With a prize fund of £10,000, PC Gamer Showdown, held this weekend, has the largest prize pot of any Counter-Strike: Source LAN this year.

Despite the stellar prize pot we’ve seen a less than stellar attendance list. This can be attributed to the start of University and schools across the UK, as well as turmoil in organizations internationally. Nevertheless there are five teams in attendance highly capable of providing some great games, including three of the top four at I34.

Birmingham Salvo

Birmingham Salvo comes into this event as the absolute favorites. Their win at i34 just showed how far they are ahead of the competition, destroying Reason Gaming in the finals.

Since i34 we’ve largely been unable to judge their form due to members having a break from the game. They recently crashed out of the Eurokrieg group stages with a loss to London Mint, default losses in other games saw fm! Toxic take the second place.

If Salvo show up with their usual play they will win it, no doubt about that, but as we saw at i34 they are human, going down into the lower bracket against reason on de_nuke.

We spoke to Elliot “Wez” Welsh for his thoughts.

We haven't exactly practiced much, before i34 we were fresh off a 5 week bootcamp in LA so it didn't really matter that we hadn't prepared, but now we're pretty rusty! Although still pretty confident about a top 2 finish!

Reason Gaming

Many saw Reason Gaming’s 2nd place i34 finish as a huge surprise after a disappointing Experience LAN.  Despite being destroyed in the final by Birmingham Salvo it was a brilliant result.

Since then Reason have breezed through competition online, finding no serious challenge in the group stage of Eurokrieg, and breezing through their first elimination match.

We spoke to Marek “.PhP” Kadek for his thoughts.

As always we are coming to a LAN to finish as best as possible, we will play our game and see if results come. We aren't overconfident or something, as it can be anyone's game, I think the gap between top teams is very small lately. I'm looking forward to it, as probably everyone is.

London Mint

A disappointing i34 seemed to set the London Mint on fire, as they won the Rustlers tournament and defeated Birmingham Salvo on their way to placing top of their group in Eurokrieg.

They defeated Reason Gaming in the PC Gamer Qualifiers upper bracket and went on to earn themselves a free spot in the event.

If Mint continues their recent form online they have a strong chance of winning the event.

We spoke to Ben Woodward for his thoughts.

Some of Europe’s best teams will be at PCG, and with a greatly reduced field of entrants i expect this event to be pretty tough to win, but the form we've had in practices and official games since i34 suggests we have a pretty good chance of taking home the win, time will tell if this is the case, but I’m pretty confident personally.

GIAL

GIAL bring uniqueness to PC Gamer Showdown, and that uniqueness comes in the form of a six man LAN roster.  Since moving to GIAL the impact they’ve had on the European scene has not been anything major.

They went out in the first round of the Eurokrieg elimination stage to Nameless, a result widely expected.

They come into this event as huge under dogs, yet are capable of upsetting any team that underestimates them.

We caught up with Casper 'krogh' Krogh for his thoughts.

We are extremely excited! Finally a LAN we actually could prepare for! We haven’t been a team that long, so we are hoping for the best, but don’t get me wrong, our goal is 110% winning the whole thing. The 6 man roster is special indeed, but it’s working like a charm until now, but how it works for a LAN, we will see. I am optimistic though.

We all had our turn in picking a map from the maplist, providing more motivation for yourself (I simply can’t stand dust2, so I'm not playing there, and can enjoy the game even more when not playing the retarded horse map) - We had great, but a bit short preparation time, but we are 4 experienced LAN'ers, and 2 aim kids, who we are trying to knock some routine into.</blockquote>

Fragmasters Toxic

FM! Toxic have a lot to prove since the disastrous i34 placing. New player Daniel “Re1ease” Mullan seems to have settled into the team well and recent results online have been good. PC Gamer will be their first real test.

Right now Toxic are not expected to win,  but as we saw at i34 they can take top teams like Mint right to the brink. Anything can happen.

We spoke to Thomas “Beta” Hanna for his thoughts.

I’d say practice is going about twice as well as prior to i34 so I personally am going to be very confident going into this tournament. We're aiming for a top three finish.