Despite a number of changes of dates, the UKCSGO County Championships finally began tonight with the first of the three group stage brackets. The bracket, set to host 15 teams, eventually saw just nine teams turn up to compete for one of the four qualifying spots for the grand finals to be held a later date. Despite the turnout being lower than expected for day one, those that arrived managed to throw some interesting games at us with at least one almost upset.
The first thing to note is that the hot favourites of Group A, London led by Tom “vertiGo” Rockliffe, took an easy ride straight into the finals after having a bye in the first round for being the favoured side, and a default win over South Yorkshire in round two. Whilst this is not how we would’ve liked to have seen them enter the finals, there were never any doubts as to wether those hailing from the Country’s capital would be there. Joining them in the top four of Group A will be the Merseyside squad, with Ian “Immi” Harding at the helm. After a crushing victory over Hertfordshire in round 1 at a 16-2 scoreline, they also met an absent team in round two to see them in to the final four.
Scotland took a very convincing win on de_inferno over the Gloucestershire team, and met the Northumberland side in round two who defeated the East Sussex county team. The current scoreline stands at 1 – 0 to the Scots, with the remainder of the series being completed tomorrow as agreed by both teams. Finally, the talk of the tournament and the second of our streamed games saw a three map series in round two between Jacob “mini” Harris’s Bristol and the Isle of Wight team.
From the off most expected the Bristol side to take a clean victory, with a few known names within their ranks and a talented team captain. However, the islanders took them by surprise on the terrorist side of de_cache, seeing the Isle of Wight lead the series by 1 map to nil. The second map, de_dust2, went equally as close as the first with it looking almost as if IoW were staging a comeback after dropping the first half 11-4. Despite their efforts, Bristol closed out the map 16-14 and took it to de_train. Train was a similar story, with the map going all the way to the 30th round, but eventually seeing the Bristol side take the map and the series 2-1. Despite the loss, the Isle of Wight were definitely the surprise side of the tournament.
The teams that qualified for the finals from Group A so far are:
London
Bristol
Merseyside
To be confirmed:
Edinburgh vs. Northumberland (1 – 0)
