Fnatic - A profesional gaming team

One more country down for ESWC. Ukraine, Europe's second biggest territory(after Russia), has held its ESWC preliminaries last weekend. The event, supported by the biggest brands in and out of computer industry(see BMW-Petronas) was held on a proffesional level to be envied. Excellent gaming arena, spacious spectator area, a stage with ten gigantic plasma screens and a projector - much like in a movie theater.









The gaming area



































View from the top- the crew, the players, the spectators.










The scale of this even has generated a lot of attention in the media. Even a special backdrop was prepared, which furthered the similarity between this tournament and an F1 racing paddock. Several Ukranian TV channels were there to capture the moments of glory on film. Despite the cameramen breathing down their neck, lights shining in their eyes, and distractive employees in BMW-Petronas suits walking around, the Ukrainian cybersportsmen managed to succesfully compete, and deliver an exiting show to their faithful fans and spectators.

For the Counter Strike teams A-Gaming and pro100 it was a hellish experience- just a day after the ASUS Cup is over, just a few hours after tiresome commute from Moscow, they had to come out and give it their hundred percent. After 3 days of non-stop gaming and traveling, the only thing that keeps you going is the smell of adrenaline in your nostrils and the lucid dream of Paris.

However no surprises were expected in the Counter Strike discipline. It was a tossup between the A-Gaming and pro100 for the first, with eXplosive.eMobile tagging along in the 3rd place. But, surprise, pro100 loses to DELTA.Plz in the second rounds, fights it way back up through the loser bracket right up to the semifinals, where it meets up with eXplosives and falls out of competition completely.
Eyewitnesses report that pro100 looked very tired, probably not completely rehabilitated yet from the long trip from the exhaustive ASUS Cup.

Statement by the ESWC.UA.CS referee arcan:

It seemed that pro100 played not like a team, but like five solo players. Starting out as terrorists they barely managed to win four rounds to eXplosive's 11. As Counter Terrorists edzie hid in window on B and made an amazing -4, taking the pistol round. However that didn’t help, and pro100 lost the second half 3 to 5.

	A-Gaming	Spot at ESWC Grand Final + 5x Laptop
	line up	B1ad3 (c), strike, weiss, enix, vad1k
	eXplosive.eMobile	5x LCD monitors
	line up	yxo (c), starix, silence, hoo1ya, craft1k
	AK	5x Samsung c156
	line up	MAD, Lema, Daddy, sintex, Ryv

With 9-4 overall and a perfect 5-0 on dust2, A-Gaming is a clear favorite in this match up.

Statement by AK.Lema:

It started out really good with us taking down the pistol round. But the A-Gaming managed to come right back, and a head to head race to the clock started. A-Gaming played really good, solid defense, however it was clear they were tired from their ASUS trip. Of course our performance could be better, but I am happy with this result

Team	line-up
Amazing-Gaming	B1ad3 (c), strike, weiss, enix, vad1k
eXplosive.eMobile	yxo (c), starix, silence, hoo1ya, craft1k
Delta.Peoplz	sc0rp (c), Maloy, Shootik, CeHu4, Sand
AK	MAD, Lema, Daddy, sintex, Ryv
pro100[Frag.su]	edward (c), zeus, razor, kekc, frost
pro100.Bigline	Kane (c), r0mka, Denia, ZU_ZU, DobeR
Avalanche	sasha, dia, mal, myb, rigid
DTS	Pops, J.Hunter, Fen, lom, Markeloff

Warcraft III was even more obvious- it's HoT. He is the Deadman of Ukraine, the unbeatable night elf force. FiX, HoT's teammate was a sure pick for the silver, however fate decided differently, and Zion.Sonik made a surprising run, robbing FiX of second place and a nice shiny monitor.

	SK.HoT.C-Club	Spot at ESWC Grand Final+Laptop
	Zion.Sonik	LCD Monitor
	FiX.C-Club	Motorola c156

Reppack(many games missing).

