Counter Strike Shakedown #12
Feature -- Forrest "var1ables" Campbell releases #12 of his Counter Strike 1.6 Shakedown. This series will look at happenings in eSports the past week and his opinion on what's going on.
Note: None of this is the opinion Insider eSports or it’s sponsor(s). This is just my no-named wannabe-journalist opinion.
North America in chaos
The united states counter-strike has had some major moves int he last week. First Garett "Grt" Bambrough was forced to temporary, or permanently, retire due to a visa issue that was never settled by the Canadian government after the drama that occurred in the first season of the CGS where he was stopped at the border before the season began. He would need to acquire a special waiver which would settle it but it would take up to 6 months just for it to be processed - and that’s if it’s awarded at all. This forced area51 to make a roster change right before the WCG grand finals which they qualified for about a month ago and decided to go after Kory "semphis" Friesen who played with ruins prior to the move. This really blows. GRT was just getting back into form as both leader and fragger and now he’s forced to retire due to some retarded issue that shouldn’t be a problem as he’s a Canadian - why can’t he come to America? After all Canada is America's hat. Just kidding Canada. Don’t send GRT Shaguar and Stevenson to kill me.
After that backfire announced that they acquired two players who were without a home after a series of roster moves, namely the two loaded members David "Xp3" Garrido who was left out on the street after the former coL team was dropped from the org and Paul "Adrenaline" Baker who was replaced by sgares in loaded despite being a total boss throughout his tenure with the team. Now it appears that these former loaded players may be in a better position than there former team mates as this roster placed third at WCG there former roster but is sure to place better now that they have a stronger roster. Now if only they were in ESEAi.
The former turmoil roster found a new home with the reborn Frag Dominant who has been good to teams in the past - except the last two teams they had which couldn’t get to events with the org’s help. Ben "ben" Hui and Derrick "impulsive" Troung came out of “retirement” to play with there former team mates Joe "perez" Perez and Matt "PaTyoJoN" Iantosca as well as the well traded fragger Tyler "willsoN" Willson. Glad to have the guys back as they were strong throughout the last three years and when they announced that they would be disbanding after there second straight WCG event last year I was disappointed but you know it’s good to have them back. I half expect them to have the same problems they had before - keep three/four change one/two every two months for the next four months before the org gets tired and kicks them to the curb for them to find a new org to send them places. Please prove me wrong.
The biggest news: PoV breaking up. I knew the moves would come back to bite them as they were changing the players which had not failed them on what seemed like a whim. Now it comes out that Jeff "hero" Mettetal was not feeling the game for a while and just now decided to retire. The moves may have been in a hope to get him to regain the ever important fun factor which would keep him in the game. See you in 3 to 5 months or up to a year like all other players which “retire” from counter-strike. Andrew "Irukandji" Timmerman immediately jumped ship to PLP. Am i surprised? Yes. Derek “dBoorn” Boorn and Mettetal were willing to lose the sponsorship of the second biggest organization in north America to get Timmerman back - a player who has had great success with Boorn, Mattetal and David “Savior” Park. Well I guess that shows how willing he was to stick it out.
Oh yeah, this makes what, the 5th team aZn has killed?
In the chaos EG manages to sign Derek “dBoorn” Boorn to replace a retiring Ediz “goodfornothing” Basol. It was rumored that Boorn would be going to EG to replace basol, but it was a real surprise to hear that after all the success that Basol has had in the last year that he decided to retire. Why? I have no idea, maybe he needs more time to study or focus more on real life, we might never know. Looking at the roster it now seems overly full of talent. Like the 3D roster that fell flat on it’s face when faced by a more balanced compLexity. Lets hope that doesn’t happen again because it seems like the only north American roster that can compete now. However it could be the opposite - adding the young talent in Boorn may be the spark they need to push them to the top like fnatic’s addition of Ramsus “GuX” Stahl and Christopher “GeT_RiGHT” Alesund which pushed them to be the best team in the world in 2009, and after regaining Stahl pushed them tot he top of the counter-strike world earlier this year.
It should also be noted that team EG has made a total of 3 roster changes in two years - all three of them due to the player that was on there roster retiring.
Buying a loaded gun
Loaded was acquired by Evil Geniuses this week and I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand it’s a standard business practice, buying out competition to acquire their working parts is something that everyone, including compLexity, Team3D, SK-gaming, fnatic and many more have done in the past in order to put themselves in a better position in terms of pure marketing. It looks much better to say that to say that you recently acquired a rival organization - and any one who has paid any attention to the stock market that that is the case - when it comes to getting new sponsors, especially when it’s a big company like Thermaltake, may cut out some of the middle man of simply getting in the door if you can simply use your now subordinates success with the sponsor to your advantage. Esports isn’t a game and has not been for the last twelve years, don’t be surprised when something like this happens in the scene.
