After only finishing 9th-12th at i33, the former team ephix have improved bucketloads over the past few months, and are in the process of preparing for the upcoming LAN season.

In the first article of Cadred's buildup to the Call of Duty 4 Summer LAN season, I sat down with Adam 'vanner' Vanner of infused Gaming's CoD4 team.

infused Gaming:

Dan 'Crack' Sneddon [Manager]

Adam 'Vanner' Vanner
Kez 'Brkn' Holmes
Will 'will' Nye
Tim 'Revoltz' Denton
Gertjan 'V1oqor' Dordmond
Chris 'chenson' Henson [Backup]

Hi Adam, could you introduce yourself and your team to our readers?

Yo crokey! I'm Adam Vanner and I'm afraid there is no prize for guessing where my nickname came from. I'm 18 and currently taking a year out of my studies and am using the time to decide what the future holds for me really. I currently play for infused’s new CoD4 team.

The team looks like this:

Crack - He's our manager, he is wicked, he killspecs all our games and watches our demos avidly, he helps us in ways one of us simply could not because he looks from the outside in.

Vanner – Myself, I’m the team’s sniper, I have led every team I have ever played in bar this one, and this has really improved my game as it is one less thing to worry about with the calling and leading. I’m a pick player and can clutch when needed.

Brkn – He's a former UO player who started out playing CoD4 for TCM.uk, he has barrels of talent and can use any gun effecitvly. Hes the geek of our team, he makes our set nades and is a very, very cool character under pressure.

will – Our team leader, the former devoted player has lots of experience to call from and is also our caller. He also has the biggest say in the way we play the game. He uses the ak74 mostly and is a very clever player.

Revoltz – Mr dependable. A former MoH player who has a really random play style which is very effective for us, he is also a very fast player who generally will be the guy running in and making the early frags.

V1oqor – Our dutchie, after searching for a 5th for ages and getting fed up of Tim saying “if only v1o was English” we decided to give Gertjan a few trial games at the end of March. He fitted superbly and is a great fit to our team. He generally takes the ak74 and does all the hard jobs, normally defending the popular bombsites on each map on his own. Very good clutcher too.

chenson - He is our backup, hes only played the game twice in seven weeks, but he merc'd in the Clanbase CpenCup quarter finals and produced a great peformance.

You recently joined infused Gaming after the downfall of the team ephix organisation, was this move difficult for you as a team?

Well after the events of ephix folding, we were left with a difficult time ahead. We had three options, one was to continue as ephix and fund the rest of our own way to the summer lans but the total costs would have stretched us to the limits. Another option we threw into the hat was to create our own name and try to get a financial sponsor. Neither of those 2 options were very inviting and when we heard the old infused line-up was having difficulties a few doors opened our direction.

After being linked with teams such as Meet Your Makers, are you suprised yourself that you are still a part of infused?

No not really! This team feels like home - like no other team has before. We are all the same age, we have a good spirit too, we never believe we are beaten and I feel that’s a big thing keeping us together and happy. Not forgetting Crack our manager, his role is similar to a football manager not a typical gaming manager, his influence is huge on the team.

Do you ever wish that it turned out any different?

At this time no, I’m happy with the way things are. I’d be lying if I said that couldn’t change, but I’m not regretting anything at the moment.

The summer LAN season is fast approaching, how has your preperation gone thus far?

Really well, we’ve been putting in a lot of practise, mainly since the A-level exam period concluded on the 20th of June. Unfortunately our 5th and 6th players booked a 10 day holiday to Ibiza a few months back so we can’t practise for 10 days but from the 12th of July we are going into hardcore mode. This will lead up to us boot camping in Belgium before the Antwerp Esports Festival. Our online results have been pretty impressive of late and we hope to take plenty of form into the summer events.

As a team you will be attending AEF, TeX and i34 over the summer, which do you feel has the most competition and is there any LAN in particular you are looking forward too?

The most competition will be either AEF or TEX, they have similar team lists with all the top EU and US/Canadian teams attending. I can’t really choose between them, I34 will lack a few EU teams as I’m led to believe but last I looked there was a healthy 64 teams signed up with spots still remaining. I’m mostly looking forward to I-series. The new venue looks amazing and I’ve always enjoyed the atmosphere and social side to the LAN. Will be good seeing a lot of friendly faces once again on home soil.

Where do you hope to finish each LAN, realistically and ambitiously?

Realistically, we want to achieve a top 8 finish at either AeF or Tex. I-series we want top5 minimum with the teams attending. Both of these goals are realistic. Ambitiously we’d like top3 at i34 and with the big 2 EU events luck of the draw comes into play but we’d like to think we could pull of something similar to what TLR did at CDC.

Which teams do you think will be consistently well placed at the summer LANs?

Speedlink, fnatic, dignitas, EG are the safe bets I suppose, mYm will be an interesting one, some might say they slightly over achieved at CDC and home advantage was a big factor in another final at i33. I’m more on the side of that they were a quality team who deserved everything. The dedication I saw from them was outstanding and watching them at CDC was brilliant. If they regain that competitive edge that they havn’t had since i33 then they will be the team to watch once again. I also feel there are a few teams that could surprise if they can handle the pressure of an EU event well.

Do you feel there is any players in particular to look out for, or any players who have something to prove?

Players to look out for are probably the underated players, Kevin could peform very well for speedlink but to be honest that team is packed with 5 players that could make huge impacts if they take their online form into the Lans. A random stab in the dark would say watch out for my team mate brkn.

On the topic of something to prove, there are a lot of players with something to prove. Ranging from the new recruits in top teams, (getsome/linquan/zenith/Kevin) to more experienced players like L-king who joining the game late will look to follow the lead of SKO and come out all guns blazing!

