With 2 weeks left of the regular season, Mr Duck takes a look at this weeks matches as well as how the rosters have evolved over the past 10 weeks.

Well, yeah, I'm back and what a fine mess the EPS is in. The season started with such promise and people praising the uncharacteristic stability in the UK scene. Then LAN season came around and everyone and their mum fell out. Hopefully this article can clear up whats happened with the rosters and what is the current situation as teams aim for a happy July 4th in London.

We'll start with the delayed games. I'm not sure if they've been given a kick up the arse and told to play the outstanding games, but there are 3 delayed games scheduled to take place tonight.

Here are Weeks 10's Matches

As you can see, i love myself no longer feature in the season's remaining games. This is due to their removal this week, as they had finally racked up enough penalty points. This, of course means its again all change for the league table as i love myself's games are deemed void. Something that Dignitas may be quite grateful for.

This is how things currently stand

Rankings

Clan Details	Played	Wins	Losses	Draws	For	Against	Earnings	POINTS
Team Dignitas	6	6	0	0	96	50	£600	18
Crack Clan	5	5	0	0	80	40	£500	15
FM.Toxic	6	4	1	1	87	60	£450	13
TLR	5	2	1	2	72	68	£300	8
Team COOLERMASTER	5	2	2	1	62	69	£250	7
noREPLY	5	1	3	1	65	70	£150	4
YoYoTech	6	1	4	1	65	70	£150	4
the imperial.Lime	7	1	6	0	76	110	£100	3
Frustration	7	1	6	0	53	110	£100	3
i love myself
Veritas Gaming
Ondskan

 

As you can see above, Team Dignitas have already qualified for the LAN finals, as noone from 4th place or lower can catch their tally of 18 points. Crack Clan and FM Toxic are also all but assured a spot in London on July 4th. That leaves 1 place up for grabs and this could in theory be secured by any of 4 teams. It is mathematically possible for YoYoTech, noREPLY Team CoolerMaster and TLR to finish 4th, however TLR are edging it at the moment with a 1 point lead over Team CoolerMaster.

This week's matches

Team COOLERMASTER vs Crack Clan - Shadowman doesn't feature on the TCM ESL page currently, therefore they will be using Cauzed for the rest of their games. Therefore this match will feature two teams who are both operating with a patched up team. The CoolerMaster team will be the same as the one which attended i36, and on this weeks map faced Reason Gaming. Earlier in the season CoolerMaster played Dignitas on this map and got smashed 16-3, although they were using their manager Javax. I am in little doubt that they will suffer a similar fate this time around. They face a Crack Clan who are playing together for the sake of finishing the season after the departures of HenryG and HaZ caused the downfall of the team. While 4 Kings were playing Dignitas on this map, Crack Clan were smashing FM.TOXIC 16-8, so though they won't have the full commitment they have had back then, they do have the ability to succeed on Train. I predict a CoolerMaster victoy in the region of 16-12

FM.TOXIC vs Dignitas This match is another dead rubber. Both teams are all but qualified for the LAN finals and neither side will be fielding their "regular" side. In fact, the FM.TOXIC side doesn't even exist anymore and 2 of the players playing for FM.TOXIC are now in the Dignitas starting line up. As such I can't really see this game being very exciting to watch, but I think Dignitas will run out winners, 16-10

The Last Resort vs YoYoTech (This game will be played at the Friday Night In a fortnight from today) - The Last Resort have 2 matches tonight including a catch up game. Should they win both they will secure the final spot for the LAN finals, provided CoolerMaster lose one of their 3 matches tonight. If both teams win all the games tonight it will go down to the final day of the season, with TLR requiring a win against Frustration to attain their place. YoYoTech on the other hand need a plethera of results to go in their favour for them to reach the finals. They would need to win both games tonight and hope that TLR only got no more than 1 point from the other 2 games, whilst they would also need CoolerMaster to get no more than 2 points from their other 2 games, else it would go down to some kind of messy round difference scenario which I can't be arsed to work out. However, I think TLR will crush their dreams tonight and take a step closer to the finals with a 16-10 win.

