So the first day of the Gfinity UK Championships have concluded, and it has gone pretty much as expected, with only one real upset at this stage. 30 teams started in this tournament, and as such two teams went through straight on byes, which were Choke Gaming (winners of the recent epic.LAN FIFTEEN tournament) and CaZ eSports (second place at epic.LAN). Here is a quick recap of today’s events
The new EZSkins.com team started life officially under their organisation in pure strength, putting out Team Midas in simple fashion, so that there was no questioning how strong this team was. But, this was easy pickings for the team, as the real challenge won’t start until near the end of the competition and the LAN finals, where we’ll see the proper strength of the team.
Team XENEXÂ is a well-known name in UKCSGO, and for all the right reasons as they picked up the previous ESL UK Premiership title as well as having a history of dominating the scene. Even though their line-up is under works, having been raided by the new EZSkins line-up for Puls3, Rattlesnk and mole they are showing signs of the side most know them for dispatching Nautilus in convincing fashion.
This is a game that we couldn’t find a proper score for, but these teams are two real unknowns and Agro dispatching with Visionary in a 2-0 fashion shows you that there could be cause for an interest here…
The only real upset of the competition so far, is that United Estonia – a team most know as being strong in the UK scene, were dispatched in a close couple of games by relative unknowns GamerCrewTv. As these games were close, including an overtime win, we could either discern that the quality between these teams are close or that UE are slowly losing their way in the CSGO world, keep an eye on GamerCrew coming through this competition.
The only game in this round to make 3 maps (ignore graphic), this could have been thought to be closer than it was, but The Hut managing to get two very easy maps after their first loss made sure they got through with ease. SCORE CORRECTION: 2-1. 12-16, 16-5, 16-6
uFrag.AF are a team that have been making waves recently after joining the organisation after formally being known as “Almost Famous”. They also made good progress at epic.LAN finishing in 6th. However against a team that many would not know on in ‘EM’, this would be an easy game to win, and it was with them moving onto the next round in relative ease.
Solstice coming big and dominating in both games, making sure they properly book their place in the next round.
Two fairly close run games for Radical, including an overtime, sees them manage to go through against Equinox and book themselves into the next round.
The Last Resort had just picked up Xpra’s old UK side, and this being their second online tournament under this name they would hope that a proper impact would’ve been made, but it wasn’t to be. MnM making quick work of the TLR side, with their experience and skill showing through to take the game easily.
The only two 16-0’s in this round came in the exact same game, with Hybrid Theory picking them both up. This shows domination and should be a hint of what’s to come. These games also included a handful of 3k’s from Princess and a very impressive 1 v 5 from Xondat on the Hybrid Theory side.
Infused is another well-known name in the UKCS scene, and with the performance to boot, taking out this Barrage team very quickly to take themselves solidly to the next round.
fish123, a team name usually given to mixes of the UK scene, have managed to make a fairly large impact as of late in this line-up, knocking out Reason.uk and Molotovs and Marshmallows (before they qualified in the next tournament) in the first ESL UK online qualifiers to the Promotion Tournament, and also heading into the second round of the tournament’s lower bracket. This form continued here, with them showing that the ‘Mighty Luckers’ may only have enough luck to pick up 3 rounds in the entire series.
Aimazing showing that they do indeed have amazing aim by (most likely) out-aiming IronFailiures by winning their two games in quick and easy fashion.
2seXeh2 proving that they have too sexy gameplay for the Common Exile Saints, as they run out 2-0 winners.
So, with these being the scores for the first round, here’s how the second round of the Gfinity UK Championship pans out.
- Choke Gaming -v- 2seXeh2
- AIMAZING -v- uFrag.AF
- Molotovs and Marshmallows -v- Solstice
- Infused Gaming -v- Radical eSports
- CaZ eSports -v-Â The Hut
- Team XENEX -v- GamerCrewTv
- fish123 -v- Hybrid Theory
- EZSkins.com -v- AGRO ESPORTS
These games should now sieve out the lesser teams of the competition so that the larger teams can continue through and battle their way through and try to make the Gfinity UK Championship LAN finals at EGX. You can also watch the tournament from this stage on their Twitch.tv channel, where it’ll be casted by Richard Lewis, James Banks and Karam “KYAN1TE” Kabbara.
(Thanks to Mark “Princess” Weller for the graphics)
