What did we learn from Cph Games?

3-4-2013 15:18

After three days of action and a main tournament of 32 teams with 33,000€ at stake, it's time to look at Copenhagen Games and see what we learned from this year's event.

Everyone frequenting our site of course knows that NiP managed to win the event, extending their LAN winning streak to an incredible 85 maps, with star duo Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg and Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund leading the way.

There was also plenty of drama to go around with the admins' decisions, Natus Vincere choosing to abandon the tournament half way through, and unexpected results, especially in the lower bracket.

So what do we make out of all of it? Find out below.

5. Some teams disappointed, others' stock is falling

Disappointing: n!faculty, Curse, LD, ALTERNATE, 3DMAX
Stock falling: VeryGames, ESC Gaming, Natus Vincere

With over a month gone since Mad Catz CS:GO Invitational, and some teams having missed the event in Vienna for a reason or another, multiple squads came to Copenhagen with a lot to prove.

Unfortunately not everyone can finish on the podium. Here are some of the teams whose stock is falling after a disappointing showing at Copenhagen Games 2013.

n!faculty has racked up a fairly impressive list of online results with wins over teams such as NiP and VeryGames while qualifying for just about every event so far; ESWC, ESEA Finals, and earlier today RaidCall EMS One.

The Germans haven't however been able to replicate that same play on LAN, once again falling short in Copenhagen, this time at the hands of mousesports, ESC Gaming and Temp.no.

n!faculty haven't been able to replicate their ESWC success

ESEA Finals won't allow the squad to make roster changes at least until towards the end of April, but I think it's safe to say the team needs something good to happen in Cologne or in Dallas, or this lineup won't be together in May.

Lemondogs came almost out of nowhere at DreamHack Winter 2012 and clinched a 3-4th place finish after a semi-final loss against VeryGames. Now after the young Swedes have bombed out in the groups of two events, a different sub-plot is emerging.

Upon closer inspection, LD advanced at DreamHack with ties against n!faculty and Anexis, and a sole win against Dynamic. Maybe we have simply overrated Lemondogs, who we long considered underrated, a little?

The Swedes made it out of group A alive ahead of 3DMAX, who went onto place last, and then crashed out against Anexis and Curse.NA after a valiant effort versus VeryGames, at 9-12th place.

pani's Lemondogs didn't impress

Curse's Finnish squad had been inactive internationally since recruiting the now-retired Timi "aslak" Verkkoperä in January. The team's hopes were up, but ultimately the Finns weren't able to impress.

They struggled against EYES ON U and myRevenge in group G before getting demolished by NiP, and then went out quietly at 17-24th place in the playoffs after two quick losses against fnatic and Danish Xapso.

ALTERNATE has also had a couple of weak results now in a row, despite claiming the throne of Germany's best team at last December's EPS Germany finals, where they took down n!faculty in the finals.

At Mad Catz Invitational logiX knocked them out after a tie versus VeryGames and a close loss against then-Anexis, and in Copenhagen the team finished with zero wins in group D despite a close game against Quantic.

Curse.EU's only meaningful placing came at THOR Open

The Germans lower bracket run saw them close out their only win versus LowLandLions, right after losing to Temp.no and fm.TOXiC in the groups, and then head out at 17-24th following a loss versus Curse.NA.

Listing 3DMAX here seems pointless as Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács has now shut down the team, but it's obvious something in the team wasn't clicking since their promising run at AMD Sapphire Invitational in 2012.

The Slovakian-Czech team couldn't find their game in Copenhagen, losing versus Lemondogs and VeryGames in group A, followed up by a quick round one lower bracket exit against n!faculty. We'll see where Kovács now ends up in the coming months.

Two Counter-Strike 1.6 giants whose stock is also falling a little are Natus Vincere and ESC Gaming, although the former had a very small sample size in Copenhagen due to their decision to leave the tournament.

NaVi packing up after leaving the tournament

Na`Vi's form is still unknown due to early departure

Na`Vi's win against fnatic was impressive and showcased their ability to hang on tight in close matches and, more often than not, somehow come out with the W in the end.

However, we can't overlook the fact they lost against Epsilon, which has to hurt their image among fans a little bit. ESC on the other hand had a learning experience in Denmark, with not much to show for fans back home.