noREPLY vs the imperial.Lime - Much like YoYoTech, noREPLY need a minor miracle to qualify for the LAN finals. However, I doubt they'll be ungrateful for any cash they earn trying, no matter how likely they are to see it...This week has seen the loss of molE for noREPLY so they will be using Techno-Sinner again, as able a replacement you will find in the UK. NoREPLY also have 2 matches tonight as they face CoolerMaster in a delayed match. Tonights match will be imperial's last of the season. They'll look to add to their 1 win in the tournament, a win which arrived a long time ago now, on the first week of the season. Last week saw them lose to Frustration, allowing them to pick up their first win of the season. I predict that this one will boil down to noREPLY keeping their LAN Final hopes alive, albeit for a short while, as they win 16-14

TL;DR Version
Team COOLERMASTER >
Dignitas >
TLR >
noREPLY

The season has certainly been eventful from a rosters perspective. Even before the season began players were hopping about trying to secure their dream lineup. To help you understand whats happened and where everyone has ended up, here is a guide to the rosters

Crack Clan

Crack Clan have had one of the sturdiest rosters for the duration of the season, which says alot about the season considering they imploded a couple of weeks ago and are only playing together for this competition in an attempt to limp across the finish line. They started the season with

Tom "beta" Hanna
Richard "ritch" Gibbs
Jim "mx" Smale
Lewis "hughsy" Hughes
Erik "HaZ" Holm

after the Gadget Show they swapped out mx for HenryG, however he returned to his previous colleagues a couple of weeks ago. At the same time HaZ decided to step down and mx returned to the lineup along with Frankstah in order to finish the season.

Dignitas

Dignitas have again been one of the less spectacular when it comes to roster reshuffles. They began the season with:

Sam "Rattlesnk" Gawn
Pete "pt" Wright
Elliot "Wez" Welsh
James "wilzOOO" Wilson
Frank "Frankstah" Rini

Again their changes occured after the Gadget Show as they dropped Frankstah to 6th and brought in their former teammate, Harriman. He lasted for the duration of LAN 79 and a couple of weeks after, but has latterly been replaced by another Dignitas old boy, Mangiacapra, for the remainder of the tournament. Meanwhile pt has also stepped down and Kritikal and release have become the permanent replacements for pt and Harriman

Fragmasters Toxic

FM Toxic have, technically, kept the same roster for the duration of the season. That is as follows:

Luke "KritikaL" Green
Dan "Re1ease" Mullan
Callum "sulphhh" Buckley
Zak "zT" Thresher
Chris "Bowzer" Bowey

However, after LAN 79 Bowzer was dropped for the returning Frankstah, only for the team to fold a few weeks later as Kritikal and release pursued their interests in Dignitas.

Frustration

Frustration have been a mix team for the entirity of the tournament, I think this was something that was necessitated after zT Bowzer and Sulphh made their move to Fragmasters Toxic. They have been

D "Hendo" Henderson
Steve "cpr" Cooper
Andrew "fivefingers" Herrmann
Rob "sLi" Lidbetter
Cathal "Tumbot" Tummon
Rhys "rhyzz" Jones
Alex "eLm" Campbell

i love myself

The second mix team, i love myself, listlessly ambled their way through the season with a chorus of can't be arseds intertwined with "look how often we don't play". In the end, only MikeE remained playing the game competitively after the rest quit. Before their removal they were:

Mike "MikeE" Thompson
Sam "fnc" Addy
David "Speed" Reybould
Michael "m1ke" Walker
Matthew "Rambo" Halifax

noREPLY

The league's token ethnic team, noREPLY, started their season in dissarray. With only minutes to go before the roster deadline des decided to jump ship and join rivals, Zen. This left them with 4 as Pete had dissappeared muttering the worlds "you know, i might got to Africa". Fortunately, their former teammate from last season's EPS, Limpz, was still on the roster and agreed to play for them. They started the season with:

Chris "kiriyaMa" Tay
Liban "mSy" Gaal
Luke "mortism" Webster
Josh "molE" Rowley
Arveer "Limpz" Buray

A few weeks into the season Pete returned from his travels and replaced Limpz. Throughout the season they have been plagued by holidays, as kiriyaMa visited Eastern Asia and molE went somewhere slightly less exotic. In these periods Techno-Sinner has filled in for the team.

