The second part of the EPS UK Grand Finals Preview

With the finals just a few days away, it is time to have a look at the other two teams at the event, namely Reason Gaming and Team Darkstyle. Finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively in the table, these two will face each other in the 2nd semi final match.

For those of you that have not been following the EPS Season 2 will wonder who Darkstyle are. They are in fact the Team CoolerMaster lineup. Due to problems with the past TCM team in Season 1, the brand TCM were not allowed to play. However, a friend of the current TCM lineup allowed the TCM players to play in the tournament under the name of Team Darkstyle.

I will take a look at both teams individually and then have a look at the encounter between the two of them.

Team CoolerMaster

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

For the rest of this preview, I am going to refer to them as TCM, as that is the name you all will recognise them by.

TCM are the number 1 team in Europe. They have just come away from a win at the UKeSA Grand Finals and are certainly the team to beat. But now they need to do it all again. TCM had a relatively good online stage, winning all their games except those against Reason and ButtonBashers. This meant they finished 3rd, after beating dignitas (who are in 4th). They will probably be quite happy with that finishing, but they know that if they want to increase the money in their wallets, they will have to beat one if not both of the teams who finished above them.

However, a lot of people say that the TCM team are better offline, and that would definitely come across in their results. They have finished in the top3 in the last 3 major tournaments, namely i36, Lan79 and UKeSA, where they won the latter. They have definitely been the most consistent team at events, and at UKeSA it finally clicked. The major question on people’s minds will be if they are able to keep this going into the EPS finals.

Individually the team is probably not the best around. They certainly have some great individuals; robyEE the sniper, who has won the MVP for both i36 and UKeSA, plays a huge role in the team as do Phantasy and Germaine. However, this team wouldn’t work without their other two players, Vasquez and Twist. Though you may not find them at the top of the leaderboard, at the end of the game the rest of the TCM players will not care. They are a complete team.

This is possibly down to the fact that they have been the same 5 for some times now. They went to i36 as this 5, and they are still the same 5. Though they have had an apparent rocky stage just before UKeSA, this has definitely disappeared, and when I saw them at UKeSA, they all looked very happy.

If the 5 players are able to keep the form up that they had at UKeSA then they could quite easily win the tournament. The pressure won’t get to them, as they have all had that experience before, and maybe robyEE will even have his Dad sat in the audience cheering him on, something that must help your confidence.

To find out how the team think they will do, I spoke to Phantasy:

This being another big event for the UK scene with the top 4 teams of europe in attendance. Just like UKESA TCM will be attending this event with high hopes and be expecting to place first again to keep up our run of good performances. The same mind set from UKESA will be followed over to EPS, we won't be underestimating anyone even though we're ranked number 1. The prize purse for EPS is very good therefore each team will be trying to perform to the best of their ability. I think if our team maintains the success we have achieved in the past couple of months then I feel this could also be our event and our second win as a team.

These guys will want another win to show the rest of Europe that they ARE the best team in Europe and can hold onto that record.

Reason Gaming

Tim “revoltz” Denton
Christian “styles” Hart
Chris “Lighters” Lightburn
Jyri “kAMMYz” Högman
Samuli “sLWx” Kettunen

The team that everyone thought would rule the summers fell to a miserable 4th place finishing. They were at the number 1 spot last week after their great performance at Lan79, but they were not able to hold on it. To cut it short, have Reason already peaked?

EPS UK is definitely not going to be the best event to judge that on. Given any other time and this would be the perfect time for them to show the rest of Europe that they are better than a 4th place finishing. But unfortunately EPS decided to put the dates of the event on the same day as someone’s holiday, unfortunate and unavoidable; but what is does mean is that the famous Tom “D1ablo” Newman is not going to be present at the finals to play for Reason.

This is definitely a huge blow to the team, as he is not only one of the strongest players in Reason, as well as the rest of the CoD4 scene, but he also brings a huge mental boost to the team. Though some people may find his mouth a bit too big and quite happy to say what he wants, it definitely helps a team. This is something I thought Reason were relatively good at, at UKeSA. They got loud and aggressive, and it could have shaken up TCM (their opponents). Unfortunately though, when they did start to lose momentum this energy died, probably because they had just lost in overtime in a map they could have won.

This is something they certainly need to work on, as it was really evident in both their games; when they lost in overtime in the first map, they let their heads fall and they went on to losing the 2nd map quite easily. The team are just not used to losing, and don’t like losing. But they do need to learn to pick themselves up when they are down, especially in a Best of 3 when there is a lot of time to come back.

However, at the EPS the team are going to struggle. They don’t have Tom, and this will really make it hard for the team to use all the strats at tactics they have been using for some time now. The person they have got in to replace Tom is Styles, another well known name in the UK scene. However, like Will for ButtonBashers, he has not been playing at the top of the scene like the rest of the players who will be at the EPS. Ever since i36 he has not had a proper team in which to play in. Though he has played a little bit with Sypher, he is definitely not “inactive”. We have also heard reports that he has been “top fragging” for Reason in their preparation, so things may be on the plus side for them.

To go with this, they also have the added problem of their new player. Watching him at UKeSA you could tell he felt rather overcome. He hardly mentioned a word for the whole of the event, which was far more in keeping with the Reason Source team than the CoD4 one. He also didn’t perform to the same level that we are used to seeing online. I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a “LAN crumble”, but it definitely wasn’t his best day of CoD4. Will he do the same at EPS? It is definitely more exposed there, so the pressure may get to him a bit more. But we will have to wait and see.

To find out what they had to say, I approached Lighters to get his opinion on how he thought Reason would do.

The fact that we are using a stand in will definitely not work to our advantage but we all rate styles very highly and it's certainly very hard to replace d1ablo. Not only does tom play very consistent but he keeps the team morale very high. After losing against TCM at UKESA we are definitely wanting revenge, the game went into overtime and could have went either way but we are a confidence team and after that first map loss we just went into self destruct. We are hoping for a victory at EPS even with styles standing in as we have been practicing and going over tactics since the UKESA LAN. Things seem to be coming along nicely but you can't really tell how good things have progressed until you get to LAN in a stage of where it matters.

This will not be a full strength Reason, and so I will be surprised if they are victorious at the event.

The Encounter

Reason Gaming vs Team Darkstyle, a repeat of the regular meet up these two teams have seemed to have at all the major events. Currently the score rests at 2-1 to TCM, after beating Reason at i36 and UKeSA and only losing to them at Lan79. Could TCM take a 3-1 lead going into the summer events?

It is definitely going to be an interesting game to watch, as these two teams will get really fired up for the occasion, even if it going to be played early in the morning as one of the first matches. The likes of Twist and Vasquez will keep the TCM players on their toes and wide awake, whereas Reason will probably have to rely on the loud mouth of Revoltz to do it, maybe with the odd word from Lighters and kAMMYz thrown in to keep them going.

Skill wise it could go both ways. We know Reason have the skill, though they are missing D1ablo. If sLWx can bring out his A game at an event, then he could really hurt TCM. But then again, if robyEE has his usual LAN face on, he can also destroy Reason.

Though it is a team game, the match will require a lot of individual battles to take place. Not only will the battle of the scopes be a big and important one, but also the battle of the SMGs. Tom is a hard SMGer to replace for Reason, and TCM could take advantage of this.

Whatever happens, this will be a game to watch if possible, but of course if it is not possible, Cadred will be on hand to bring you all the reports of the matches as and when we can.

My predicted score: 2-1 to TCM