Amidst the regular post i-series roster nightmares a name has been bouncing around as the next "THE" pickup of the moment. Intex Gaming have just become the latest member of the 5/6th club, having beaten rivals wTm and placing alongside the now 4Kings.

Admittedly i35 wasn't as star studded as some of it's predecessors have been but their results put Intex Gaming firmly within the UK top 10. The statistics show them as a viable pickup for any decent organisation, maybe even the likes of TLR, but it hasn't happened.

"I've just watched a 13 year old out AWP me and most of London Mint" - Adam "shivers" Marsden

The reason most cited is a lack of maturity, and if you look at some of the lineup you wouldn't be surprised. The community at large is waiting, and watching to see if this promising lineup goes beyond lucking their way into the top 5, or is a solid team with the kind of players contesting to win tournaments in a year or two.

"CSS is dead in 18 months" - Dr. Gonzo.

When he said this in between his rants at i35 I decided there and then to see if there was any truth to it. I wanted to speak to this team's youngest player, des, about his past and prospects.

You're only 14, most decent teams wouldn't go near you for that alone. What sets you apart from the others?

My inspiration to play Counter-Strike was my brother Keiju, he was one of UK’s top players and it was a great to watch him play. Obviously I wanted to be just as good as him so that’s when I started playing public, and nagging my brother asking if I could play a round or two in his pcw’s. But I didn’t seem to be improving as much as I hoped so when my brother quit, I pretty much quit too. I was inactive for a year when a friend introduced me to CS:S in Year 8.

Going back to 1.6 was a bit too hard after playing source. I more or less met a bunch of people, played for a couple of weeks and attended my first LAN. i32 with ajm, zt, Keiju and rixx - 17-24th, enough said. After LAN I moved around a lot, not really in a solid team but the same names seemed to come up in my teams. ZT, hendo, Ice, etc. I roamed round clanless for a while when my team folded due to players leaving, in general weird complications.

i33 flew by and I was introduced to Joe. He was a sound guy and got me in these mad mixes/gathers with respected players who pretty much didn’t give a fuck what age I was, it really got me back into enjoying CS:S specially the fact I was playing with top players. I started to realize that the age factor wasn’t too much of a mountain to climb. After that I joined Infectious & went to Summer Slam, didn’t do very well despite the LAN being an abomination. Then, got kicked. Derp. I joined Intex after i34 with the upset of Re1ease leaving the team for FM! Toxic. It was hard joining a team who had already done fairly well & it was often they would moan about the team they use to have, anyone in this situation knows how hard it is to play under those circumstances. Fortunately it turned out fine and we managed to grab a decent result in i35.

What do you think of the ageism that most teams display?

I can understand why people might not want young players in their team, for simple reasons like squeaky voices or guessing their bad because they couldn’t possibly of played the game for a long time. But I still don’t see why you can’t give them a chance. It was hell for me to try and get a decent team when I first started however; I guess if you keep trying its inevitable that eventually someone is going catch on if you are good. If you look at the 4K team now, there all young lads, bar pez, my team is also a young team so that should be enough evidence to prove ageism can be overcome.

What is your preferred playstyle?

As much as I like to play as aggressive as possible, I know where to stop & won’t be silly. My preferred gun would have to be an AWP, I love the feel of it & at the end of the day, its one shot above the torso. I play aggressive for a few of reasons. Firstly a lot of public, secondly playing games like Quake and Unreal Tournament as well as it being the same playstyle as my brother.

I've seen you do some crazy things with an AWP, especially against top players who should be walking all over you. What do you think of the current CS: Source scene?

CGS has had a big impact on the Source scene; you only get 4 franchises in the whole of Europe labeling them as the best 4 teams in Europe. I don’t like the idea, the franchises stick and the whole team won't change, just players and that still is a "maybe". They also get a paid salary and one big LAN for them. Then it’s not just the Source team who has to win, it’s all the other gaming platforms too.

You get these ridiculous games like WoW arena in the CGS, that’s just a joke. Overall in terms of the 2 UK franchises, it seems SALVO are untouchable at the moment but teams like Reason, Crack & xoxo have shown that MiNT aren’t. Mint are the 2nd best team in the UK but their distance from SALVO is too far for things not to change.

One of the problems with CGS, it stops big orgs picking teams up because they know eventually you will go a franchise team if you’re good enough. Besides that there's nothing much else that would mess up the Source scene.

You placed well at i35, how was the event for you?

Our team was in shambles, we were basically a mix going into i35. But when we got there, everyone seemed to have their gamefaces on and performed. The tournament went well for us and we were breezing through. We were in the lower bracket and finally the hard games started. wTm got knocked down by FM! toxic and it the fight started for a decent place. It was on inferno and the team were confident considering a similar lineup beat them at CLUK21 on the same map. As much as the score line seemed close, when we were playing, it felt like we were dominating. We beat them 16 – 13 and then the moaning began. There seemed to be some coding error in the tournament layout and KritikaL literally stood there for an hour and then got his way! How can the two underdogs play well after that? We lost to FM! Toxic on nuke 16 – 6. Besides this upset I really enjoyed the LAN. I got on really well with my team mates, the 4K lads and quiver (we destroyed everyone on the football table). Despite the LAN being a success for us, it was unfortunate that a lot of the top EU teams didn’t attend as MaxLAN happened to be more or less on the exact date.

How is the team doing since the event? Do you think this is a launch team, or one you'll stick with for some time to come?

We all seem to want to keep playing with each other and I do believe we will do equally as well at the next LAN. In terms of LAN paid for, we can really thank voodoo for that; he came out of the blue with “lads, I’ve gathered £500 and I can pay for your i35”. From that he’s put even more effort into really launching this team off getting more managers and help. Naturally I really want this team to stick together and work, I can only hope that everyone else thinks the same thing. As of now things seem smooth enough and hopefully we’ll be even more prepared for the upcoming LAN.

Where do you go from here?

I’m lucky enough to be accepted into this team as my age would still be a problem to get into good teams. Again I can only hope that this team want to stick together and attend LAN’s at frequently as possible. However, if we do randomly fold, I guess I'll just be back to mixing with Joe.

Quickfire Questions

CS1.6 – predecessor to source
CS:S - safe
COD4 – derp
COD5 – another one?
RattlesnK – 2nd best awper in uk
Hughsy – I mean, I dunno
QuadV – cool, I guess
Goodeh, Gonzo or layo - layo
Cadred - better since layo

I couldn't say accurately whether the rate of new players has changed compared to last year, and although des is somewhat of a unique case due to his brother's influence, the idea that CS: Source will be dead in 18 months seems a little off. Prize money is dropping, and now moreso than ever the UK gaming scene is messy, although when has it ever been all that stable. The fact that we still have new players coming in, forming teams, and performing well against the more established players is a good indication that the scene, albeit confused, is still active and growing.