Alex "RoyBacon" Bullard delivers the last of his fortnightly columns about Counter-Strike 1.6 in "Bringing Home The Bacon".

This column is the sole opinion of the author and does not represent the opinion of Heaven Media Ltd or the opinion of any affiliates.

“A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.”

– Sydney J. Harris

There have been a number of interesting events in the world of 1.6 over the last couple of weeks, so in my own inimitable (and largely cynical) style I shall endeavour to address these happenings in columnist style of house keeping. There is no doubt that all focus will quickly shift to the impending IEM Global Finals taking place at the beginning of next month but before diving into the madness of this event like a spoilt fat kid gouging himself on chocolate, lets take a look at some of the other goings on in the world of 1.6 and arrive at IEM with a clean slate.

Gux joined SK Gaming. Pretty big news and I must admit it caught me a bit off guard. At the end of 2009 and the start of 2010 there were more changes and team swaps than perhaps at any point in recent 1.6’s recent history, it was as if everyone had suddenly decided the end of the year and the start of a new one was the time to make a change. The biggest surprise of the many changes was undoubtedly the departure of Gux from Fnatic. In a year that brought unparalleled success to the team, it seemed astonishing that someone would want to leave at end of one of the most triumphant and profitable years for a 1.6 surpassing the prize money won by the now legendary SK 2003. The reasons given at the time were slightly ambiguous but pointed towards a desire to move away from 1.6 and concentrate on other areas of his life, so maybe he just wanted to go out on a high. Now it seems that this is less the case and that in fact his reasons were far more to do with an apparent separation that had grown within the team, despite their success and maybe suggests that Fnatic are not the happy go lucky bunch that they would like us to think they are?

Gux’s arrival obviously meant someone else had to leave; this time around it was kHYSTAL who was to find his way out of the revolving door of SK Gaming. This only added to the slightly odd nature of the situation given that kHYSTAL had hardly put a foot wrong since his acrimonious arrival from H2k Gaming; but such was the rest of the teams desire to secure the services of Gux he was the unfortunate party to make way. The change obviously comes before a massive event in terms of the IEM Global finals and usually a change in roster before a big event has a positive impact on the team. You only have to look at how the arrival of Face and kHYSTAL prompted SK Gaming to a win at the first LAN event they attended as they placed first at the Global Challenge event in China. You can also point to Mousesports acquisition of Roman, where the IEM European title followed as an example of how a new face can freshen up a line up and provide that extra motivation to gain victory. So maybe the introduction of Gux to the line up will provide the spark for an SK victory in Hanover?

Gux during his time with Fnatic. (Image thanks to HLTV.org)

Less surprising was the news that Sweden is the top ranked nation heading into this year’s European Nations Cup (ENC). In case you were wondering how ESL worked out their rankings it is nicely explained in this short paragraph taken from the ESL’s news post.

How are the countries ranked?

The countries got points for their performance in the last seasons. Every point a nation scored in the last three years is counted. For every match won in the group stages or the finals the nation got 3 points, for every draw 1 point and a loss ended in 0 points. As you may understand we want to put more weight on the latest results in opposition to the older ones not to give a team a better spot who's players got exchanged the last seasons.

So we weighted the seasons 2007 with 1/3, 2008 with 2/3 and 2009 with 3/3 of the whole sum. That makes clear that we care about what the teams did in the past but also focus on the latest results to give our ranking a clearer view to be as near as can be to the real strength of every nation.

Sweden with 8250 points is miles ahead of the next team, Germany on 6375. The strength of the Swedish 1.6 scene is absolutely phenomenal, not only do they have many top teams (Fnatic, SK Gaming, MYM, H2k), all of which are not only capable of competing at international events but as MYM proved last year, coming from nowhere and winning. They also have teams like Coldfrag (now Begrip), who are a long way down the pecking order in Swedish 1.6 but would easily be among the top teams in just about every other nation. The strength in depth is insane and for me that is what has kept the Swedish teams and the scene at the top for so long. The turn over in players is high, you only have to look at the recent shift around between the teams to get a sense of this and look at all the players who have gone out of the game. For every Zneel who quits there are 3 or 4 players immediately ready to step into their shoes, look at Crystal who made a big impact at IOL finals with a line up largely unknown to the rest of Europe. Then just when you think the scene couldn’t get any stronger great names from the past make a come back and we see the likes of SpawN and Snajdan at the top level once again looking as good as they ever have done.