Recently the CoD4 scene has learned that there will be a new mod to replace PAM at the summer LANs, named PROMOD, do you think this mod is a step in the right direction?

Yes. Pam hasn’t really been updated for quite some time, at the end of cod2 the community started updating pam and a few tweak commands were found that improved the game drastically. Promod is great for the game. For all the css players on this site, promod is basically like PAM (the match mode in cod) but will be designed with lans in mind. It aims to improve the game competitively anyway possible.

It is currently in it’s 2nd beta at the time of writing and is still a tad buggy. Having said that, forward steps have defintly been made and kudos to Ryan ‘Raf’ Palmer who is dedicating a lot of his free time and giving up playing as 5th for his team for promod.

How do you think the rest of the community will react to the mod?

As this community always reacts, mixed reactions then a unified voice will be heard after a few weeks. The same happens with all changes, at first it’s a very split opinion but once a few known players say it’s great/terrible then opinions very quickly change. I hope the community embrace it if it does deliver as it will only help the game.

Do you feel that PROMOD could extend the lifespan of CoD4 as a competitive game?

Yes, but the only real thing that will extend the game will be CODTV, the COD series has been in dire need of CODTV since Vanilla cod came out in 2003. Although a few versions have been made, nothing has come close to rival the fantastic HLTV. I am a huge fan of watching source/1.6 games simply because of the TV client. I doubt I would watch as much 1.6/css as I do now without HLTV.

Theres been many rumours about the inclusion of CoD4, so many that I’ve lost track of the whole situation, hopefully we can get something soon as after summer Lans there is only 3/4 planned events that will have decent prize money.

How do you think the level of play at the top end of CoD4 compares to what it was at the end of CoD2?

Difficult question! It’s different, the cod4 scene is a lot more diverse. You got players from et/css/bf2/moh/WoW and eve some old school cod1 guys returning for COD4. There’s more teams, a lot more really, probably more towards the top tier too. You still got the elite teams but there is definately a bigger pool of teams just below the very top compared with COD2.

There is also many more leagues, with ESL/CB/I3D/FGL/Live2win/ED and if CODQCUP comes back you have that too! Plenty of line prize money is nice but the LANS are where it matters and that is one of the big differences with COD4. Although COD2 had quite a few events, COD4’s events are a lot bigger in prize money (bar WSVG), and now top teams like SK-gaming, mYm, PGS and fnatic have invested in cod teams it has only strengthened the already impressive COD LAN scene.

How do you think the competitive scene will react to the upcoming CoD5 and CoD6 titles?

Most people are anticipating a good single player game for COD5, I must say I’m kind of agreeing, I can’t see the multiplayer being anything impressive, apart from taking a few hours of my time, I doubt I will play it competitively. CoD6 however is being made by infinity ward again so will more than likely be a very, very good game.

I’m sure the success of CoD4 will make CoD6 sell extremely well no matter how good or bad it is and I’m sure it will be great. As to how the competitive scene will react, I believe only time will tell.

The UK has had multiple teams at the top of the scene for a while now, including yourselves, MYM and Reason. Do you see any other UK teams pushing into the top end in the near future?

Yeh, the UK scene is incredibly strong at the moment, probably the strongest out of any country really. In COD2 we only had a short period where we had a ‘top’ team, around the time dignitas won CPC. Apart from that the UK barely made much of an impact at top events, mainly due to 3 teams dominating COD2, tek9, srs and speedlink.

When I first started getting into competitive play the UK scene had top teams such as Supermen and Victum and I think we’ve returned to those so called glory days. You’ve got a team that probably no one has heard of called tetris who have 5 decent players and if they prepare properly for i34 they could pull of a few wins here and there, then theres obviously 4kings who have incredible talent and experience and I really think they will live up to expectations this summer.

Recently, at the CGS combine, they held a CoD4 tournament. Do you think this is a sign that the CGS might possibly pick up CoD4 as one of its titles?

It shows they are taking interest, I don’t really know if they will pick up the game, I know for sure that CGS is very American and with the recent news that they are not showing full CSS games shows that they might be looking for a shorter alternative fps, I don’t think COD4 is that.

My choice would definitely be for a 1v1 game to replace CSS, would be a lot more exciting and easier to understand for the general public than a 5v5 game IMHO.

Do you personally think this would be a good thing to happen for the scene, or are you against CGS as a league?

I’m really against it. Going back to CSS again, I think it’s had a mixed effect on the scene. Many would argue that CGS is killing source, but then CGS is the main thing making source a bigger game than COD4. CGS has had a really bad effect on the CSS LAN scene as I see it. Many big organisations have ditched the game for COD4 simply because of the ‘fnatic effect’ CGS has on teams.

How do you feel about the methods of individual players being drafted, basically splitting up teams built on friendship and teamwork?

Personally I don’t like it one bit, as much as I enjoy CGS, I think it’s a bad thing to do, gaming isn’t advanced enough for football type transfer fee’s or anything but I think a system based around that would be better than drafting the best you can competing with different games etc.

And finally, if you could play with a dream team of 5 players, who would it be and why?

I could be boring and give you my own team but I’ll spare you the bland end to the interview!

vanner [Scope]
Mick [Leader]
Lookzor [Assault]
gene [SMG]
Mazarini [SMG]

Thanks for your time Adam, best of luck over the summer to yourself and infused. Is there any shoutouts you would like to make?

Yes, lots! Firstly to all involved with infused, our sponsors, QPAD, Multiplay and Lanwear. Also, thanks to you for taking time to do this fine interview.

Few personal shout outs to rillzy, chenson, wannabe, oz, david, PAL-, rzE, stevy, gene, hendrik, KarL, myzz, celt, morris, DZK, toxjee, toast and all of MYM, SPEED-LINK and tetris! Don't forget to look out for the new infused website!