Vincent "Freekje" Vanloo

Vincent has been around the CS:S scene since it began and is a well known and established personality in the BENELUX scene.

Although effectively retired, Vincent utilises a lot of his time fulfilling his role as an admin for CS:S helping to run tournaments for E-sports Heaven and has been integral to the smooth running of all competitions so far.

"Ah yes, another month flew by,again. And the scene is returning to its old self,for better or worse. The competitive side of css is still producing growth on websites like ESL & ESH. Hell we even got Denmark to go in an unnecessary war over our last-minute paying scene and with rumours that the World Cyber Games might be looking for a sub one of their 1vs1 games, we might make it in the long run. But meanwhile we have to survive on the lively discussion on who should be top10 and who shouldn't. Let's hope DSracklan can bring clarifications. As far as my lists goes: The obvious #1 challenged by a typo, "oops" , some folded teams out and some new teams in for proving themselves in their respective EPS."

Richard Lewis

Richard comes from a journalistic background and has covered e-sports in print, on radio and television having worked for such organisations as GotFrag and CGS. He is the current content manager of Cadred where he contributes a weekly e-sports column. He was last year’s captain of Team UK in the ClanBase Nations Cup, although now he retired from playing.

He now concentrates on writing. Over the years he worked for Zboard, xciteuk, Infused and 4kings. These days he chooses to solely focus on his writing within the gaming industry.

"With the EPS seasons starting off again we can now have a much better measure of who's hot and who's not, and it's made for some good entertainment too. French EPS, German EPS and even those wily Nordic's have all stepped up... Just don't mention the UK EPS, which has already kept us busy as it lurches from one micro-disaster to another. Plenty of time to talk about that later...

Still, European CS:S is on the rise. Look at Denmark, who will probably boast three teams in the top ten if voting goes their way. France will have another team rubbing shoulders with VeryGames after LDLC showed they could compete. Maybe LORD could even creep in after slaying the beast of VeryGames in EPS.

But I hope you will all join me in a short prayer for OX Gaming who never made it into a top ten despite how hard they tried and how much they wanted it. Maybe one day... Maybe one day."

Emmanuel "Wave" Meunier

The latest addition to our news team brings with him an in depth knowledge of CS:S and 1.6, especially in his native France. His work covering French EPS has been integral to the continued development of the site.

He also joked that having a French person on the panel might ensure less arguments about the top ten in future, although somehow we doubt that very much.

"For this month of September the European top three composed of VeryGames, Reason and mTw remained unchanged in my eyes.

Also the Finnish side of CKRAS and the Dannish guys from Zero Empathy are great values of the top of the scene, especially with the big events in Copenhagen incoming . It will be intesting to follow the podium changes of the next weeks, with FMTOXIC beeing a big challenger of three teams which are now quite settled. Of course the German army is still answering the call this month whit SK and his new star player TORNADOTONI and Team Thermaltake, and we should probably see one of them at the next European event. On the French scene Team LDLC have shown consistency and will do everything to steal VeryGames' crown. The surprise of the month is the great performance of LORD in EPS against the two big favourites of the season, which gave them my 10th spot.

Hopefully we should see some of those teams in action soon and most probably at DSRack LAN #3 which attendance could be historical."

Mike "Rickeh" McGhee

As the new features editor, Mike brings with him an in depth knowledge of the European scene and not just those usual suspects that everyone can claim to know about. Having started plying his trade as a news contributer, he is now part of the management team here at Cadred and contributes regularly with features.

Finally we have a regular measure of which teams can be considered contenders for the European crown and which teams are the pretenders. With the UK, Noric, German and French EPS' now all in full swing we're beginning to see a few teams emerging from the shadows, Team LORD are one after smashing VeryGames and LDLC just a few weeks ago, whether those two online results will be enough to see them in the top10 this month remains to be seen, but they will be up there.

Despite their loss to LORD I think VeryGames can still be considered the best team on the planet, and until another side challenges them on the big stage I can't see that changing. For me the only two teams capable of doing that as things stand are Reason Gaming and mTw, that's why they occupy my second and thrid spots respectively. LDLC are a team that, given time, can be up there in future, but as things stand they are still well off the pace of the big boys.

Some good news for the UK scene is that fm! Toxic have returned with a lineup that, on paper, looks pretty good. It's the first time since Power Gaming disappeared that the UK scene will have a home team to cheer on in the big matches, whether they will live up to their potential or not will be seen in a couple of weeks in Denmark. Yes DSRack LAN is shaping up nicely, with at least 6 of the top10 in attendance it's going to go a long way in finding who the champions of Europe really are, hell, we may even see a smash and grab from one of the two American sides making the journey over. Who knows..."

Ben "ben0" Balcombe

The veteran CS:S player joins the panel this month with a view to a long term move.

Having captained the former Zboard line-up Ben is no stranger to punditry having been the creator of Source Junky's UK top ten, including a strange mathematical system that only he knows and now subsequently can't remember due to brain cell loss.

Having been around since 2004 Ben did take a break from the scene but has returned with great interest.

"This could be my last contribution to this panel as by the time you will be reading this I will have gone in for my medical in the Royal Marines. If I'm back next month it's either due to waiting for my induction date or because I failed. I won't mention it either way. But to CS:S and I can say these EPS leagues look a great measure of who is the best domestically for their scene and who isn't, even if it is online. Wish we had something like that when I was playing. We made do with the ED ladder. VeryGames may have been shocked by LORD and made to look vulnerable by LDLC this month but they are are still number one in France and Europe for my money. Reason are ripping it up in the Nordic and mTw, despite a weird draw to Team SPEEDLINK look ready to challenge people. Got to mention about SK-Gaming... Where are all the people saying how bad they are now that they look on course for a spot in the LAN finals? As always, the gallery is fickle."

The Top 10 will continue at the start of October with the next installment.