a rather nice collection of the streamed games on their YouTube channel, be sure to check it out over at ESL UK Youtube Channel.

We will have more coverage of the UK Premiership over the coming weeks, including statistical breakdowns of all the major players in the league, interviews, and more prediction articles on a weekly basis. Make sure you keep yourselves posted to UKCSGO.com as we continue to cover the top tier of UK Counter-Strike. You can follow us on Twitter and like our page on Facebook for further updates so you never miss a beat in the UK Scene.