The problem that tends to occur with most competitive events is the simple fact that they aren't competitive. Well, not in the UK at least, Europe seems to cope pretty fine, even with some of their small events, but in the UK there is always one issue that plagues every event.

The thing is, you can generally tell who is going to win before the event has started. Though it is not always obvious who is going to be the runners up, if there was a bookie taking bets on the winner, 90% of the time I could make myself a nice handsome sum of money from my predictions, as could pretty much anyone with at least half a brain. All events seemingly go the same way nowadays anyway, two or three real teams attend and the rest of the event is made up of hopeful noobs and then a bunch of mix teams with the potential to do pretty well but in the end who beats who comes down to who plays well on the day.

Whenever anybody loses it will always come down to the same excuses anyway,“We're a mix.. We didn't practice.” Practically none of the teams that aspire to a top eight finish will take a loss without claiming that the other team had the upper hand for numerous possible reasons. “We would have beaten them if we hadn't played for 4 straight hours already.” The fact is that they are all sore losers and will never admit to anyone being better than them on account of them being out right deluded and their refusal to admit that they could possibly be worse than somebody.

The thing is, the excuses are simply not applicable. Even less so when every other team that attends are also most likely essentially a mix. Even if you did but that little bit of time in to make sure things were organised, you probably will deny it even if you do manage to achieve a “respectable” finish. Everybody is practically in the same boat. As soon as you say you didn't bother to put any of your precious “real life time” into the game and as a result lost a match, the team that beat you will immediately say the same and the argument you expected to justify your loss becomes completely void. It is true for neither party and they have most likely spent the best part of a month practicing despite being “just a mix.”

Unfortunately even at this event the team that appear as the obvious winner in everyone's eyes are a mix. They can likely turn up having not played a single game together and take the first place prize without breaking a sweat. It doesn't look good really, does it. Even if the mix does comprise of some of the best players the UK has, it doesn't say much for the few “teams” that are in attendance if they can't topple an unprepared mix team even after putting in 60 hours a week for the past two months. They are all hopelessly fighting for the silver medal and even in their minds they probably cant see themselves beating the obvious finalists, Rasta.Xd. There a quite a few teams that would give it a bloody good go but they all know they are underdogs going in and that the majority of the spectators will doubt they can win.

Don't get me wrong, there will likely be hot competition between the teams that manage to make a seed and there might be the odd “upset” or two, and by upset I mean eighth seed beating fourth seed or something not too uncommon like that. The fight will undoubtedly be for second place and whoever reaches it will be content with their finish and probably not care all that much when they do the inevitable and lose in the final.

You might think it to be slightly pessimistic of me to think that no-one can defeat the defending champions, but with the “G Team” as their stand-ins I feel it is realistic to say that is very unlikely they won't win, although I challenge any of the present teams to prove me wrong.