They lost against mousesports after allegedly underestimating them, and despite easy wins against n!faculty and KILLERFISH, struggled versus fm.TOXiC in the lower bracket before Epsilon knocked them out.

For ESC especially the result is troubling, because up until TECHLABS Cup last weekend all signs pointed towards the team being improving constantly, but now that has to be called in question.

Na`Vi has a chance to prove their doubters wrong this week in Kiev, while ESC Gaming will receive three chances in the coming three weeks, so this chapter of the book remains open for now.

ESC were mere spectators to later stages of Cph Games

Finally, in what wasn't necessarily the biggest surprise of them all, but definitely most meaningful, was VeryGames' inability to clinch a top two placing for the second time in a row.

Does this mean VeryGames is no longer the second best team in the world? Is there a clear cut second best team? One thing is for sure - the Frenchmen absolutely need results soon, or they will lose the right to be called number two after NiP.

Luckily they are going to attend Mad Catz Birmingham this weekend, RaidCall EMS One on April 13-14th and finally ESEA Finals on April 19-21th, so just like ESC Gaming, they have a lot of chances.

Now it's simply time for the most hyped up CS:S team to not only clinch a second place, but prove they can hang with NiP. So far the team hasn't been able to impress in 2013, despite dedicating more time to practice by dropping out of SLTV StarSeries V.

Ex6TenZ' VG need a top finish soon

4. NiP is still too good for everyone else, some teams' stocks are rising

Impressive: NiP
Stock rising: Western Wolves, Virtus.pro, Temp.no, Epsilon

Ninjas in Pyjamas are not only the clear cut number one team in the world for the sixth month in a row (following their ESWC victory), they are still undefeated on LAN, now boasting an 85-0 record.

No one has ever come anywhere near close to that record, as even the most dominant teams of all time have lost maps or even matches here and there, whereas the Ninjas keep pulling through.

Oddly enough, no one seems to be really catching up to them - I'm honestly not sure if the gap between them and the second best team in the world is any smaller now, than it was months ago.

I have no idea how NiP are doing it, but whatever it is, it seems to be working. With the next three events for them all being played out fully in best-of-threes, they can finish April undefeated as well. Isn't that scary?

Can anyone stop these guys?

Western Wolves have also now proved they are the real deal after a second place finish in Vienna last month, and now knocking out the likes of fnatic, Virtus.pro and VeryGames en route to another second place finish.

I'm not sure if they are truly better than Virtus.pro as I think the Russians match up better versus NiP and were affected by the long gap between their matches, but they are one of the top teams without a doubt.

Biggest loser in all of this is naturally the Anexis organization, who looked for greener pastures in Sam "RattlesnK" Gawn's British team, who weren't able to crack the top eight in Copenhagen, blaming lack of practice for their weak results.

Unfortunately for Western Wolves they were banned from SLTV StarSeries after dropping out of last season and didn't qualify for RaidCall EMS One or ESEA Invite Season 13 Finals.

While more practice can only make the Danish team stronger in the future, I'm sure they'd prefer to be attending these events rather than watching from home. However, a chance to take down fnatic and VeryGames once again this weekend in Birmingham is huge for a team trying to lock down the number two spot in the world rankings.

Western Wolves celebrating win versus VeryGames

Western Wolves have reason to celebrate

Third team clearly on a hot streak is Virtus.pro, who will also be on show later this week in Kiev at SLTV StarSeries V Finals. The Russians showed impressive form in Copenhagen despite a long break from competition.

In group H they easily bested Nostalgie, Publiclir.se and Xapso, and then went onto knock down ESC Gaming, Western Wolves (in a best-of-three) and Quantic Gaming in the upper bracket.

They were close to besting NiP in map one of the upper bracket final (similar to TECHLABS Cup upper-bracket final), but a five-on-two loss devastated their team, and they could never recover, losing the second map after a reasonable effort.

The Russians were then knocked out in third place after a long break from play by red hot Western Wolves, fresh off an emotional win against VeryGames. Big win for WW, not a big loss for Virtus.pro. Future will tell how it all plays out.

kucher & co can't be happy about WW loss in consolidation final

Let us also not forget about Temp.no. They played a good game versus Quantic and beat ALTERNATE and fm.TOXiC before bowing out against VeryGames and WW. Not too shabby by the definitely-better-on-LAN Norwegians.

