This time last week I was enthusiastically talking about how, mathematically, the MDL could be home for up to five UK sides next season. I had no hope or belief it would happen, but still find myself disappointed that it won’t. While I had drawn up a ‘best case scenario’ plan for what could happen, it seems the opposite has happened since. The MDL can see three UK teams next season maximum, I’ll discuss who could have made it, and who should make it. With the last matches that could affect playoffs today, I’ll look at who could have made it, and who can make it.

This is the first team that could have made it, and I really hoped they would have, since [...]

Continuing the fashion of exporting UK talent to the North American ESL Pro League, Ian “Immi” Harding has been announced as the head coach of NRG. His future was previously unknown after being removed from Endpoint earlier this month, after the squad was forced into roster changes when previous teammate Tramaine “stan1ey” Stanley was transferred to Ghost.

The end of epic23 saw just two teams remaining, as fish123 came up against the Bulldog Mix in the game to claim the £1900 first prize place. With this being a weighted best-of-five, fish123 have a small advantage over their opponents thanks to their upper-bracket run.

The first map was Overpass, where fish123 claimed the pistol round and first anti-eco on their CT-side, before Bulldog secured a forcebuy in round three to get onto the board. From there the Bulldog started to claim a small lead, with robiin and jenko impressing, before fish123 started to get back into the game and even it up.

A small break occurred because of some networking issues, before the game [...]

Tramaine “stan1ey” Stanley has left Endpoint and moved to North America to play with Ghost Gaming, it was announced today. The 19-year old Brit becomes the third CS player from the UK scene to move to North America during the Global Offensive era.