It has been a while since we heard much from our owner’s organisation camp. Rasta Gaming has announced their return to competitive CS:GO with a brand new team ready to hit various LAN events and online events over the course of 2018. It is a team that is very much comprised of some familiar names within the UK scene.
After bouncing around organisations for the past couple months, Rasta Gaming has brought in the former Team XENEX line-up. After being separated from Team exceL, in some notable circumstances, they swiftly joined Team XENEX but, due to a mix of circumstances, they’ve moved on once again.
After three qualifiers, and four contentious invites, the ten teams for the inaugural season of the UK Gaming Tours have been completed. All of these teams are set for play, when the league starts on the 17th January. All of which intend to battle it out for spots to the LAN finals.
Yesterday the first round of the Elimination Stage was played out and we saw 4 teams get knocked down into the Lower Semi-Finals these teams were as followed;
We also saw the other 4 following teams keep their place in the Upper Bracket;
Lower Semi-Finals Round 1
For the first few matches of the Lower Semi-Finals consisted of VATIC Vs Rasta & Odin Vs Dragon, the loser of these two matches will be set out of the Elimination Stage and will compete in the Intermediates later, there Intermediates can be found here.
VATIC manage to send Rasta out of the main competition taking both maps in the BO3 series 16:9 & 16:8 making a breeze for their first game in the Lower Brackets. As for 7th seeded Odin eSports and 6th seeded Dragon eSports the series is won be another 2-0 going in favour of Dragon 16:8 & 16:7. Dragon eSports & VATIC gaming advance onto the second round of the Lower Semi-Finals.
Upper Semi-Finals
The winners from the previous night of games were sent through to the Upper Semi-Finals. The matchups consisted of Radix eSports Vs DOG Gaming and Bulldog eSports Vs uFrag Gaming.
Radix winning their series over VATIC Gaming 25-22 & 16-2 move onto play 4th seed DOG Gaming, yesterday Smooya was a key player for the Radix side being consistent in all their games putting up a real challenge for all contending teams, first map being played out was Overpass which started off with the first half going in the favour of Radix 8:7, DOG Gaming having a CT side which had it’s hiccups meaning Radix took full advantage winning the half. The second half get underway with DOG taking the pistol round but proves to not be enough and Radix close the game out 16:11. Radix only needing one more game to take the series win, DOG get off to a headstart on Cache the pistol round goes to DOG but Radix shortly answers back with a set of round wins, each team trading rounds then Radix slowly begins to break down DOG Gaming’s economy winning the game by the smallest margin of 16:14.
uFrag Vs Bulldog eSports, uFrag previous sending Dragon eSports to the Lower Semi-Finals & Bulldog taking Odin out of the Upper Bracket. The game starts off on Cache which uFrag previously won against Dragon 16:8. Dragon eSports end up closing out the game 16:11 with the 1-0 map advantage in the series, moving onto Overpass the game reaches double digits with Bulldog closing out the game 16:12.
Lower Semi-Finals Round 2
uFrag being sent down alongside DOG Gaming play against the likes of Dragon eSports and VATIC Gaming. One game being between the two of the top seeds of the event uFrag & VATIC, the second game consists of two closely seeded teams DOG & Dragon.
uFrag Vs VATIC, first map being played out was Train a map of which had been fairly unplayed up until this point goes in the favour of uFrag 16:10. Advancing onto Cache uFrag need only one more win to progress through the Lower Brackets, Cache shortly becomes a very close game VATIC just fall short of winning the second map but uFrag prevail and win 16:14 moving through the brackets. VATIC are sent down to the intermediates.
For the final match of the Lower Semi-Finals, it’s a clash of survival between DOG Gaming and Dragon eSports. The first map went over to DOG Gaming in a heated 16:14 scoreline. Dragon eSports manage to keep themselves alive in the Lower Semi-Finals by answering back with a map of their own ending 16:11. In an all tied up, DOG Gaming take the early game 7-0 and finish the first half 10:5. Dragon eSports attempt to keep themselves in the game but fall to DOG 16:12 ending the series 2-1 to DOG Gaming.
If you wish to check the Elimination Stage out click here. Make sure to follow EpicLAN on Twitter for updates on all match scores & information.
uFrag & DOG Gaming are currently playing the Lower Consolidation 2 Round on stream live on EpicLAN1 make sure to tune in.
