The second part of the UKeSA Dell XPS Premiership finals

This time around it is the other two teams that I will be looking at, namely Team CoolerMaster. These two teams finished 2nd and 3rd respectively and will be playing each other in the semi finals. I have taken a look at each team in turn, and then the encounter between the two of them.

Reason Gaming

Tim “Revoltz” Denton
Tom “D1ablo” Newman
Chris “Lighters” Lightburn
Jyri “kAMMYz” Högman
Samuli “sLWx” Kettunen

Reason Gaming, the number 1 team in Europe, will be making their way to London to try and see if they can add another trophy to their ever increasing cabinet. They are probably the favourites going into the tournament, especially after their recent victory at Lan79 where they topped eSuba in the final to take the trophy home.

Just over a month on, it will be their next offline event to see if they can remain that number 1 spot. Their performances online have been good, but they probably aren’t the best they could be. They lost to TBH in the EMS Group stages, which has left them with a harder path through to the final.

However, they have been making great progress through the Infused Cup playoff, and they are through to the EPS UK LAN finals. Their confidence will definitely be high. Though the group stages for UKeSA were some time ago, it was definitely not the best of runs for them. They lost to TCM in one of the earlier games, and got destroyed by dignitas before only managing a draw against ButtonBashers. This left them in 3rd position in the group.

The team that played them is not a patch on the current lineup that will be turning up at the grand finals on Saturday. They hadn’t been around for that long, and they were not playing as well as they are now.

Unfortunately, they have had to make a replacement and zenith has left the team. His replacement however, is someone that has been in the news recently after we interviewed him here at Cadred.org, sLWx. He was part of the infamous 2G4L team that were destroying everyone online. He has been given a bit of an “onliner” tag, and so this will be a chance for him to show the rest of the world he isn’t only good at home behind his keyboard. However, if the suspicions are true and he does not live up to his online form, this could be a real thorn in Reason’s shoe.

The chances of this happening are quite slim, and so I don’t think this will really be a problem. Reason Gaming are most likely going to come out and destroy all other opposition. They are the team on form, they are the number 1 team in Europe, they are the team to beat and they will not settle for anything less than first.

I spoke to Revoltz who said the following about the event:

UKeSA Finals should be a pretty interesting event, although I was expecting something really special with the whole GameOn thing I guess it just wasn't to be. Anyway, about the games at the time the game looked quite easy for us but with TCM now a stable contender for the top three in Europe, it's unfortunate that we meet so early on in the competition for both sides.

Looking at Dignitas performance since LAN79 with Mick and the fact that Button Bashers might be taking a merc instead of nreo the winner of ourselves and TCM should take the whole thing on paper. What will happen between us I don't know, but I expect a good game and should our line-up gell at LAN as it has so far then we should come out on top in my opinion. Good luck to all of the teams.

Team CoolerMaster

Declan "germaine" Elcocks
Mark "phantasy" Pinney
Carl "vasquez" Finch
Adam "Tw!stiZlEY" Cheshire
Robin "robyYE" Swaters

TCM were definitely one of the teams that hugely impressed us all at i36 and Lan79, as well as all of their online affairs. However recently there had been rumours that the team weren’t going to be around for much longer. Luckily these rumours don’t seem to have any substance to them, and the team will be in London to try and better their 2nd place finishing in the groups, and grab their first major title.

TCM went through to the LAN finals in an unusual fashion. They said themselves in an interview live at i36 that they didn’t deserve to finish 2nd place, but they were glad that they had made it through to the finals. The main reason for them finishing 2nd rather than 3rd or 4th was largely thanks to their game against dignitas.

With a lot of controversy surrounding this game, from accusations of dignitas not taking the game at all seriously to TCM not being sportsman and letting dignitas get their 5th, it was not a very pretty match that ended with TCM winning comfortably and coming 2nd in the group. This sparked a lot of flame between the two teams, something that as far as I am aware, is still partially alive at the moment.

But TCM have grown a lot since then. They have had two major events where they have shown the rest of Europe that they are worthy of a top spot, which can be seen by the way they have moved up the CoD4 Top 10 rankings. They will go to this tournament with a real chance of taking a piece of silverware home.

I spoke to Germaine to ask him his thoughts on their chances

After watching TCM's first season in UKeSA from the sidelines, it will be good to actually get to play a UKeSA game for the guys. They played a pretty sick first season, and we'll be looking to finish that off with a win at the LAN finals. Our first game will be against [R], whom the guys beat in their first game of the season, albeit both sides have progressed a hell of a lot since then. [R] will be bringing in their new 5th sLWx, a lot of people have being doubting how well he'll be playing at LAN, but I've got no doubt he'll be dropping those stinky finnish bombs just as he has online. I really don't know a lot about the structure of the matches though, each semi-final has been given a 1hr30 time slot as far as I'm aware, so I can only assume it will be a BO1 match? In which case, any team could win on the given day, of course it's LAN, so we'll go into the game as confident as ever!

The Encounter

Reason Gaming vs Team CoolerMaster

Reason Gaming are definitely the favourites, there is no doubt about that. However, if you look at the “scores” between the two teams at events in major playoffs, it is 1 all. TCM won at i36 and Reason won at Lan79. Though Reason have looked stronger online, at events a lot can chance.

Both teams are definitely not going to suffer from lack of LAN experience, and so it will go down to individual performances on the day. The key figures will definitely be the scopes, as when robyEE is on fire he is lethal, and kAMMYz needs no introduction either, he can win a game single handily (to quote a CoD4 Shoutcasting legend).

We will see some fierce battles going on, and if a few of the key players come alive, namely D1ablo and Phantasy, it could become a very interesting game to watch. Personally I think that Reason are going to have the edge, but like I said in their section, the fact that sLWx has never played with the team at an event will make a big difference.

Overall prediction: Reason to win 13-11.