With three weeks down, and four to go, we are now onto Week 4 of the UK Premiership, the top tier of UK’s domestic calendar. We are now just upto the mid-way part of the season, it is now turning into one of the most unpredictable seasons we have seen thus far. The table looks so wide open to any team to take the title, although of course, the league stage doesn’t sort out the title contenders, just the four that make it to the finals.
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. Even last week saw some intriguing results with AYE being beaten, and Team CeX being beaten.
We can’t get enough of this picture, but Team uFrag beat Team CeX again…..
When this season couldn’t get any stranger, United Estonia suffered a bit of a setback last week, as one of their players went MIA, and another had a prior official commitment to make, so were down to three players for their match. Unfortunately as ESL stuck to their “rules” of no re-scheduling, and the 48hour rule being in place for roster changes, it meant that United Estonia suffered a default loss, and gained three penalty points for their problems. This effectively means they do lose some of their prize money gained at a certain percent.
In what seemingly was a routine win, Reason Gaming managed to clock up their second win of the season, and be a step closer to being in the Top 4 for the playoffs. Team XENEX however are still without a win, and it means they are facing an uphill struggle to get Top 4, thus could mean the Promotions Tournament for them is a certainty, and with stiff competition in the Major Ladder (which you can sign up for still) expected, could end up losing their place in UK Premiership.
Most of our pundits expected a close game between Team Infused and AlterYourEgo, and weren’t wrong, but they were completely wrong on who would win. Everyone favoured AlterYourEgo but Ian “Immi” Harding’s team didn’t quite deliver the result. Tom “Jenko” Jenkinson continued his impressive form in this season for Team Infused and managed to take his K/D to +11 for the season with 60 kills and 49 deaths. He also managed two 1v1 clutches that were ever so vital for Team Infused against AYE.
The biggest surprise of the week, was Team uFrag, who have had incredible roster problems over the last month due to players quitting and leaving. Despite all the issues, and of course some issues on the night too (we won’t mention that will we Adam?), Team uFrag managed to only lose 1 round in the second half to Team CeX and managed an incredible performance in beating their close rivals. We don’t have any stats to take away from that game due to the issues on the night, but only Joe “JT” Talbot of our pundits last week, managed to call a Team uFrag win, and he has since gone on to join Team uFrag (which is something we will actually announce soon?!?!). However, it was a big result and puts Team uFrag in a rather decent position going forward with still some big matches coming their way.
Week 3 Results
United Estonia 0:1 The Working Men
Team XENEX 7:16 Reason Gaming
Team Infused 16:10 AlterYourEgo
Team CeX 12:16 Team uFrag
Week 3 Panel Results
Duck – 25% (Overall: 50%)
Emperor – 25% (Overall: 40%)
Ash – 25% (Overall: 70%)
Current Standings
As we can see, United Estonia still sit in top spot this week, whilst our biggest movers have been both Reason Gaming & Team uFrag this week. Meanwhile Team Infused sit in the final spot in fourth place. The Working Men despite picking up the default win are still outside the Top 4, with Team CeX & AlterYourEgo absolutely struggling to break in with the erratic results they’ve had thus far. Team XENEX looking likely for our Wooden Spoon this season, as they are still yet to pick up a win.
The Teams
- AlterYourEgo – Immi, Esio, MightyMax, Peggyyyy, Quiver
- United Estonia (Reigning Champions) – HS, cheti, 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, Jak3y, Powell, xfp
The Panel
M
ichael “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 – Sophie “Sophieee” Bailey – Playing Ducks Female player
Always a controversial choice turning to female CS:GO players for their opinions however, they do watch the same UK CS:GO scene as other players in the scene. Sophie has been playing Counter-Strike:Global Offensive for well over a year now, she is one of the newer generation of players in the scene, and made some headlines when she joined the organisation Playing Ducks with an all female team. She has been wanting to mix teams together instead of going all female, however, as many females get shit for what they do, she’s been unable to do so.
Team CeX Vs AlterYourEgo – 7pm
Michael “Duck” Moriarty
This looks like a pretty even matchup based on previous weeks results, with both teams having close losses last week, stomp wins in the second week and overtime losses in week one. However i have to favour AYE for this matchup. The experience and skill of the AYE team should trump CeX. AYE 16:13 CeX
Luke “EMPEROR” Ingram
Alter Your EGO haven’t had the start to the season and now we are at half way they are going to have to up their game to meet the expectations that most expect from them and what they expect of themselves as i am sure they will be disappointed with the start they have had. CeX seem to of reverted back performance wise last week so we can only hope they show up tonight how we saw them in week 2 otherwise I can’t see this being as close as some may think. I am going for AYE win here 16:10.
Ashley “ashhh” Battye
So I managed to get both of these games wrong last week in fixtures I thought both sides should win fairly comfortably. For CeX they have no excuses in losing to a side that was essentially a mix last week, and I was mindblown to see how their remaining map choices turned into Overpass and Cache of which uFrag beat them both on at the last Epic LAN and are known to be uFrags go-to picks. So far for AYE they have lost both their competetive fixtures and won their game against Xenex, and for that reason I will go for a close CeX win but in all honesty this is a 50/50 game as things stand in a game where AYE desperately need to win.