Another great weekend has come to an end at Kettering Conference Centre, and it is time to release the epicEIGHTEEN final standings.
The original plan for the tournament was for just the top 2 teams of each group to go through, but after an uproar from some teams it was amended to make a 16 team knockout stage. Normally this would cause panic as time is always a factor at epicLAN, but the tournament ran more or less to schedule throughout the weekend.
It was a weekend of highs and lows; some teams soared past their seed, and others failed to meet the expectations set by their seed. Thanks to the tournament sponsors, CRISPsrv and Unikrn, this tournament had a £3,000 prize pool split between the top 4 teams. First place claimed £1,725 and free tickets to epicNINETEEN. Second place got £875 with a discount on epicNINETEEN tickets. Third place also got discounted tickets along side £300 cash. Finally fourth place got £100 in the bank, but no discount.
| Place | Team | Roster | Seed |
| 1st | Rasta Gaming | robiin, kryptix, CRUC1AL, mole, aaron | 1st |
| 2nd | Perilous Gaming | SpeedyG, ALIG, ZEO, Sliggy, MiGHTYMAX | 5th |
| 3rd | Team Infused | Redsnk, Joee, dream, Roma, Jenko8 | 2nd |
| 4th | uFrag | adamxoxo, JT, Esio, Jak3y, Powell | 4th |
| 5th-6th | Molotovs N Marshmallows | fearLess, Berty, EB, chronic, maxyB | 3rd |
| 5th-6th | exceL eSports | GhosT, EMPEROR, KoRaL, Outy, calv1n | 7th |
| 7th-8th | playhackz | cookeh, HoodluM, dUdley, archer, m1tch | 6th |
| 7th-8th | Impulse Gaming White | wave, nukeddog, kplus, wafu, xpecx | N/A |
| 9th-12th | Exertus eSports | doxcs, Rexplite, Edgarz, m1thy, redgar | N/A |
| 9th-12th | RødGrødMFløde | Jacky, alexsomfan, thamlike, jzprG, Ruuulz | N/A |
| 9th-12th | Odin eSports | MontSta, 5haBo, Kai, Dm_God, ShadowmaN | N/A |
| 9th-12th | Limitless Nation | KEHZUH, oakmerch, Koagu, Hawkins, Synzo | N/A |
| 13th-16th | Old Dirty Badgers | GabrieL, Ollz, Vicious, Elk, LynXeh | N/A |
| 13th-16th | VATIC | PEZ, K1NDEADLY, Pommey, RIXJ-, h0rsey | 8th |
| 13th-16th | Bizzle | kallehlol, Ibbsy, BreaK, MESA, Reverential | N/A |
| 13th-16th | Devine eSports | paraAsite, Trials, l0renzo, Daffernn, SDK | N/A |
Rasta Gaming claim first place at epicEIGHTEEN
So there you have it, the top 16 teams of epicLAN. However, this doesn’t bring us to the end of our epicEIGHTEEN coverage. We still have a couple of videos left to edit which we will be releasing later this week, so keep an eye out for those.
With the tournament in full swing it wasn’t long before we had our first upset of the group stages proving that seeding isn’t everything. The match between Rasta and Plus44 was tipped to be a good game and with Mirage as the map of choice it had every opportunity of being a close game.
Rasta started off the stronger team, winning the early game with good mid control and eventually taking a 7-2 lead. It appeared that Rasta would close out the rest of the half with relative ease, but a great piece of tactical play from Plus44 saw them flanking the attacking side and taking the round. This was the catalyst for an inspired comeback and from that round Plus44 never looked like slowing down. The second half saw Plus44 repeatedly pushing the A bombsite and Rasta were not able to find a solution to their aggressive style and that saw them succumb to a 16-12 defeat. With Plus44 beating the second seed in group F, it leaves them in a great position to finish top 2 while Rasta will have to have to work hard to see them qualify for the prize bracket.
Following the game we caught up with LogaN from Rasta and he had the following to say:
We lost a game we shouldn’t have and we are going to put the performance behind us and push on to qualify for the prize bracket. We need to go into our next game confident and build from there.
LogaN not happy with the performance