Finally, we have to give Epsilon some credit. Although they didn't crack the top eight as they faced VeryGames early in the lower bracket, and some of the alleged cheaters aren't part of the team anymore, the current Epsilon roster can play.

They were within a hair from besting fnatic to top group B, and they defeated Na`Vi in a close three map series. The Swedes also took down ESC Gaming 16-14 in the lower bracket, proving their play wasn't simply a hot streak on day one.

It's important to note that a BYOC event is probably the perfect stepping stone for an unexperienced team like Epsilon, who surely felt more at home being able to play on the same computers all day long.

That being said, it's obvious this roster can compete with some of the top dogs, and although they might still need more experience at big events before they can contend for titles, they showed heaps of potential in Copenhagen.

Who can stop the Swedish reign?

3. Tournament admins still cause major issues in 2013

Completely leaving the decision to forfeit the first map in Natus Vincere's match against BX3 out of the question as I already wrote a lengthy blog about it earlier right here on HLTV.org, there were simply a ton of issues that shouldn't be happening in 2013.

From resuming Quantic's qualifier match, which crashed at 4-0, from a different score (6-0) for no reason, to weak tournament format (emphasizing groups as much as playoffs), inability to making good and fast decisions, and more, Copenhagen Games struggled.

Worst thing about all of this to me is how easily it could all be avoided. I'm fairly certain Copenhagen Games could have hired someone like Marc "Nix0n" Winther, formerly of HLTV.org, who wound up spectating the event in person on Saturday.

They even flew in Corey Dunn to shoutcast the event from Fort Worth, TX, so why not have Laurent Genin-Satoh, who has hosted tons of tournaments around the world, tag along?

There are such easy ways to get rid of all of these issues that to me it's simply unacceptable that still in 2013 tournaments refuse to simply pay a professional to guarantee a good tournament.

Showcase of the Copenhagen Games crew in action

It shouldn't take 75 minutes to draw matchups, or decide how those matchups are drawn in the playoff bracket. It shouldn't take over an hour to decide which score to continue the fnatic Western Wolves bout from.

It shouldn't take over an hour to decide the Na`Vi, fnatic and Epsilon tie-breaker (which we wouldn't even need in a better format). Rules shouldn't be up to interpretation. You should know your own servers' RCON to resume matches.

You shouldn't ban some teams from bringing water or Red Bull to the event (ESC Gaming) and allow others. You shouldn't have one round of lower bracket be played out in best-of-three, and others in best-of-one. Why are you telling teams to take one hour breaks, when your event is already behind schedule?

All of this sounds so basic to me, that it's truly saddening knowing that people like the CPL were able to host perfect events in this regard a decade ago, yet currently majority of all events struggle.

Standard delays are in the hours, not in the minutes. Quantic Gaming's Kory "semphis" Friesen summed some of the issues up in his comment (worth reading for anyone interested), and it's only the tip of the iceberg.

You want teams to be more responsible - I agree with that. But the funny thing about responsibility is that it goes two ways. How do you expect to even gain viewers for a final starting at past 3am? Poor admin work caused majority of Copenhagen Games' delays.

Obviously these rules did nothing to help

This kind of rules are no help to real tournaments

2. Best-of-one can be extremely exciting to follow

I find double elimination brackets, especially with lower bracket being best-of-one, extremely interesting to follow in tournaments with a large number of participants, like at Copenhagen Games.

There were countless matches this past weekend which were simply much more interesting on paper when you knew it was one and done, putting much more pressure on the players.

Many will argue that best-of-one isn't how you find out who the best team is, but as pointed out by the good people behind Freakonomics, best-of-three isn't much better.

According to them, it would take a best-of-269 to properly determine the better team in a matchup where either one only had a 55-45 advantage, so maybe it's not such a big deal after all?

Enter here for exciting best-of-one lower bracket matches!

To me best-of-one is, similar to the final map of a best-of-three which is equally interesting, like game seven (in NBA/NHL playoffs). It's like a playoff game in the NFL.

It's where you know every round matters, every mistake can cost you a game, and every single move simply has more pressure to it. There is no room for error.

You can make a case that the best team might not always win, but that is not true. The best team, over a long period of time, may not win. That is true. But the best team in that specific match, as proven by winning sixteen rounds, wins.