It really does have the look of a production line about it and you only have to take a look at how some of the other top teams have struggled to replace players in other countries to get a good sense of what an abundance of talent there is in Sweden. The Polish scene for example has never been of any great significance on a world stage, except for the former MYM, former WICKED, fromer Vitriolic, former AGAiN and now (hopefully for a long time to come) Frag Executors. They stuck with the same five players for a long time, how much of this was due to the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” theory is hard to say but attempts to make a change to the line up in the passed had always resulted in failure. Now it seems they have finally stuck to a change as Pasha joins the team in place of Luq. If results fail to satisfy would it really surprise anyone if Luq was to make a return? Mousesports had also struggled to find the right five and the new players who had made an impact at other teams didn’t seem to do the trick, only now they have brought in the experience of Roman does the team seem to finally look settled.

So what exactly is it about the Swedish setup that sets them apart so much in the world of 1.6, I equate it to how a lot of nations perform at the Olympics or most recently the winter Olympics. Britain it seems has a history of success in the Skeleton-bobsleigh. In an interview with the BBC, when asked about why Britain had success in this event one of the coaches put it into some kind of context, he spoke about how there had been investment in this sport, how it had been targeted as having medal potential and was then funded accordingly. How that had allowed an infrastructure to develop which had been refined and was geared to bringing through athletes and sportsmen and woman from other areas and turning them into sliders capable of winning medals. It’s fair to say success breads success and that given the performance of Amy Williams in winning Gold has ensure a legacy for the sport in this country for years to come.

Briton's latest Golden Girl

I think the same can be said about 1.6 in Sweden and why perhaps they have never dominated CSS in the way they have 1.6 throughout its history. The Swedes have targeted 1.6 as a game they can dominate and with IOL and Dreamhack they have a fantastic breeding group for new talent. New players at the top level are still flooding into 1.6 in Sweden, where as in other countries perhaps other games have now taken prevalence (this was certainly true in the UK where CSS took over due in no small part to the effect of CGS). Sweden still seem able to keep their young blood hungry for 1.6 success. This is built on a vast infrastructure where world leading LAN centres offer regular competitive experience for new players at an incredibly high standard. Swedish internet is also incredibly good, which is an obvious technical advantage they enjoy over much of Europe. This is the kind of advantage that can be made to count, as the UK’s Skeleton team benefited from the wealth of engineering experience the UK has at its disposal when designing their sled. This is the unsung background work that goes into making a successful team for just about anything and or though Fnatic don’t rush to think Swedish ISP’s when they win an event, it all helps towards their progress.

If they didn’t already have enough going for them, news comes from the ESL that the ESL Pro Series will be returning to the Nordic region. This is an event which will certainly be a magnet for the top teams and give them yet another avenue to parade Swedish dominance.

All of which puts the events in the UK regarding their EPS qualifying rather in its place. If the standard of the Nordic EPS is the pinnacle of 1.6 then UK 1.6 would probably be the dull end of a spoon. That said, the series has breathed new life into a once ailing scene. It is a mark of the gulf in class between the UK and other nations when I can tell you that I personally was one map away from getting my team into the series and Pro-gamers we are certainly not. There is not only stark difference in the quality of the competition but also a difference in attitude. I would struggle to characterise any of the UK’s 1.6 teams as “professional” it would be difficult for me even to go as far as to say that they were truly committed.

