Group stages at LAN are always a fickle beast, as we saw last Insomnia where ROCCAT were dealt an upsetting blow, being dumped out of their group by uFrag and dsk.esports as well as a little earlier when FM-eSports were dealt a huge upset against surprise package Pick ‘N’ Mix.
One of the upset games was that Monumentalis, the team seeded in Ninth, ended up losing their first group game 16:14 to unseeded Kicked Dropped Reformed. This is obviously a huge blow to the newly picked up side, especially after some quite strong performances in the Online Qualifier for the the LAN. The KDR team, made up of flukeR, dm_God, imm0rtal, Ka1z and MontSta^, currently sit alongside Monumentalis in the Group A table on six points a piece as they now compete for who will take one of the qualification spots for who will head through to the main part of the tournament, alongside Odin eSports and the Polish Team PRIDE. Group A is gearing up to be a tough, close group.
In other similar upset news, in Group D NerdRage went extremely close to receiving a kick in the teeth against IGI eSports, one of the lesser known sides in the competition as they just about managed to win 16:14 against the former UPRIZE side. The side lead by redSNK was 11-1 up in the first half, before a massive comeback from the IGI boys brought themselves up to 14-14, before NR’s experience showed through to finally close out the game before it went drastically wrong for them.
Taylor “TAZARINI” Duke, IGI eSports’ In Game Leader, had this to say about their performance.
We were 11-1 down in the first half, we just gave them too much respect. As we moved into our CT-side we built up confidence and stopped giving them as much respect. NerdRage played with absolutely no respect for us as they underestimated us as we came back. It’s an impressive performance for us, especially as it’s the first LAN event for three of our side, however, nerve’s certainly had an impact on both our games today due to this.”
We’ll keep you up to date with any more upsets as and when they occur – it’s gearing up to be an exciting LAN!
