The 27th edition of epicLAN is well underway. The stage has been set for each team to battle it out for their share of £4000 + event tickets, with a full breakdown of the prize pool found here.
The first day has seen some highlights, with strong favorites coming out on top.
In the final stage of the intermediate tournament, we have an 8 team, best of 3, single elimination bracket. The 8 teams in this bracket consist of four teams dropped from the main tournament and four teams from the Intermediate Swiss Stage.
Throughout Saturday and Sunday, the intermediate tournament runs in parallel with the main tournament. This tournament is for teams that did not make it through to the playoffs of the main tournament.
It is time for insomnia64 Counter-Strike tournament to begin. Once again, the iSeries admin team has opted to go with the famous Swiss group stage, which means that teams will get a set amount of games where they have to fight it out to make it to the elimination bracket. With 44 teams entering (meaning a £6,250 prize pool), it should be an action packed weekend.
The time is nearly upon us, many gamers would have set off yesterday in anticipation for an exciting weekend ahead of them. Some of the CS:GO community will be believing they can be the “next big thing” whilst others will be tired of turning up to another iSeries, going through all the delays that usually happen, and wondering why they bothered. It’s a great mix of people at an event like this and one we are incredibly excited to cover this weekend.
So as we have no official stream or GOTVs on Day one, I decided to tailor my skills and go on a little bit of a writing rampage, especially as the usual crew I play with are also away currently. It is day one of the insomnia63 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament for a whopping £30,000 and I wanted to have a look at the numbers.
The CS:GO Tournament has come to a climatic close. After three full days of compelling Counter-Strike action, it finally has come to the close. We finally get to see who wins the biggest share of £30,000 with some massive shocks, and some great underdog stories once again. This LAN takes us to the end of the Summer LAN run, with the Autumn and Winter LAN season nearly upon us.
In a super twist of events today, insomnia63 has seen a sudden drama happen earlier today in a elimination stage match between Team Unique & Cat345. We’ve seen a few stories in the past at iSeries, from those players who cheat, the great SpacePanda cheating debate, the TLR disqualification, but suddenly not disqualified, we’ve had it all.
In our final interview in the run up to Insomnia we had a chat with Fraser ‘Frazehh’ Sollom to get his thoughts on his team, i63 and the UK scene as a whole. Frazehh is currently the main awp for CeX but has been playing for the vast majority of his life. Fraser began playing Counter Strike Source when he was 4 years old on his dad’s PC. He had an instant love for the game and played non-stop mostly on community mini game servers such as surf and jailbreak. When CS:GO was released, Fraser continued playing and got more of a passion for the core game. He started playing more competitively and honing his skills. When the UK Circuit was launched Fraser spent a lot of time playing in the UK Pro League. He became friends with his current teammates Resu and Liam and decided to make a team. The core of CeX was born. They added Nukeddog and Muffin to complete their squad and began competing.
The team saw strong results early on with a third place finish at i62. The team had a brief spell with Casa following Muffin’s departure and were runners up at Epic 24. JamesBT is the latest addition to the roster after Casa left the team and since he has joined the team seems to have gone from strength to strength on the run up to i63. The squad recently qualified for the epiclan, Grosvenor Casino LAN final as well as the OMENbyHP finals. In addition they got promoted to ESEA Advanced and are looking to qualify for the ESL Premiership when they play in the upcoming relegation tournament. As one of the stronger UK teams in the tournament they have potential to challenge for a top 8 finish or better at i63.
Can you talk me through the roles on your team?
So I’m the AWP player obviously, James is the entry fragger and just sick, Liam supports, Nukeddog lurks. Resu IGL’s and is super underrated in my opinion when he puts the time in. Sometimes our roles change from map to map like Liam lurks and stuff.
How are you feeling with the recent addition of JamesBT. Has he settled in well to your team?
We are all feeling super happy with this pickup, he’s so crisp and fits well for the entry fragger role which we needed. Also he is young and will improve a lot.
How do you fancy your chances at the event? Where are you realistically looking at placing?
I mean we’re not too sure who exactly is attending but I’m assuming there will be a good amount of EU teams, even with the prize distribution. I think we’re hoping for top 4/5.
What do you think about the Fierce Esports roster? Do you think they could cause you issues at the event?
We scrimmed them once and won pretty comfortably but they had only just picked up swaggy I believe. I’m not afraid of any UK team at the event.
Looking more generally at the event, do you like the 16 team prize distribution or would you prefer the normal 8 team pay out?
Definitely 8 team pay out.
Is that for selfish reasons or do you think a more exclusive prize pool could bring other benefits?
I just don’t think you deserve to be in the money for finishing almost last in the elimination stage. Also more rewards for winning teams.
With the increased prize pool what do you think about the state of the UK scene? Do you think the complaint “there’s not enough investment in the scene” is still justified?
I don’t think that is justified, I feel like if they reorganised the prize distribution it would definitely be more competitive.
If investment in the scene is no longer an issue, how do you think UK teams could improve to be competitive in EU?
I feel like a problem with some UK teams is they don’t play enough outside of prac (I know my team is the same). Other than that, spend time watching demos and focusing on themselves as well.
Any final shoutouts?
Shout to Revilo for being amazing and the best manager/owner, all my teammates for being the best as well as being some of my best friends, CeX obviously, and thanks for the interview 😀 See you at LAN <3
The CeX lineup is as follows:
Andrew “resu” Robson
Liam “LS” Scotter
James “JamesBT” Beattie
Harry “Nukeddog” Jenkins
Fraser “Frayzehh” Sollom
We will be covering the whole event throughtout the weekend so be sure to keep up to date with insomnia63 via our Facebook & Twitter pages.
Following on from the previous interview with old timers CbYd, we’ve now looked to a younger team, with a mark to make on the event. We spoke to Kyle “Swaggy” Wilson, the newest member of the Fierce esports lineup. The roster he is now representing is no stranger to the scene, previously playing under the tag Royals in the highest level of UK competition.
