Last night XENEX announced that their CSGO team, the previous DOG Gaming lineup, had dissolved. This tweet looked to be nothing more than a cutesy though as within 30 minutes, their new roster has been announced.
Team XENEX recently announced through their twitter account that they have picked up the team formerly known as DOG Gaming. DOG Gaming for those who have been out of the scene for a while are a team who managed to finish second at the recent insomnia60 event. Prior to that they had results of finishing within the Top 3 of epic.LAN events and some mediocre results at other iSeries events.
The online stages of UKGT came to an anticlimactic close as Impulse Gaming chose to default their three outstanding games, becoming the 4th team to drop out of the tournament alongside uFrag, Rasta Gaming and exceL.
Top of the table is Endpoint, who were technically undefeated throughout the tournament. They picked up one draw against Impulse Gaming at the start of week 3, and then chose to forfeit their game against Barrage eSports in the final week as it wouldn’t effect the final standings for any team.
Tied in second place are Imperial and CEX, both sporting a 6 win, 2 loss, 1 draw scoreline. However as Imperial came out on top when the two teams faced off in their matchup, they claim the second seed spot for the live finals, causing CEX to take 3rd.
The final team to qualify is the former SKUM Gaming lineup, now part of XENEX. Despite having accusations thrown their way through this season, other tournaments and even at epic20, they rose above it and managed to get 5 wins, 1 loss and 3 draws under their belt. This gave them enough points to sneak into 4th place, ahead of Barrage eSports who were only 2 points behind them. Although the 2 points may not seem like too much of a gap, Barrage gained 3 points from the default win against Endpoint, so that gap could have easily been 5 points wide had Endpoint played their game and won 2-0.
The final UKGT standings
[table id=1 /]There has been a lot of speculation over the live finals of UKGT, but we have been assured that it will be taking place. After the Milton Keynes shopping centre venue was lost, and the Leamington Spa Theatre was announced as the new location for the finals, plans have been put in place to make it an event to remember. This venue swap did cause a delay to the initial dates for the live finals as the venue wasn’t available.
The new venue for UKGT finals
The date for the event is due to be released this week, along with ticket information for spectators and a full timetable for the event. What we do know is that the event will be a double-elimination bracket with best-of-three games in the upper bracket, and best-of-one in the lower bracket split over a weekend.
After only picking them up just shy of 2 months ago, Team XENEX are parting ways with their roster.
Picked up in January the team have had a turbulent road which has seen them fail to qualify for the ESL Premiership and have got off to a slow start in the current season of ESEA Main, going 2-7 so far.
After Insomnia 59, XENEX parted ways with their CS:GO roster, as many of the players parted ways with each other. Since then many had been speculating who would be next to wear the red and white of XENEX and over the weekend the roster was confirmed.
Here at the first day of epicLAN, organisations are already hunting to find the perfect team to win them the top prize, and Rasta is now one of few sponsored teams here at the event.
Joining up with Rasta will be Miran ‘SpeedyG’ Hoyle’s mix team which includes the likes of Joe ‘JT’ Talbot, who was most recently been seen playing in the ESL UK League under the Team Xenex banner. Also in the team, we see the inclusion of Charlie ‘ Pickles’ Pickles, last seen playing at the latest iSeries under TCA.eSports.
The team will be playing in the epic.NINETEEN CS:GO tournament that will be starting early Friday. The tournament will be streamed over at www.twitch.tv/epiclan1 and will feature up and coming caster talent Jamie ‘SwitchBladeJay’ Martin, who will be taking the reins with the potential of guest casting throughout the event.
After 3 consecutive weeks of competitive action in UKMasters Season 2, we see a total of 6 teams reach the league stage, each week of games 2 teams would be moved on into the league stage. The previous UKMasters Season 1 concluded with ex-CAZ eSports (tsack, jakem, Boaster, Kryptix & robiin) taking away the grand prize of £4,100 followed by FM eSports. Both of these teams have been invited to the league stage of UKMasters Season 2.
UKMasters Week 1 Qualifier:
Starting off week 1 of UKMasters Season 2, we see MnM & CeX make it through the first week. CeX making a breeze of their matches beating Nerdrage.pro 2-0 & swiftly knocking out uFrag alongside the nerdRage.Amateur lineup followed by Ruthless Gaming. MnM’s road to the finals of the first week of games involved Dragon eSports who were shut down 2-0 in the BO3 series, previously the team played against Truffle Butter and various contending teams for the same spot in the UKMasters League.
UKMasters Week 2 Qualifier:
Continuing from the previous week, a large majority of the top contending teams still playing to claim their spot in the league. Various teams falling just short of qualifying first time round attempting to take their position in week 2. Fish123 & XENEX to make their way through the matches and then solidify their place in the league. XENEX’s travels to the final 2 involved competing against the likes of Bulldog, Team Endpoint, Impulse Gaming White & Millwall Bushwackers after clawing a set of victories from their matches managing to reserve their place. Fish123 playing against a variety of skilled teams such as Dragon eSports who knocked out uFrag in the previous round, Fish123 also beating cleanupcrew of which sent Radix eSports & Enemies in disbelief (Now VATIC Gaming) home.
UKMasters Week 3 Qualifier:
The third and final chance to qualify for the UKMasters & the remaining teams to have a shot at taking their place in the league. Taking the final 2 spots in the league concluded in Team Endpoint & Generic Team Name an unexpected contending team overcoming the likes of VATIC Gaming & Dragon eSports two strong teams. Endpoint having a collection of games breezing through facing against Odin.Esports who took away nerdRage.Pro’s chances of making it into the league stages. Generic Team Name beat the odds & claw their way into the semi-finals beating VATIC Gaming and then qualifying for the league.
As the qualifiers conclude we see the following teams make it into the league stages;
- CeX Gaming
- MnM (Molotovs n Marshmallows)
- Fish123
- XENEX
- Team Endpoint
- Generic Team Name
Link to all 3 qualifiers can be found here. The action will start next Thursday at 7pm live on Twitch.
