Owen “smooya” Butterfield was the favourite to take home his sixth title and he did not disappoint his fans. Though mix team The Neighbours were diverted to the lower bracket by 7AM, they got revenge when it most mattered in the grand final, and the Huddersfield-born AWPer’s consistent play earns him the Most Valuable Player (MVP) title of EPIC39 from UKCSGO.com.
Honourable mentions
Before we get into praising our MVP, it’s worth considering the honourable mentions from the tournament. Next in Line came third, but Andrew “Wolfie” Allan and Otto “ottob” both achieved a 1.3+ rating over the event, with Richard “zulu” Wood also coming alive once the play-offs started. Admittedly perhaps helped by their dominant victory over Linx Legacy in the lower bracket final.
Runners-up 7AM had two candidates for MVP going into the final game, with Zy “yz0” Esponilla their highest-rated player (1.42 across the event going into the final) and Mason “Vacancy” Haines their strongest performer in playoffs (1.33 vs 1.31 for yz0). yz0 fell out of the running when he was uncharacteristically quiet in the grand final (0.74 HLTV rating) though he made some vital contributions on Nuke to force the Vertigo decider. Vacancy, on the other hand, was top of 7AM’s scoreboard in both the upper bracket final and the grand final, and was their only player to emerge with a positive HLTV rating (an impressive 1.19) in the latter. Had the grand final gone the other way, he would almost certainly have taken the MVP crown.
On the Neighbours team the other candidate for MVP was James “bevve” Slinn. The rifler actually sported the fifth-highest rating at the event and top-fragged on Nuke after a key eco ace in the second map of the grand final. However, in an admittedly narrow decision, he loses out on consistency, with smooya maintaining a 1.48 in the event as a whole; while bevve was no slouch, he had the highest % of kills against low buys at the event at 31.83%, and a bigger rating drop-off after the groups than smooya.
smooya: six titles, one great
Just over five years ago smooya was playing in the grand final of ESL One Cologne. Today, he’s playing in a slightly lower-stakes competition, but his talent on the server remains clear to all who watch him. EPIC39 marks his sixth EPICLAN title, having debuted all the way back at EPIC19 in 2016, where he was a runner-up with Radix Esports – he has lifted the trophy on every single subsequent appearance. EPIC22, EPIC23, EPIC26, EPIC27, EPIC37 and now EPIC39 all sit in his trophy cabinet, for teams such as CeX, LDN SLAYERS and fish123. (This is a new record, one he shares with team-mate Matas “Extinct” Strumila.)
It is difficult to explain the gulf between smooya and the rest of the competitors in Wolverhampton. Over the whole of EPICLAN he averaged a 1.48 rating, .16 clear of his nearest team-mate bevve. (bevve ‘s 1.32 rating was itself clear of his team-mates, and he would likely have been a shoe-in for MVP in any other tournament.) Against Next in Line smooya scored 36 kills on the second map Overpass, distinctly the difference-maker as Neighbours came back from 10-15 down to win 19-16, while he dominated his opposite number ottob winning 16 duels to the Finn’s 7. In the grand final against 7AM he dropped 59 kills and was only prevented from scoring more by his opponents’ low round count. While he did not hit any flashy highlight plays in the grand final, his consistent performance across all three maps was the backbone of the Neighbours’ victory – he was even able to maintain a 1.30 average HLTV rating on the last map despite gifting AWPing duties to William “dobbo” Dobson.
Across the event, he had the highest K/D (1.73), the highest KAST (79.27%), and the second-highest KPR (0.92) having played 16 games. (Trouzzyy, who bested smooya in KPR, played just 7 games and finished in 9th-12th place.) Statistically, smooya was on a different level from the rest of the LAN hall, but it was his ability to do it throughout the tournament that was most impressive.
The Neighbours have been more understated at this event than their previous victory at EPIC37 last year. Fans watching games have noted that their players have been playing as less of a mix, with defined roles including utilising Adam “Adam9130” Ahmad’s experience as a caller, while there has been less trash talk. At EPIC37 smooya thrived on the heel role, being booed by a crowd cheering for eMasters; here, he has let his fragging do the talking, being muted even in victory. The result was perhaps a bit anti-climactic as a neutral, but a statement from smooya and his team: laugh all you want, but the fact remains – we’re just better than you.
smooya‘s presence at EPIC39 has divided opinion. There are some who argue that it is akin to a Premier League footballer turning up to win Sunday league, running rings around opponents and laughing at them for not being as good. In this author’s opinion, this comparison is not without merit but does not paint the full picture. Counter-Strike is a game of skill, and indeed 7AM had opportunities to win the grand final – but they did not take theirs, while smooya and his team-mates did. The storyline of teams trying to take down the star-studded Neighbours mix enriched EPIC39, not least when 7AM sent them to the consolidation final in the first place. The event would have been poorer for smooya’s absence and with him there, we got to once again witness why he is one of the best Counter-Strike players in the UK.
Thanks as ever to @Mischief_CSGO for his stats.