Statement by Zion.Sonik

First game went pretty easy, but in the
second one on Echo got really complicated.
THR exhibited excellent micro, but I manag-
-ed to pull it off when he got too greedy at
my base.

Statement by THR.c-club

The match against FoX was very close. In the first game I haven't made a single mistake, and my opponent has made only one. I held him off when he was running to tower me and focus fired his hero. In two minutes when he returned I already had three heroes and five bears. In the second game I got a bit lucky when I came just at the right moment with two heroes and killed his blademaster

Statement by TRH.c-club

I had a chance to win the first game, but then everything went wrong. I tried to kill Mihailo's expand, but he managed to defend well. He gained the advantage and never let go of it.

Given that Quake 4 is a new discipline surprises should be in order. When Quake 3 appeared it brought us quite a few new names, and so has every other FPS genre installment. However to this day the names at that top have been all too familiar- Cooller, socrates, Toxic. And this time the undisputed favorite, eMobile.Hunter, has won himself a trip to the Grand Finals. Nonetheless surprises took place. But, surprises of different kind, as esk1, a Ukranian Q3 legend, has began celebrating way to early, and had to play in this tourney under influence. Fighting cold feet, or just coping with the stress, esk1 in fact doomed any shadow of a chance he had, first forfeiting the winners final, and then playing the Consolation Final in a condition no way plausible.

	eMobile.Hunter	Spot at ESWC Grand Final+Laptop
	LG)Zloy	LCD Monitor
	esk1	Motorola c156

Statement by Nortal:

Although there are some issues where there is still room for improvement, but nonetheless this was an excellent tournament, magnificently organized. All my opponents were very skilled and played well. I lost to Zloy because its his turn to win(laughs). First place belongs to Hunter.

TrackMania was a gamble. An unknown game never before took part in a big tournament, and the winner could be anyone. Even a Quake 4 player, esk1, took a shot at the title, rather successfully as well, but later on forfeiting due to time conflict with his native discipline. As if this wasn't crazy enough, one of the projected favorites, AG.texaco stirred the tournament up some more, by forfeiting his Ukraine Finals spot, motivating it by lack of training he got on the new map pack, released exclusively for ESWC.UA finals. This, and another player, barracuda not being able to visit the tournament for reasons unknown, put 4 empty slots in the bottom of the brackets- as a result, freeslots featured as far as WB and LB Semi-Finals. However this did not matter, because in the end only one man will be left standing, and only one man will go to Paris. The one with the most tags, pro100.Vido.nG.Bigline turned out to be this man, proving that sponsorship matters.

	pro100.Vido.nG.Bigline	Spot at ESCW Grand Final + Laptop
	Sniper	LCD monitor
	Neon	Motorola c156

Statement by pro100.Vido.nG.Bigline:

Thanks to opponent for his excellent play, he made me nervous there for a bit. I am very happy that I am going to France, and I am just as happy about the prize I won. I will do my best to make Ukraine proud at the Grand Finals. P.S.: Thanks to Kate, that she exists(laughs).

Statement by pro100.Vido.nG.Bigline:

I like this tournament very much, everything is going smoothly and no problems have arisen so far. Unfortunately, the main contender for the title, AG.texaco, didn't come, which I am very grateful to him for(laughs). There are two other players here who, in theory, can contest me for the title, but I trained a lot, and I am ready for anything or anybody. Thanks to my team and my manager Juneor!

In the end all the feelings, all the emotions- the joy of victory, and the anguish of defeat; the excitement and the fatigue; in the end it all got scrambled together in a big something called a e-sports competition. In the end there was no losers and no winners, no firsts and no seconds, and there was only one thing left- hope. Hope that the Ukrainian expedition will prevail, will succeed, and will win in the ESWC Grand Finals.

So good luck to you, team Ukraine!



And Enjoy!

This material was made with help of friendly staff of gameinside.com