The second major of 2018 has just been announced with FACEIT hosting the event in London. This is the 13th major and the first one being hosted by FACEIT, it will feature a $1,000,000 prize pool and will run from the 20-23 of September in the SSE Arena, Wembley.
Gfinity have recently announced two huge deals in the UK to broadcast the Elite Series. In an undisclosed deal, BBC were first to announce on Friday stating that it was the “first deal of it’s kind” and that it would be featured on their online only channel, BBC Three. Meanwhile BT Sport today announced they were joining the hype train and getting involved with UK esports.
This weekend we will be seeing the conclusion of the UK ESL Premiership Spring Season 2016. The setting will be the new ESL UK studios up in Leicester which they opened earlier this year.
During the main season we saw The Working Men perform consistently week after week with one hiccup against CEX which saw this team pick up their only loss. Team Infused, Reason Gaming and United Estonia all mirrored each other’s performances finishing the 7 weeks with 5 wins, 2 losses.
It wouldn’t be a UK event without a couple of last minute roster tweaks, firstly with United Estonia losing HS and getting alexE to replace him at the last minute. Reason Gaming also had a couple of mid-season changes with mini stepping back from the team. He was swiftly replaced with MiGHTYMAX who didn’t stick around very long and so weber was drafted in to fill the spot for the remainder of the season.
The new ESL Studio all lit up – Photo by ESL
Team Infused are coming into this event after a strong performance at epicEIGHTEEN where they claimed third place.
Reason Gaming have also had a strong performance recently too qualifying for the UK Masters and taking part in Cevo Main where they currently only have 2 losses to their name.
The Working Men and United Estonia don’t feature in much outside the EPS, if anything, so it will be interesting to see how their preparation for this event weighs up against two well-practiced sides.
In round one we will see The Working Men take on United Estonia, and Reason Gaming play Team Infused. Based on recent performances The Working Men should make their way swiftly onto the finals where as the Infused/Reason game could be a very close game. Both sides have faced off before recently with Infused coming out ahead, but with the added pressure of being on a live stage, and the LAN experience on the Reason Gaming side, this match could go either way.
The rosters for this weekend are as follows:
The Working Men: solo, fre1, jakem, robiin, tsack
Reason Gaming: Batham, Conor, Keita, REAZN, weber
Team Infused: DREAM, jenko, lumji, redsnk, roma
United Estonia: alexE, Boaster, cheti, Joee, MCK
The scheduling for Sunday will be seen as below:
10:00 BST – Show starts
10:10 BST – The Working Men vs. United Estonia
13:40 BST – Reason Gaming vs. Team Infused
16:40 BST – 3rd Place Playoff starts
17:40 BST – Grand Final Starts
insomnia57 CS:GO Tournament has finally wrapped up, and after an incredible three days of non stop action that teams have provided, we get a chance now to let the dust settle and see the scene once again implode during the height of ESL UK Premiership qualifiers. These are your final standings so that you can see which team finished where.
For the first couple of days, there was always some “underdog” story that was doing the rounds. We saw at insomnia56 how the scene had massively progressed, and of course, this event started off with one of the biggest shocks since Liverpool came from 3:0 down to beat AC Milan in the final of the Champions League in 2005. A team that had been under the radar of literally everyone, decided they would steam roll one of the favourites and one of the most in-form teams going into the event. Pick ‘N’ Mix soon cemented their place in the history books as they saw off fm-eSports in the opening game 16:9. Of course, that meant fm-eSports now had to hope a tie-breaker would be a result or that Pick ‘N’ Mix would lose to others.
The shocks didn’t stop there, Monumentalis had a close match against Kicked Dropped & Reformed where they went on to lose 16:14 to them, nerdRage struggled to close out a match at 11:1 up when IGI eSports really mounted a solid comeback but eventually went down 16:14. Back to Group B, and Pick ‘N’ Mix secured a 16:9 win against Craig “onscreen” Shannon’s side MixedVibes, which meant barring any upsets from some of the sides they had to play, Pick ‘N’ Mix had secured top spot in the group and a Top 16 position.
Wasn’t the best of starts from Immi’s fm-eSports side.
