After a gruelling 15 week season the LAN finals of the German ESL Pro Series are finally upon us. When it comes to National events, they don't come much bigger than this in a country famous for its professional and well run CS:S scene and thousands of people will be in attendance to watch all the action.

Featuring all of the top German talent the online season began with 16 teams battling it out for their spot in the finals. After a lot of shocks, upsets and controversy the final 4 have been decided, it is a mirror of last seasons finals with mTw.Mindfactory, Team Thermaltake, Team Alternate and Hoorai.Xilence in attendance. They will face each other in Cologne this weekend. The event kicks off this Saturday at 1pm CET and finishes Sunday at 6pm CET.

The Teams:

Hoorai.Xilence

Stefan 'Head' Heckel
Christoph 'disruptor' Dölger
Nico 'sYrox' Strott
Eduard 'xiu Pflüger
Christian 'Rak' Hermenau-Puhlvers

Where better to start than the online season winners? The side is full of top German names such as Stefan 'Head' Heckel - previously of Team Alternate - and Christoph 'disruptor' Dolger, add to that the crazy aim of xiu and Rak and the amazing tactician that is Nico 'sYrox' Strott they are one of the strongest line-ups in Germany yet they very rarely venture into European waters to compete. This may well be a factor when it comes to the business end of the play-offs as they don't have quite as much offline experience as teams such as mTw or Alternate. Previous wins over both mTw and Alternate though prove that going by online form, this is certainly the team to watch.

Team Alternate

Fabian 'BlackG7' Riegsinger
Julian 'JLN' Stempel
Gregor 'GreX' Brunner
Patrick 'KRAEUTERHUMPEN' Jakobi
Oliver 'hossa' Keller

Countless times this season the strength of this team has been called into question, and countless times they have delivered. The fresh blood brought in at the start of the season in the form of BlackG7 and KRAEUTURHUMPEN - one of the best names ever seen - have made a huge difference to the determination and skill of the team, BlackG7 in particular has performed to an immense standard in the online season. It will be interesting to see how they handle the pressure though as for most teams in Germany winning the EPS title is the #1 goal, they recently attended MaxLAN however where they came extremely close to defeating Team Verygames in a mini-classic match, this will do nothing but boost their confidence ahead of the finals as they look to end mTw's dominance and prove they are the top dogs in Germany.

mTw.Mindfactory

Andre 'nooky' Utesch
David 'dav1d' Kelling
Philipp 'osirisbash' Kaczmarczyk
Andreas 'ph0s' Wicht
Florian 'puRit' Dobberphul

It's been a bit of a strange one for the defending champions. They started the season with high hopes of cementing their place as one of the European elite, with the addition of the hugely experienced meiJin to the roster it looked possible. However a poor showing at both TeX and SLAP #19 saw the team drop in everyones estimations, that coupled with a hugely erratic online season in the EPS, where they struggled against opposition they should have slaughtered. This led the team to make drastic changes just 4 weeks before the finals as they removed meiJin from the roster, and brought back the player he replaced, none other than Andreas 'ph0s' Wicht. They will have to pull out something special if they are to retain their title as defeats to both Alternate and Hoorai.Xilence in the online season will still be fresh in the mind, if anyone can do it however, it is mTw.

Team Thermaltake

Benedict 'fRANCISCO'Gutierrez
Marco 'fREAKAZOID' Sorrentino
Dennis 'rez0r' Bethke
Steven 'stevie' Gutierrez
Adrian 'vINCE R.' Kohi

Team Thermaltake started the season in impressive fashion. Flying into pole position as they went 6 weeks undefeated, it wasn't to last however as when they came up against mTw, just like the season previously, they lost out. This wasn't to phase the challengers though as finished the season in fine form with only a loss to team Alternate to complain about. Their last match was against the league winners Hoorai.Xilence which they won relatively comfortably giving them a psycological edge over Hoorai. Again this team is lacking in experience when it comes to major LAN events and this could prove a stumbling block when the pressure is on, however if there are to be any upsets this weekend, it will be this team causing them.

Prize Breakdown:

My Predictions:

Needless to say Cadred will be covering the event from start to finish so stay tuned.