Alasdair Sparrow

Duck is the newest member of the panel and current Cadred whipping boy, which leads him nicely into a slot on the top10 panel.

After reaching the dizzying heights of 9th-12th in the i32 CS:S tournament Alasdair's only other achievement in gaming is the release of a mediocre frag movie which skyrocketed to a 7.7 rating on Source Radio. Latey he has been industriously working for the cadred website and has often been acclaimed for his hard work and over-keenness in trying to accommodate the readers. This aside he has continually impressed as an upcoming scene journalist and his knowledge of the European CS:S scene is one of his key strengths, making him a fantastic new addition to the Cadred Top Ten Panel.

"After the veritable feast of action we saw last month, August was on the barer side of things. That combined with the fact that a number of teams have folded has made for slim pickings this month in the Top10.

With DiamondZ, Dignitas and TCM amongst others going through metamorphoses or foldings the task wasn't too easy either. Had TCM stuck together they would have moved up the rankings following their good showing at the iseries, however, as it is, with the lineup not officially announced and with no obvious evidence to suggest how the team will gel I can't bring myself to put them too high. The same remains true for Dignitas and Angeldust's new venture."

Richard "Dr. Gonzo" Lewis

Richard comes from a journalistic background and has covered e-sports in print, on radio and television having worked for such organisations as GotFrag and CGS. He is the current content manager of Cadred where he contributes a weekly e-sports column. He was this year’s captain of Team UK in the ClanBase Nations Cup, although he is semi-retired from playing.

He now concentrates on writing and management. Over the years he has worked for Zboard, xciteuk, Infused and is currently based with 4kings.

"Not a lot of activity over the month, that’s for sure, and the devil makes work for idle hands. Expect the roster upheavals to continue, making picking an accurate top ten something of a Herculean labour… Well, not quite. It’s safe to say that Reason deserve to go up after outclassing everyone at the i37, and that the overlooked Attax definitely deserve to be in this month after proving comprehensively they are the best team in Germany at the moment. Vitriolic will benefit from the roster shuffles and will likely shoot up a few places and perhaps this could be the month that the fallen giant of VeryGames disappears from view altogether. The voters will not tolerate the inactivity much longer it seems.

diamondZ are also no longer in the equation, but some people seem to be quite keen on the idea that Finnish Royalty can fill that void, so they could even make that tenth spot this month. Ultimately though there will be few changes as the season starts to wind down and the online leagues start again. The next few months will see the scene completely teraformed and rebuilt, but until then the status quo cling to power."

Paul "ReDeYe" Chaloner

Appearing on WorldsOldestHuman.com isn't all that Paul has to his name, he is also one of the most knowledgable and experienced men in eSports.

With a CV that won't fit into an average word processor, Paul is a director of QuadV, a broadcasting company he founded at the start of 2007.

Paul has been commentating for six years now, has appeared on major television networks in three continents, and is one of the most in-demand experts in gaming.

"Its been an odd month in Source through August. We havent had a great deal of action LAN wise so its tricky to work out any major changes in the top ten this month. That said, what little action we did see was from Reason Gaming and I'd put them second overall, still a little behind the TEX Winners RedLine but not far off. They have had a great year and adding another i-series win to their already impressive tournament snag list added to that feeling that they are amongst the very best in the business. The only other real change for me this month is moving TCM a little higher. You may argue one tournament final (with very few big teams in attendance) is much to write home about, but defeating Dignitas for the second consecutive tournament shows progress and a depth of character previously missing from the current line up. If they can stay together for the rest of the year, they could well find that HudzG finally breaks his tournament duck.

Of the rest, its pretty much the same as last month with no major movers or shakers. We need a few more lans yet, but 2009 is starting to shape up as a season of two halves, the first dominated by Verygames and potentially the second by RedLine, whichever way you cut it, the French have it in source right now."

Robert "KleX" Pinsler

Robert came in touch with eSports two years ago and has become more and more interested in the CSS scene since then, and also loves to play the game himself.

Last year he started working for the up and coming German eSports site eFever.de and helped to make it to what it is today. With some changes coming across in the last couple of weeks he quit this job after almost two years.

Nevertheless, Robert says that he will "give himself a go as a free agent from now on, so you better watch out!"  

"It's been the month of i37, an expected but tight win from Reason Gaming and an impressive performance of TCM. That's why it's even more sad to see this team call it a day because you could really see potential. Another team with a very strong month was the German Team Alternate. They managed to not only beat RedLine in the Eurocup but they also won against mTw three times in a row. You could suppose now that mTw just got worse but then Team Germany wouldn't have won the ENC to be fair. The rest of the ranking shoudln't have changed too much with redline and Reason on top after the-eXperience and OOF really showed who are the strongest teams."

Jason "Jay" Atkins

Since starting his shoutcasting career at the now defunct Team Sportscast Network Jay is now a quadV shoutcaster.

Having covered a multitude of games his primary focus has been on CSS and CS 1.6. In the 2 years he has been covering CSS he has seen most if not all of Europe and North America's top teams duke it out in countless leagues and LAN's.

Jay has been around eSports for 5 years now, and broadcasting for 3. In his time he has seen leagues, teams and organisations both flourish and fail.

"With i37 now out of the way Reason and TCM have climbed a few spots in my top10 on the virtue of their performances, however I still rank Redline above them and also 4Kings. What is needed now is a bigger prize pot at one of the i-events or perhaps another OoF/TeX double bill that will bring the best of all concerned.

At the moment with Verygames inactive the Top 10 is definitely a lot more interesting but it would be nice to see the kings of EU (and in my opinion International) Source return to reclaim their mantle as #1. It will be interesting to see if Redline can retain the form they have shown in recent months, with rumours of VG's demise greatly exaggerated perhaps a LAN game between #1 and the former #1 isn't so impossible after all."

You'll be able to catch more thoughts from our panel with Cadred's September Rankings in a month's time!