The day closed out with a close shave between Adam “adamxoxo” Rotherham’s side Team uFrag who squared upto Alasdair “AL” Maltby’s side Perilous.Fury, it was an incredibly close match with rounds being traded. There came a pause time at the beginning of overtime (why overtime in groups you ask…. well Battlefy doesn’t count round difference, so H2H and an overall win had to be counted), and Adam decided he had to get his team pumped up for fear of being upset by a team who in theory should never be that close to them (uFrag had beaten Perilous Fury 16:2 at epic.17). The pep talk from Adam obviously worked wonders as they managed to close out the match in overtime.
Day 2 kicked off, and of course, the start of the day really went well for all the big sides bar one of the Top 8. It was Molotovs n Marshmallows time to feel the “underdog” storyline, whilst I had commented on the potential that Monumentalis could make Top 8 in my preview, we hadn’t seen that potential realised until this Best-Of-Three series. In what was an entertaining series, Monumentalis managed to get the better of their rivals and beat them 2:1 on maps to go through to the next round. The lower bracket was where the share of all the upsets seemed to be happening, after Molotovs n Marshmallows had a close shave in Map 1 of their encounter with Impulse Gaming UK, they managed to then go on to beat Team CeX over two maps. It meant that Team CeX, the defending champions of iSeries had been relegated out of the tournament at 9th – 12th. Meanwhile after a breakout tournament at insomnia56 and backing it up with 3rd place at epic.SEVENTEEN in February, Team uFrag also went out at the same stage as Team CeX to the star studded lineup featuring Dan “RE1EASE” Mullan, Perilous.CSGOSPHERE. It meant that some of our big names prior to the LAN, had been eliminated in some rather unique but frustrating parts of the LAN.
If there was a standout run from the entirety of this tournament it would be from Team Ionic, they beat both the seeded team “soz4owned” which in my mind should never have even been seeded, and one of the teams I had highlighted in my preview, BMiCrew, which featured Oliver “Orcl” Stubley in that lineup, they didn’t stop there in the tournament. After a sloppy start to Day 2, Ionic went on to lose against Team CeX and then beat Team XENEX in the Lower Bracket. It got better for the team as they went on to beat 9th seed Monumentalis, and spurred on by THAT victory, they took the first map 26:24 against Perilous.CSGOSPHERE before eventually losing over the two remaining maps. The Ionic team have gone to LAN and wrecked it, they were an unknown quantity, only really seen in ESEA with their default wins they have had in ESEA Season 21 Open League. However they played incredibly well at LAN and made a name for themselves.
The scenes at insomnia57
The Grand Final saw Rasta.Infused and Team Pride go head to head. Rasta had previously won the encounter in the Upper Bracket Final 2:0 with a first map that was one sided, and a second map that Pride completely choked on. Well in similar fashion, de_cbble slipped away from the Poles as they just simply couldn’t hold bombsites to stop the rushes and executes from Rasta. It seemed that Rasta just were on fire, whilst Pride were incredibly sloppy. The first map finished 16:5 to Rasta.
The second map had a surge of Polish incredible plays, and solid lock downs on de_cache. They stormed to a quick 11:4 first half win. However in the second half it became a struggle with both Surreal and Robiin proving incredibly crucial for Rasta.Infused in securing rounds and making the Poles sweat a bit. It looked like we were in for a repeat performance from the Upper Bracket Final, however Pride finally got their act together and managed to secure the win 16:14 on map two.
We moved to de_mirage, and it became a bit topsy turvy as rounds were exchanged left right and centre. The first half managed to go to the Poles, with a close 8:7 scoreline. However another second half performance, again the stand out player for Rasta.Infused was Robiin, who proved incredibly valuable to the side saving them many times. Rasta.Infused went on to win 16:12 against Team Pride, and secured £2,500.