In an ideal world we'd watch a best-of-three such as mTw versus FX at IEM V European Finals, but in reality that type of a match is one in a million. How many have we had since then?

Most of the time a team gets an early lead and the other team decides to save energy knowing they can afford to lose map, especially if it's not their map of choice in the series.

A face of frustration in a do-or-die situation

Similar thing happens in map two, where the leading team isn't THAT worried about losing - their tournament life is not on the line. You would rather conserve energy for the deciding map.

Why not make it so you only play the deciding map? At least in the lower bracket, after you've already had your shot in best-of-three, it makes perfect sense.

I wouldn't have been that intrigued by Curse.NA versus Lemondogs, Curse.EU against Xapso, ESC vs fm.TOXiC or one of the many other interesting matches in the lower bracket of Copenhagen Games, if it wasn't for the best-of-one format.

Knowing there's more on the line, and that the weaker team (on paper) may get a good start with a pistol and some lucky rounds, makes it more interesting.

Would you rather watch a game seven, or a game two of a playoff series?

The kind of fan excitement deciding games bring out

1. f0rest and GeT_RiGhT are in a league of their own

No one can really be surprised by this duo topping the statistical charts once again, but the fashion in how Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg and Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund dominated Copenhagen Games 2013 is astounding.

Lindberg finished on top with a 1.03 KPR, a rating of 1.61, a K/D ratio of 2.13 and a K-D difference of +185 over 338 rounds. For Alesund the same numbers were 0.92 KPR, a rating of 1.46, a K/D ratio of 2.05 and +160.

No matter how you look at it, these are some scary numbers. How exactly are you supposed to beat a team, whose two top fraggers combine for two frags a round on average?

That may not sound like a lot, but NiP once again scored above four (exactly 4.09) kills per round, while the average team is usually around 3.6 or so. That is a huge difference over such a large sample size.

f0rest selecting his CS:GO tools of torture

The only MVP candidate for Copenhagen Games 2013

Lindberg of course continued his long tradition of absolutely torching what used to be his fellow Swedes in fnatic, putting up statistically the all-time greatest best-of-three performance, 65-18 for +47 and 1.48 KPR in 44 rounds.

Alesund snatched Man of the Match honors against Finnish Curse, while Lindberg was voted MotM in all other seven matches. This kind of dominance simply hasn't been seen before.

Lindberg has previously had some multi-minute frag movies made from single events, for example IEM III Global Finals and IEM V GC Shanghai, but this time there is an almost five minute long video of him in a single best-of-three.

That's something else.

That wraps up our What did we learn from Copenhagen Games 2013 article. What do you think of the things listed above? What would you have added or removed? Let us know in the comments below.

WOW!

2013-04-03 15:20

1 reply

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedde.. Don't win beerpong.

2013-04-03 16:13

Good read

2013-04-04 03:15

Our next event will be this Friday Lurrpis in Birmingham :-) (WesternWolves)

2013-04-03 15:21

2 replies

that is correct, i even mentioned it (re: verygames) but somehow mixed it up... updated now!

2013-04-03 15:24

No worries :-)) Good read by the way!

2013-04-03 15:25

whos that girl by "A face of frustration in a do-or-die situation "

2013-04-03 15:22

3 replies

Ely, Manager from Romanian neXtPlease

2013-04-03 15:23

one who was following "nextplease" / kinder :)

2013-04-03 15:27

whos that girl by

2013-04-03 15:33

Good read, agree with your point on Best of 1's.

f0rest and gtr, no words!

Skimmed over some parts, will give it a full read later. Some nice points and indeed... Those stats are scary. When's the last time We saw someone average over 1.0 kpr at an international LAN?

"I have no idea how NiP are doing it, but whatever it is, it seems to be working." it's called practising / not getting lazy even when you're on top. other prominent teams through the existence of CS could've probably achieved similar results.

2013-04-03 15:26

4 replies

that logic is flawed. if the difference in teams' level is only 55-45 (which it was for many match-ups in 1.6), it would take a bo269 (as shown in the freakonomics article) to prove who is the better team. therefore sometimes you will lose a close game because things happen. it makes no sense how nip is so much better at cs:go than all these teams who competed with their players and even beat them at cs 1.6. it's always harder to be on the top than an underdog, because everyone is gunning for you specifically.