On the other there is a good reason why they shouldn't have ever even thought about doing this. First this take out a strong organization with big sponsors out of the scene, thus making it even harder for the top teams in - insert game here - to get a sponsor which can afford to send a team to both a domestic and international event. The second the only team which has been signed by EG is their extremely successful Heroes of Newerth team, which as a CS fan and a fan of the bigger eSports picture, isn’t exactly my game for now or the next 4 years. They left the Korean World of Warcraft team, the #2 counter-strike team in north America and the up and coming quake live team out of the street as well as kicking some of my colleagues who worked for the Loaded organization out on the curb as it’s been said by some of the people in it mess that only a very small portion of the PR staff and the managerial staff to EG and the rest are out on the street.
Freytag and EG could have done something differently - if Freytag wants to leave the eSports organization game give the title and the business to someone else inside(or outside) of the org who does. It’s not like they didn’t have a few different managers which oversaw the players at events. This isn’t 2005 anymore where there is only one manager per organization, there is division of labor and i know that person friends of IE in the now former loaded organization that could have step it up from simply manned up and started running the whole org - think Chris Lemley taking the reins from Mark Dolven who went to the CGS. Besides I've seen what happens to orgs managers who go to EG - they get chewed up and spit out fast like what happened with FuzzyHat when sway gaming was acquired by this very organization.
Well I'll end on a positive note at least now the HoN division has the best organization and the biggest sponsors in the eSports world backing them so they can go dominate the European and Asian events like they have been dominating the north American HoN scene.
ESEAi week 2 recap
Evil Geniuses continue there domination with an undefeated season so far leading the league with a 6 - 0 record, having a win over Hausen and Finnesse, both being 16 - 14 on fire. The dons and PLP are fighting for second with the Dons having a 4 - 1 record and PLP having a 4 - 2 record.
The now ex-loaded have a 3 - 2 record, with a game against loaded coming up soon, and they are one game ahead of finesse mL-gaming and WinOut which all have a 3 - 3 record. mL gaming has a pretty hard week coming up playing their 3 - 3 brethren WinOut and Finesse in the next week. Finesse has ruins rounding out there week, and WinOut has the hardest opponent #3 PLP in the up coming week.
Now the rundown of the rest of the line. Area51 has a 2 - 2 record, ruins has 2 - 3, hausen has 2 - 4 HRG has 1 - 5 and the now dead PoV has a 0 - 5 record overall.
Note: None of this is the opinion Insider eSports or it’s sponsor(s). This is just my no-named wannabe-journalist opinion.
North America in chaos
The united states counter-strike has had some major moves int he last week. First Garett "Grt" Bambrough was forced to temporary, or permanently, retire due to a visa issue that was never settled by the Canadian government after the drama that occurred in the first season of the CGS where he was stopped at the border before the season began. He would need to acquire a special waiver which would settle it but it would take up to 6 months just for it to be processed - and that’s if it’s awarded at all. This forced area51 to make a roster change right before the WCG grand finals which they qualified for about a month ago and decided to go after Kory "semphis" Friesen who played with ruins prior to the move. This really blows. GRT was just getting back into form as both leader and fragger and now he’s forced to retire due to some retarded issue that shouldn’t be a problem as he’s a Canadian - why can’t he come to America? After all Canada is America's hat. Just kidding Canada. Don’t send GRT Shaguar and Stevenson to kill me.
After that backfire announced that they acquired two players who were without a home after a series of roster moves, namely the two loaded members David "Xp3" Garrido who was left out on the street after the former coL team was dropped from the org and Paul "Adrenaline" Baker who was replaced by sgares in loaded despite being a total boss throughout his tenure with the team. Now it appears that these former loaded players may be in a better position than there former team mates as this roster placed third at WCG there former roster but is sure to place better now that they have a stronger roster. Now if only they were in ESEAi.
The former turmoil roster found a new home with the reborn Frag Dominant who has been good to teams in the past - except the last two teams they had which couldn’t get to events with the org’s help. Ben "ben" Hui and Derrick "impulsive" Troung came out of “retirement” to play with there former team mates Joe "perez" Perez and Matt "PaTyoJoN" Iantosca as well as the well traded fragger Tyler "willsoN" Willson. Glad to have the guys back as they were strong throughout the last three years and when they announced that they would be disbanding after there second straight WCG event last year I was disappointed but you know it’s good to have them back. I half expect them to have the same problems they had before - keep three/four change one/two every two months for the next four months before the org gets tired and kicks them to the curb for them to find a new org to send them places. Please prove me wrong.