| Pos | Team Name | Prize Money |
| 1st | Rasta.Infused(3) | £2,500 |
| 2nd | Team Pride (1) | £1,000 |
| 3rd | fm-eSports (2) | £600 |
| 4th | Molotovs n Marshmallows (8) | £300 |
| 5th – 6th | nerdRage.Pro (4) | £150 |
| 5th – 6th | Perilous.CSGOSPHERE (7) | £150 |
| 7th – 8th | Ionic | £150 |
| 7th – 8th | Pick N Mix | £150 |
| Pos | Team Name | Prize Money |
| 9th – 12th | uFrag (5) | N/A |
| 9th – 12th | Team CeX (6) | N/A |
| 9th – 12th | Perilous.Fury (13) | N/A |
| 9th – 12th | Monumentalis (9) | N/A |
| 13th – 16th | Impulse Gaming UK (16) | N/A |
| 13th – 16th | Mini Kiev Krew (12) | N/A |
| 13th – 16th | Rasta.KO (15) | N/A |
| 13th – 16th | Team XENEX (14) | N/A |
*Please Note: Seeding’s are shown in brackets
The insomnia57 Champions Rasta.Infused
In the Intermediate Tournament, Team Crossfire had to draft in the services of Ryan “Ryf00lz” Fuller to help them out in keeping with a 5 player team. They faced Odin eSports in the Grand Final and went on to beat Odin, over two maps with a 16:11 win on de_cbble & 16:5 on de_cache. Team Crossfire have secured free tickets back to insomnia58.
The Preview – The Heavyweights
The Preview – The Underdogs
The Viewers Guide
The Seeds
Match Report: fm-eSports loss to Pick N Mix
Match Reports: Monumentalis defeat & NerdRage cutting it close
Match Report: MixedVibes shock defeat to Pick N Mix
Video – Interview with Pick N Mix
Video – adamxoxo rallies Team uFrag
End of Groups Part 1
End of Groups Part 2
The Brackets
Match Reports: Upsets ALL over
Match Report: Molotovs n Marshmallows overthrow Team CeX
Video – insomnia57 Montage
Match Report: Ionic get Perilous-ly close to an Upset
Molotovs n Marshmallows Newsbite
Both Bracket Finals
Match Report: Intermediate Grand Finals
Match Report: Rasta.Infused Vs Team Pride (Grand Final)
Hopefully everyone has enjoyed our coverage throughout this weekend, please make sure you follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook to keep in the know with everything related to the UK CS:GO Scene
After that brilliant weekend, next UK LAN event is epic.SEVENTEEN on the weekend of June 16th – 19th, you can still book tickets here, with only 240 tickets remaining, you won’t want to miss out on another weekend of glorious banter and incredible Counter-Strike.
The talk show PhoenixUK returns this Sunday evening for one of the biggest shows to date. On Sunday 20th March, Tom “Gumpster” Gumbleton and the usual panel that have become the furniture of the show will be on at 5pm until 7pm discussing the UK’s largest LAN and more importantly their three major eSports titles and what will happen at the NEC in Birmingham.
In the previous edition of the show, the panel of PhoenixUK had covered such things like the ESL UK Premiership Qualifiers, the Sky Sports coverage of IEM Katowice (and we even dived into female gaming and why they had included that segment on their highlights show). We’d also looked at the ESL UK Premiership LoL Standings and who would be most likely to finish Top 4.
This week however, is the week of insomnia57, which is the second UK LAN event of the year and the UK’s largest LAN event. Thousands of players and participants will be travelling up to the NEC in Birmingham to see the wonders that could be had from Multiplay. If insomnia56 saw old faces of the CS:GO scene dethroned, and new faces emerge, what could insomnia57 bring?
Molotovs n Marshmallows will be discussed in the show.
This will be the first show (online) we would have guests, as standard, you should see our usual delightful panel who will answer some hard hitting questions to the guests, and will give their opinions on how each of the respective tournaments will go down. If it’s like insomnia56, the LAN will be incredibly difficult to predict, however the panel will try their hardest, and with the ongoing ESL UK Premiership qualifiers, it gives you a good base to put predictions in the field.
The guests will be open to questions from the public, either through our dedicated hash tag on Twitter (#PhoenixUK) or on Twitch chat for the duration of the show. Our panel this week will be an incredibly dynamic panel, with one of the longest standing CS:GO admins on hand to be our “guest panelist” this week. We also have long time Dota2 player/caster/supporter and epic.LAN’s own host on the Central Stream.