2013-04-03 15:35

yeah it's probably not the entire explanation but more than likely it's a big part of it. i think the fnatic 2009 team could've gone on a similar run had they kept practising. then again, CS:GO is such a new game that the more you practise at this time, the more you will get ahead, unlike in 1.6 where most stuff already was figured out entirely. also, it obviously doesn't hurt having the two arguably best CS players of all time in your team. (which is also why i mentioned fnatic 2009 as a candidate to have gone on a similar run)

2013-04-03 16:30

i think it boils down to cs:go being a new game and playing more simply giving you more benefit. however, you'd still think others would start catching up. fnatic 2009 died becaues of internal issues, and based on gtr's interview (coming out later today) they have none of those in the current nip squad, so that probably helps as well. then again, we'll see how that turns once they eventually start losing some games :D

2013-04-03 16:35

i think that teams started stopped worrying about NiP tbh and work in the other top places

2013-04-03 19:15

cs loves f0rest

too long

2013-04-03 15:28

Go play with legos then. Very nice writeup Lurppis.

2013-04-03 15:34

reminds me of today's kids who barely can read books or longer than 5 paragraph articles or news on internet.

2013-04-03 16:20

books are more interesting. The summary of that tournament is only one: NiP,....,Verygames, Virtus.pro, rest of the teams. We have still the same team on the top and it's not going to change soon.

2013-04-03 16:39

temp.no should be a worthy mention for teams on the rise imo :)

2013-04-03 15:29

7 replies

they're actually there now, i was skimming through it and realized they should have earned a mention. refresh!

2013-04-03 15:32

6 replies

Awesome :)

Ty :) Hope we managed to change your mind a little (predicting us at a 4th place in our group etc). Nice article

2013-04-03 15:40

you guys played well, but i still stand by my prediction prior to the event -- i had no reason to expect you to do any better. i don't know your practice results and all i've seen is lackluster play online (which even got day banned, l0l). too bad you didn't get to play last night's ems qualifier.

2013-04-03 15:42

Yea, don't get me wrong, we never expected anyone to predict us any higher. But we hope that the writers follow our matches in the groups as well (*in the future*), as we feel we got a little 'left out'. It probably should have been written about us beating n! and FM!toxic, as it was kind of an "upset" compared to the predictions. At least since you guys pretty much summarized every match in our group besides ours. So all in all what i meant was that i appreciate this article Yea it sucks that we didnt get a spot, as 3Dmax pretty much fucked us over by playing 1 match and then forfeit-ing the others. but what can you do

2013-04-03 15:56

it's tough to keep track of and post all results with just two writers (who mostly pick the most interesting game on paper and focus on that) and up to 16 games going on simultaneously. simply not enough manpower :[

2013-04-03 16:08

Yeh, that's why we hope we are one of those teams/games in the future :) Keep it up little päällikkö

2013-04-03 16:11

"We'll where Kovács now ends up in the coming months." what does that mean? We will where.. WTF --- brain damage..

2013-04-03 15:31

obviously missing a word, mistakes tend to happen when writing +3000 word articles in one go. fixed now.

yeah ok, there were some others like again was typo'd as agani etc.. AWESOME ARTICLE! probably the best one Ive seen on this site ever..

2013-04-03 15:51

fixed that now as well. it's really hard to read through pages of your own text so i have to rely on others to proofread it and there's always stuff that doesn't get noticed (also good job to ms word for missing agani)

2013-04-03 15:59

csgo is boring

f0rest and gtr haha the best duo ever

They are just beasts :D youtube.com/watch?v=ShWDbFjrFL4 Gtr fragmovie

2013-04-03 16:56

That photo of WW, that guy on the left lol...

crZy =D

2013-04-03 18:35

Good Read :) Agree with the Bo1 excitement!

We might need to take into consideration the creation of an admin federation or smth like that. Like what we have in football(soccer for the americans) and at every sport. Admins should be well educated about the game,the rules, the cvars etc and should behave like admins not like clowns. Oh they should be sober,judging from the picture in the article :) as for the event i would agree on a cph games format bo3 group stage, bo1 lower bracket etc but the tournament itself should be longer. A 2 day tour with loads of matches,delays and shit and little to none rest time and why not some extra preparation for the players is exhausting and unfair. So a 3-4 day tournament with cph games format and better admins overall(not defending navi or anything here) would be better. And also what arbalet did was awesome he used to give money on cash right after the tour.

