The UKeSA Grand Finals are upon us and Cadred starts its coverage today, with the first part of the CoD4 preview

The Call of Duty tournament saw some of the best teams throughout Europe take part in the United Kingdom eSports Association Dell XPS Premiership. A bit ironic possibly? A bit annoying for some of the other UK teams maybe? But from a spectator point of view it was brilliant, a league with the “best of the best”.

As always the league had its fair share of ups and downs, with two teams dropping out, but this wasn’t enough to upset the finals. We will see 4 brilliant teams lining up to see who will take home that first place. For all of the teams going, 1st place is what they are hoping for, and they all think they can do it.

In this first part we are going to look at the first game, against the team that finished first in the group stages, Team Dignitas, and the team that finished 4th in the group stages, ButtonBashers. I will look at each team individually and then talk about the match between the two of them.

Team Dignitas

Jason "LoOkZoR" O'Connor
Danny "SoCLoN" O'Connor
Jonathan "raz" Baker
Mark "mark" Horner
Michael "Mick" Bradshaw

The biggest name in Call of Duty history, the team that has achieved the most since the end of the summer events, now has to muster up some more of that fighting spirit and see if they can monopolise on a first place finishing in the group stages.

The team were invincible a few months ago, and no one could come anywhere close to them. That was in the last chapter of the Bestselling novel, The CoD4 Colossus. Now the author has decided to spice things up a bit, and throw a curve ball down the pitch. They have lost their star player, Blackmane, in replace of someone who is definitely as much of a star, Mick.

However, things haven’t been gelling for the all UK team. According to some players from other teams that have played against the new dignitas, Mick is not fitting into the lineup as well as they hoped he would. He doesn’t seem to be fitting into the fast and aggressive play style that the team has adopted and put to such great affect. He has also been out of the CoD4 scene for quite some time, and so he’s undoubtedly a bit rusty.

He does however have the experience of playing on a stage in front of others and knows how to handle pressure, which will make him a valuable member of the team, and will give him a chance to shine and prove the critics wrong, that the old veteran still has what it takes to mix with the new kids on the block.

If dignitas are to win this tournament they will have to really step up their game. They did not impress that much at Lan79, and they only just managed to qualify for the EPS UK LAN finals. To go with that, they suffered two defeats in the EMS Season 4, and then lost to Team Celsus in the Infused Cup. All of these factors won’t help their confidence, and they can’t feel that confident going into the LAN finals.

This is probably the first time I think dignitas have gone to a tournament recently not being the clear favourites to win. They have lost their number 1 spot in Europe according to the official Cadred rankings, but could this be the chance for them to show the rest of Europe that they are worthy of that spot. Only time will tell.

I went and had a chat with Odee from Team Dignitas to find out what his thoughts were on his CoD4 team and how he thought he would do:

Unfortunately he was not able to comment immediately but we may get a statement from him later in the week.

ButtonBashers

Daniel "L-KiNG" Luther
Ryan "dUffER" Duffy
Ralph "qwertYYY" Balder
Davy "Davy" Sysmans
Jasdev "JUSZN" Virdee
Jamie "hysobe" Harrison

The team that qualified for the UKeSA is a completely different lineup to the team that is going to be competing in the LAN finals. With UKeSA adapting to the principal that the space belongs to the org rather than the players, ButtonBashers were able to pass on the account to their new team, the old SpeedLink (or CrackClan before that).

This team was originally in the UKeSA group stages, and shone by winning their first 3 games in a row, and were sat comfortably at the top of the table. Unfortunately things turned sour with their organisation at the time, CrackClan, and they were removed. Now they are back in with a chance to get back to the top of the table, as they take the spot that Stevy and co worked hard to get.

Their lineup is definitely one of the best in Europe at the moment, and has been soaring ahead in some of the online tournaments, most noticeably the EPS UK Season 2, where they have finished top of the group stages. Unfortunately they were not able to maintain this form going into the Infused Cup where they lost out to Hungarian based CyberGeneration over 2 maps. This will knock their confidence.

However this is definitely not the biggest upset they will have, as one of their players, nreo, will not be able to attend the event. You can definitely not say this team have “settled in” as a 5, as for the EPS UK they have had to replace one of their 3 foreigners with JUSZN to allow them to play, and the team haven’t been together for that long either. However he has been part of the core for some time and without his presence this could affect the way the team play.

The team expect to bring in JUSZN as their replacement but this has yet to be confirmed. If he does go he will be the best possible solution as he has played with them all a lot and was the ESL Backup as such to allow them to play in the EPS UK.

This has now changed, and JUSZN will not be going, but rather the ex YoYoTech star hysobe.

To find out more about their hopes and expectations I went and had a chat with a combination of Davy and Duffer to see what they had to say:

Our main goals are still the summer lans so we will use the ukesa finals as a very, very serious bootcamp. I'm hoping to win at least 1 match in all fairness due to nreo probably not being able to go. We're looking to get 100% active after this lan because of some personal issues that will be worked out by then. We're at least very happy that we got the spot and will surely try our best. I see Reason as the biggest opposition but dignitas is the most important team for us to beat at ukesa. Even though they've been slacking a bit offline, you can never write them off at lan. I'm sure Raz will sort his troops this week and they'll be strong! Gl to all.

I think it’s just karma that we got into UKESA after the whole crackclan gangbang! Hopefully we can do good without the thai superstar <3

The Encounter

Dignitas vs ButtonBashers

This game will definitely be a lot closer than your typical “1st vs 4th” place game. ButtonBashers have been playing well recently, and dignitas frankly haven’t. This ButtonBashers lineup will definitely be confident that they can cause an upset, but dignitas will also rely on the fact this lineup hasn’t played together at an event yet.

If dignitas are able to play to the style they like, and Danny is hitting the shots, then I think they could take it, quite comfortably, especially as ButtonBashers won’t have their normal 5. But if ButtonBashers are able to get a few rounds on the board and win a few big clutches early on, I think it could unnerve dignitas.

However, I think the experience of dignitas will conquer in the end. Final score, 13-9 to dignitas.

We will have another version of this with the Part 2 on Thursday, which will include the other two teams present, Reason and Team CoolerMaster. We will preview both of the teams as well as preview the Championship final briefly.

The source version of this will be out tomorrow for the “Part 1” of the Source tournament.