Tom “Gumpster” Gumbleton – Visual Host
Joe “JoeShow” Styrka – Stream Production & Dota2 Panelist
Michael “MiCk” Hartley – LoL Panelist
Jon “ViciousHorizion” Kelly – insomnia57 CS:GO Lead Admin
Adam “adamxoxo” Rotherham – CS:GO uFrag In Game Leader
Liam “DOOPZ” Whitehead – Dota2 Team Senses Captain
Unfortunately as LAN takes place next weekend, the show will not be on for Sunday March 27th, however we will return on Sunday 3rd April, where we will give our post LAN thoughts on what has transpired after insomnia57, what the results were and how the UK scene is shaping with those results. We will also give a small preview to the ESL UK Premiership Promotions Tournament for CS:GO.
You can tune into PhoenixUK this evening on the epic.LAN Twitch Stream, don’t forget to get involved too through Twitch chat and through the hashtag #PhoenixUK on Twitter. If you do miss the show, you can re-watch on the epic.LAN YouTube Channel. You can catch up on both Episode 1 and Episode 2 by clicking the relevant links.
After a fun filled, action packed, quality two nights for the UK CS:GO scene, fish123 & Xpra have managed to secure themselves two spots in the qualification tournament known as Promotions.
It was a two night journey for 64 teams in the ESL UK Premiership Summer Season Qualifier Cup 1 (Pete needs to get this shortened somehow), what started at 7pm was the usual stomps as you can imagine, a lot of lower level teams just getting smashed left right and centre. Viperio were one of the big shock casualties in Round 1, despite not being favourites to win a qualification spot, they had an outside chance of making a bit of a push deep into the second night. They lost 16:8 to SHOGUN eSports. The price of best-of-one or just not good enough is up for others to decide.
All the expected teams managed to navigate themselves through to Round 2 including CAZ eSports, Ben & Friends, Molotovs & Marshmallows, Reason.UK, and of course Xpra. Round 2 is where another shock & surprise managed to take down the big guns CAZ eSports, who were one of the strongest favourites to win this cup to make it easier to prepare for Promotions soon. However, Xpra managed to stage a small comeback at 13:11 down and on eco, they turned an impossible task into a match winning round by collecting that round to stage their comeback in some inspiring fashion. They suddenly put CAZ on the back foot on de_cobblestone, and eventually ran out winners 16:14 thus securing CAZ had to play the second qualifier.
As another shock happened in Round 2, many had wondered if the same could ultimately happen to them too, going forwards. There wasn’t any shocks in Round 3 however a couple of teams who I would have expected to go a little deeper uFrag & 2seXeh managed to fall short in Round 3 losing to Girls Generation and Molotovs & Marshmallows respectively.
MCM London – What all the teams should expect at the finals
Quarter Finals stage began tonight, with Xpra pushed all the way by Girls Generation at 16:11 on de_inferno, whilst Ben & Friends managed to navigate themselves past a mix team of sorts featuring Finnish talent in the form of jOELZ, with a 16:12 win on de_dust2. Reason.UK managed to smash unexpected quarter finalist team, aptly named team2 16:3 on de_cache. Whilst fish123 managed to beat out rivals Molotovs & Marshmallows 16:12 on de_mirage. It might of been a tough pill to swallow for both JT & vertiGo after putting up some fight in that match.
By the Semi-Finals, it was crunch time for all teams involved, Xpra who already took out one big team had to face a mix who had some fierce weaponry to boot in the form of quiver & Boaster who both could topple various players in the UK, and that was Ben & Friends who had a relatively smooth ride up to the quarters. In the other Semi-Final the new Reason.UK side would square up to fish123 in arguably the toughest match to call out of the two Semi-Finals, and let’s just say, it truly delivered some quality action between the sides with it stretching into overtime on de_cache. Reason had to chase the game for much of the match, with them being outplayed in the first half. But they managed to somehow take it to overtime with some big teamplay being used. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough as fish123 ran out 21:19 winners. Xpra however proved to be too classy for Ben & Friends and managed to be one of the two teams in the Semi’s make it through to the Promotions Tournament by beating them 16:11 on de_cobblestone.
Hopefully Cup 2 will deliver further shocks and surprises next week, don’t forget if you haven’t signed up to Cup 2, you can do right until 6:30pm next week. You can do so here.
