Last night the ESL UK Spring 2016 CS:GO Qualifier #1 concluded after starting with 124 teams who entered to have a shot at becoming one of the top teams in UK Counter-Strike. For those of you that are unaware, this is where the teams begin their quest for success and is usually referred to as the most exciting part of the entire ESL season as we see the teams refined and tested to the best of their abilities in hope to receive a hefty £10,500 in prize money by the end of the season.
In the round of 128, we saw many familiar faces who did not fail to entertain with Molotovs and Marshmallows smashing Team Wave 16:0 and other teams also providing a good show with the likes of HSFactory dominating Team 2 0 0 2 with a scoreline of 16:1 respectively. In the next round things started to become much closer as the higher seed teams came into play. NerdRage.pro came into the qualifier with a slow start but unsurprisingly saw through a victory against Team Penguin Overlords sealing their place in the next round. Along with them uFrag advanced, who have been previously displaying some promising Counter-Strike even against the best of teams. Despite their not so dominating 16:11 win they still comfortably progressed and drew the gap closer to the final for the team which may of perhaps quaked some of the higher teams according to Tom “VertiGo” Rockliffe who claimed beforehand that some participants were merely scared of his team.
This whittled down the qualifying teams to just 16 and again some interesting results arose. The FM-eSports community took a fast exit from the qualifier with a 16:8 loss against nerdRage.pro. Nonetheless, they still showed some great Counter-Strike and will hopefully bounce back in the next one. A not so well-known team, under the alias of G-Pros managed to take one step closer to the final when they managed to acquire a default win quite late into the bracket. However, this is most likely down to their less gifted of opponents/brackets which saw them all the way into the quarter-finals where they met their match against nerdRage. Still a noteworthy run through the qualifier and good to see some different talent make it into the later stages. On the other hand, uFrag unfortunately lost deeming “VertiGo” ‘s statement void as we saw them take a thrashing themselves from Enraged eSports 16:3 on de_overpass. The Working Men were also beaten by James “fisher” Fisher’s mix team, Sex, denying them an opportunity to seize the cup. The notorious Sam “RattlesnK” Gawn and Fabien “KioShiMa” Fiey made an appearance under Team lol and made it all the way to the semi-finals before a close loss against nerdRage ending 16:13.
In the end it boiled down to the two titans of the 1st qualifier – Team Sex vs nerdRage. This was a real “edge of your seat” finale and a tough BO3 for both sides which went through all 3 maps and one overtime, ending on de_mirage. Here we saw team Sex take the final victory and finish the games 2:1 which means they claim the first qualification spot in the spring ESL UK Premiership season.
Throughout the qualifier there were some strong performances which leaves the door open for another exciting qualifier, and a great spring season.
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