The biggest news: PoV breaking up. I knew the moves would come back to bite them as they were changing the players which had not failed them on what seemed like a whim. Now it comes out that Jeff "hero" Mettetal was not feeling the game for a while and just now decided to retire. The moves may have been in a hope to get him to regain the ever important fun factor which would keep him in the game. See you in 3 to 5 months or up to a year like all other players which “retire” from counter-strike. Andrew "Irukandji" Timmerman immediately jumped ship to PLP. Am i surprised? Yes. Derek “dBoorn” Boorn and Mettetal were willing to lose the sponsorship of the second biggest organization in north America to get Timmerman back - a player who has had great success with Boorn, Mattetal and David “Savior” Park. Well I guess that shows how willing he was to stick it out.
Oh yeah, this makes what, the 5th team aZn has killed?
In the chaos EG manages to sign Derek “dBoorn” Boorn to replace a retiring Ediz “goodfornothing” Basol. It was rumored that Boorn would be going to EG to replace basol, but it was a real surprise to hear that after all the success that Basol has had in the last year that he decided to retire. Why? I have no idea, maybe he needs more time to study or focus more on real life, we might never know. Looking at the roster it now seems overly full of talent. Like the 3D roster that fell flat on it’s face when faced by a more balanced compLexity. Lets hope that doesn’t happen again because it seems like the only north American roster that can compete now. However it could be the opposite - adding the young talent in Boorn may be the spark they need to push them to the top like fnatic’s addition of Ramsus “GuX” Stahl and Christopher “GeT_RiGHT” Alesund which pushed them to be the best team in the world in 2009, and after regaining Stahl pushed them tot he top of the counter-strike world earlier this year.
It should also be noted that team EG has made a total of 3 roster changes in two years - all three of them due to the player that was on there roster retiring.
Buying a loaded gun
Loaded was acquired by Evil Geniuses this week and I don’t know how I feel about this. On one hand it’s a standard business practice, buying out competition to acquire their working parts is something that everyone, including compLexity, Team3D, SK-gaming, fnatic and many more have done in the past in order to put themselves in a better position in terms of pure marketing. It looks much better to say that to say that you recently acquired a rival organization - and any one who has paid any attention to the stock market that that is the case - when it comes to getting new sponsors, especially when it’s a big company like Thermaltake, may cut out some of the middle man of simply getting in the door if you can simply use your now subordinates success with the sponsor to your advantage. Esports isn’t a game and has not been for the last twelve years, don’t be surprised when something like this happens in the scene.
On the other there is a good reason why they shouldn't have ever even thought about doing this. First this take out a strong organization with big sponsors out of the scene, thus making it even harder for the top teams in - insert game here - to get a sponsor which can afford to send a team to both a domestic and international event. The second the only team which has been signed by EG is their extremely successful Heroes of Newerth team, which as a CS fan and a fan of the bigger eSports picture, isn’t exactly my game for now or the next 4 years. They left the Korean World of Warcraft team, the #2 counter-strike team in north America and the up and coming quake live team out of the street as well as kicking some of my colleagues who worked for the Loaded organization out on the curb as it’s been said by some of the people in it mess that only a very small portion of the PR staff and the managerial staff to EG and the rest are out on the street.
Freytag and EG could have done something differently - if Freytag wants to leave the eSports organization game give the title and the business to someone else inside(or outside) of the org who does. It’s not like they didn’t have a few different managers which oversaw the players at events. This isn’t 2005 anymore where there is only one manager per organization, there is division of labor and i know that person friends of IE in the now former loaded organization that could have step it up from simply manned up and started running the whole org - think Chris Lemley taking the reins from Mark Dolven who went to the CGS. Besides I've seen what happens to orgs managers who go to EG - they get chewed up and spit out fast like what happened with FuzzyHat when sway gaming was acquired by this very organization.
Well I'll end on a positive note at least now the HoN division has the best organization and the biggest sponsors in the eSports world backing them so they can go dominate the European and Asian events like they have been dominating the north American HoN scene.
ESEAi week 2 recap
Evil Geniuses continue there domination with an undefeated season so far leading the league with a 6 - 0 record, having a win over Hausen and Finnesse, both being 16 - 14 on fire. The dons and PLP are fighting for second with the Dons having a 4 - 1 record and PLP having a 4 - 2 record.
The now ex-loaded have a 3 - 2 record, with a game against loaded coming up soon, and they are one game ahead of finesse mL-gaming and WinOut which all have a 3 - 3 record. mL gaming has a pretty hard week coming up playing their 3 - 3 brethren WinOut and Finesse in the next week. Finesse has ruins rounding out there week, and WinOut has the hardest opponent #3 PLP in the up coming week.
Now the rundown of the rest of the line. Area51 has a 2 - 2 record, ruins has 2 - 3, hausen has 2 - 4 HRG has 1 - 5 and the now dead PoV has a 0 - 5 record overall.
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