The idea of practise and sacrifice in sport is not a new one, where your priorities are when it comes to how you organise your life will often have a direct impact on your ability to succeed. So when you take a closer look, it really doesn’t come as a surprise to see that UK teams struggle so much when it comes to international competition when their attitudes towards preparation and practice are anything but professional. Given that this is the so called EPS (the P standing for Professional) there was something remarkably amateurish about the whole situation.

As a team, we had not really prepared at all, one member had been out drinking the night before, one was playing golf that morning and spent the pre-game in the pub. So it shouldn’t really come as a massive shock that we lost. Our first game of the day was a default win, due to the other team failing to realise the game was taking place in the afternoon and when greeted by this fact, responded by saying that they all had “lifes” and wouldn’t be able to play at this time. So perhaps they had chosen a social advantage in their “lifes” and opted out of having a reasonable command of the England language.

Our second game was against FtD a team who skill-wise probably did belong in the division, unfortunately for them, their best player Warren, had departed the team a few days before the competition so it was not a shock when we were awarded another default win.

So we were confronted with the proposition of being one best-of-three match away from a place in the inaugural UK 1.6 EPS league, a place where we really didn’t belong. In spite of winning the first map comfortably we then collapsed to heavy defeats in the next two to leave us down and out. I’m not the kind of person who enjoys losing (is there such a person?) and regardless of the fact that I didn’t think we merited a place I was still quite gutted that we had lost. Still I suppose it saves us from the inevitable humiliation that a season in a league where we would have been massively out of our depth would have almost certainly proved to be.

The painful failure.

I hope that the teams fortunate enough to make it in make the most of it. There was a somewhat sour experience in the second of the qualifying cups when, given what was on offer one team decided they would do all they could to gain a place and went on a classic default hunt. Having refused to move the game to a later time, they then preceded to leave the server as the other team were joining (all be it 15 minutes late) in an attempt to default their way into the competition. I think it really served to highlight the shortfalls of the UK scene in one fell swoop. Firstly teams don’t show up on time, if they show up at all and playing against four is not that uncommon. It’s not just the piss about, here to make up the numbers fun teams that do this either. Team Dignitas spent part of the EAS ladder stage playing with a manager as their 5th. Reason Gaming also took the manager route when they couldn’t get 5 for some games and worse still they were often winning. I’m guilty of getting beat by Button Bashers when they were only able to get 4 players.

But what I really can’t stand is when teams pull a proper “no show”. It happens a lot and it’s pathetic. I have no problem with a team not being able to play, where I start to get annoyed is when teams either don’t bother to let to the other team know they can’t play until the last possible moment (often not being on irc and just dropping a cheeky comment on the ESL match page) or when they expect the other team to bend over backwards shifting the date of a game around to accommodate them seemingly blissfully unaware of consequence. It should never be hard to get five players on a server at the right time, especially in EAS where there is no roster cap and you can add as many players as you like. Sometimes playing in a league means other parts of your life have to take a back seat for a couple of hours, which seems to be something UK teams seem incredibly difficult to either comprehend or organise.

However, when a team are attempting to get five players onto a server then you have to cut them some slack, when three of them are sat waiting with you and the other two are having problems with the anti-cheat then leaving and claiming a “no show” is pretty low by anyone’s standards. The entire situation stunk of mess about, low level competition; this from teams hoping to enter a professional league with big prize money on offer. It should serve as a wake up call to all involved that not only do you have to play well, but you should also show up on time and act with a degree of professionalism. By all means abuse each other during the game, bad mouth each other on every conceivable forum afterwards, but show up on time and play by the rules. With all the net_graph and mousewheel controversy that has crept into ESL leagues recently there is no excuse for being caught out in this regard and now UK 1.6 has finally been given the EPS league which it has been asking for, it would be a travesty to see it wasted and plagued by “no shows” and defaults… But wouldn’t that just be typically UK 1.6?

So to conclude, Gux amazing, kHYRSTAL unlucky, Sweden pro, UK amateur, Bacon pissed off. Hopefully the IEM finals will cheer me up and you can expect a full preview coming soon as well as extensive coverage of the event which kicks off next week.