CeX 16:14 should be a great game
Sophie “Sophieee” Bailey
I think this will be a close game for either team, so I think it’s going to go down to how prepared each team is tonight. AYE lost to Infused last week 16:10, but I feel like AYE can put in a stronger performance this week and give CEX a good challenge for the win. But both teams have lost two of their games so far. My prediction for tonight is AYE 16:13.
Team Infused Vs Team uFrag – 8pm
Michael “Duck” Moriarty
Infused have looked strong over the past 2 weeks with 2 decisive 16:10 victories over AYE and Reason and uFrag are the least experienced team in the league but have managed some impressive results. If Infused play well and don’t take their opponent lightly however, they can win this with relative ease. Infused 16:9 uFrag.
Luke “EMPEROR” Ingram
Infused keep upsetting my predictions and a few of them were swift to remind me of this and to be honest I am looking forward to this game the most this week, interested to see if ufrag have managed to stabilise a little with their roster and performances and i am curious to see if infused can continue the upwards curve, with the addition with JT this to me seems to equal the playing field a little and to me it all depends if both teams can avoid 1/2 maps i am aware both dislike playing. Going to go with infused this time around 16:13.
Ashley “ashhh” Battye
Both these sides caused upsets last week and this is a chance for both to make a huge step towards the LAN and go 3-1 in the standings. WIth Infused having Xenex next week, a win here should realistically send them to a 4-1 record and would require results to go against them in order to not make the finals. uFrag so far have pulled a Denmark at the 1992 Euros as they needed teams to drop out in order to make the group stage, yet they could well be topping the whole thing with a win here. This also includes a loss against United Estonia which they threw away in ridiculous circumstances and definitely should be sat at 3-0 and a win clear of anybody. Infused are the favourites here, but it’s clear at this point that writing uFrag off is foolish no matter what roster they pull out.
16:14 Infused with JT returning and making an impact.
Sophie “Sophieee” Bailey
Considering the constant roster changes of uFrag during this season its difficult to say who will win, however if all players of uFrag are performing well it should be a close game, as they proved when they beat CeX last week. Infused has a line up which has been improving with the addition of Lumji and have been playing well together as a team taking down AYE last week. I think Infused will take this win 16:11.
United Estonia Vs Reason Gaming – 9pm
Michael “Duck” Moriarty
UE’s last few weeks have been a mixed bag, they barely won against uFrag in week 2, a match that they should have won with ease. and just scraped a win against AYE in week 1. and Reason have been looking really strong as of recently. I think Reason can take this one if they play well and make minimal mistakes. Reason 16:13 UE
Luke “EMPEROR” Ingram
UE couldn’t play last week however i don’t see this being an issue for them this week with rust or anything of the kind, HS and co will be more than enough for Reason, although I have been surprised with Reason so far so we could see a tight game, UE have a tendency to only show up when under pressure in second halfs so perhaps Reason could use this as a catalyst to pick up some early rounds. If i am being honest though i am going for a 16:8 United Estonia win here regardless of map.
Ashley “ashhh” Battye
I had United Estonia to win last week and giving away the default could really hurt their prospects of finishing first in the group. Reason are getting to that stage of where they need to start winning every game, as if they lose this they will be down at 2-2 with their easiest fixture already being out of the way. This is probably getting tiring but again I think this will come down to the wire and be a 16-14 result, and my gut is going towards a Reason win though I’m not sure why.
Reason 16:14
Sophie “Sophieee” Bailey
Last week for United Estonia was a def loss. I believe they can bring it back this week against reason gaming, as they have been performing well and are all together a very strong team. Again I think it is going to be a close game between these two as Reason have been putting in work too and have definitely got strong players on the team, however they did lose out to Infused earlier in this season. I think United Estonia will win 16:10
Team XENEX Vs The Working Men – 10pm
Michael “Duck” Moriarty
XENEX have not had a good start to the UK premiership. they’re 0 to 3 in the league with one of the losses being a default. with the names on the team and the players they’re up against, I dont see them getting more than a few fluke rounds here. Working Men 16:7 XENEX
Luke “EMPEROR” Ingram
Will XENEX pick up a win this season? unfortunately not here for me, the working men regardless of being a mix come out on top in all the scenarios i have ran through my head. I would like to see xenex put up a fight especially given The working mens performance in week 2 (week 3 they obtained a default) 16:8 to the working men.
Ashley “ashhh” Battye
This is a proper must win game for TWM and will see them go joint top. It was good to see Xenex showing a bit of fight last week but I don’t want to over anaylse this one as TWM should have more than enough firepower to take this
TWM 16:6
Sophie “Sophieee” Bailey
Xenex have not shown a strong performance at all this season. So this in reality this should be a win for The Working Men, unless Xenex decide to turn up completely and bring the game a little closer than their previous games. The Working Men have a strong line up so should be able to take this game no doubt. The Working Men 16:7.
This concludes our predictions for Week Four 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.