Ondskan

Ondskan started the season in the daftest manner possible and one which was never gonna end in smiles. They were originally MugNMouse, however, I can't remember their roster other than Simon[mZ], rhyzz and jq. Many had touted them to be the whipping boys of EPS as they would be vastly outskilled. A few days after the deadline however, there began a metamorphosis and the teams name changed to Ondskan, and the roster appeared as follows:

Ollimatti "delonge" Vehkalahti
Ole Christian "Gem" Slaattene
David "jaFro" Davidson
Hamza "X" Mahmood
Simon "Simon[mZ]" Bagheshian

There was confusion as to whether this was allowed, and it was... sort of. However, when they played their first game all the new players were "barred". This meant that the game had to be replayed with the old roster, and while the new roster had won comfortably, the old one did not fare so well. The team managed to reach Week 5 and had only played one match, each week I would write off Simon[mZ] as he was clearly outclassed in that lineup, and he would promise to "show me". Unfortunately, he did not get an opportunity to show me his, no doubt, silky skills as the team got removed a few weeks later for exceeding the penalty points allowance after they used a merc in a victory over FM.Toxic.

Team COOLERMASTER

What an eventful time it has been for the reigning champions. They not only started the season with a different lineup, but with a different name. 4 Kings were:

James "Pez" Perrot
Eamon "cauzed" pakos
Henry "HenryG" Greer
Carlos "dumbazo" Garcia
Jack "Callisto" Mason

The mayhem started when Spaniard Dumbazo was unable to attend the i36 event. For this event he was replaced by HudzG. Now what exactly happened in the following weeks I can't actually remember however, it involves HenryG joining Crack Clan after playing for Dignitas, a missing passport for Shadowman, who had come in to replace HenryG for LAN79, who was in turn replaced by Cauzed and somewhere in there Alex, Javax and CrazyCat got some games :S. The roster has now settled at:

James "Pez" Perrot
Jack "Callisto" Mason
George "HudzG" Hoskins
Henry "HenryG" Greer
Sadegh "Shadowman" Mzadeh

the imperial.Lime

The imperial are a bunch of players who enjoy playing, and enjoying playing with their mates. As such their lot is an uneventful one, especially since the alphabet would have them juxtaposed with Team CoolerMaster. They began the season with the following roster:

Jon "deathrow" Saunders
Tom "quiver" Griffiths
Phil "Tucker" Hynes
Danny "peakz" Peaker
Liam "maddave" Roper

The only change the team has experienced over the season is to see deathrow depart, then proceed to do the hokey kokey with the team, before being replaced by Prod. Thats how i recall events unfolding, although raii seemed to have a different spin on the situation in the press release for the infused lineup last week, so i could be wrong.

The Last Resort

The Last Resort started out life as ZEN:

Matthew "deathdisco" Healy-Smith
Matthew "Carrel" Carrel
Ollie "Crazycat" Netherton
Jake "jakem" McCausland
Desmond "des" Bourke

Zen, as previously mentioned, poached des on the last night of the deadline after they had deemed Macky surplus to requirements. In the post-LAN furore Carrel ended up leaving the team, soon to be followed Crazycat who left for 4 Kings. Carrel was replaced by benkofk, while NaYDeN replaced crazycat. Eventually, deathdisco left the team and was replaced by former 4Kings player, Alex. They are finishing the season with the following roster:

Jake "jakem" McCausland
Desmond "des" Bourke
Alex "Alex" Nock
Nayden "nayden" Delchev
Ben "BenKoFk" Pratt

YoYoTech

YoYoTech are much like the imperial.Lime in the sense that they are a group of friends who quietly ply their trade and get on with things. They started out the season with:

Stuart "Ikuf" Brown
Guy "Membrane" Mayne
James "Renegade" Hatton-Smith
Senan "menengroth" Quinn
Niall "Tenshi" Dowd

Also like imperial, they have only made one change this season, as they brought in Mincherz to replace Renegade.

Veritas-Gaming

Last, but not least, we have Veritas. Veritas were the first team to drop out this season as they folded just after i36. They were:

Richard "raisins" Shepherd
Chris "jaii" Ward
Nayden "NaYDeN" Delchev
Matt "Mr K" Kirkham
Sadegh "Shadowman" Mzadeh