2013-04-03 15:36

#6 USA(+1 candadian) strong

5 replies

quantic did right about what most people expected from them, nothing more, maybe slightly less. i expected them to make final four, but with verygames getting knocked out to the lower bracket early and them dropping the series to virtus.pro i guess it just wasn't meant to be. their stock, to me, is still exactly where it was a week ago. curse.na surprised, but to me it was mostly skadoodle (much more so than the team itself), and tgwri1s will already talk about him in his top players article without a doubt.

2013-04-03 15:39

Does Michael3D always plays badly or this was just an unlucky event for him ? Somehow he reminds me another Ozstrik3r type of player.

2013-04-03 16:23

i haven't really watched him play to be honest with you (although i've heard he plays with a super fast sensitivity and uses one of those mousepads all of our parents probably used in mid 90s), but his stats aren't very impressive: cph games: 0.5 KPR, -63, 0.75 rating in 13 maps dh winter: 0.6 KPR, -13, 0.81 rating in 3 maps esea s13: 0.59 KPR, +6 in 16 maps esea s12: 0.75 KPR, +43 in 11 maps esea s12+s13 were both online, newest event on top. it's definitely not looking too good but we'll see what he can do at esea finals in a few weeks.

2013-04-03 16:34

Do u think his age has anything to do with it? (30 y/o) Also just curious why doesnt HLTV track RWS? I actually think RWS is pretty worthless but just curious. We need a new hallmark stat imo.

2013-04-04 09:11

i don't think your age would make your performance that much worse in video games, athletes generally are in their prime at around age 28 so 30 isn't that much off yet. hallmark is some retarded stat esea made up. our "rating" is something similar, although much better -- it doesn't get inflated from bomb plants or defuses so noobs in pugs would try to play the right way.

2013-04-04 14:40

Fantastic read, well done Tomi.

Really nice article, lurppis :)

2013-04-03 15:41

creating some wierd ideaologies and making big drama about some meaningless things after one lan is HILARIOUS !!!!!!!!!!

2013-04-03 15:48

f0rest iznogoud

2013-04-03 15:44

Nice work, enjoyed reading it over some lunch.

2013-04-03 15:43

lurppis > Richard Lewis

2013-04-03 15:49

2013-04-03 15:50

well I havent read Richard's articles just cause I dont visit cadred.org but his video interviews are always entertaining and awesome.

2013-04-03 15:53

+1, even though he gets a lot of well-deserved hate, Richard Lewis' interviews are clearly the best. Some of his Gonzoreah is really good too, while some of it is dogshit.

2013-04-03 16:15

2013-04-03 16:26

D: nice read..

Nice write up lurppis

2013-04-03 15:57

A small remark as for the stage regulations written. We had to include this after the event started, as we were met by players that wanted to clarify what they were allowed to do. For instance we had one team that wanted at least 45 minutes of warm up on stage before a match. Here we are talking about one of the biggest teams in Counter-Strike history. That does simply not compute with a schedule. Another incident was a team that waited until 1 minute before the game was scheduled to start. They then wanted to go to the toilet (2 of them), 1 had to go to smoke and the last 2 remembered they had forgotten to eat lunch. In both cases above they referred to the rules not being on stage with regards to smoking and us actually wanting to start on time. By this forcing some rules to be written down, so that we could refer to them when wanting to win an argument. It helped. Also the team first mentioned also tried to go get a bite to eat 5 minutes after their match should have started. They said that the stage crew were not worthy of breathing and were sadistic idiots. This kind of behaviour demands certain preparations. And btw I like to enjoy the same thought as you; these rules shouldn't be necessary.

2013-04-03 16:00

nice

Simple.. - Admins are retarded.

very enjoyable to read, great work!

Nix0n spotted in the WW photo!

2013-04-03 16:16

Just to be fair, the 2 guys playing beer-pong are not admins, they are crew yes (a guard and guy I don't know what job was :P), and ofcourse they were of duty doing the night :-). What about the female tournament, no opinions about that :-)?

2013-04-03 16:17

i didn't read a any news about it nor watch any games. not qualified to share any opinions.

2013-04-03 16:37

Roger that :-)

2013-04-03 19:40

Female tournament...ofc no opinions about that as it is boring/pointless. unless you are a girl and A girl admin wants to do a write up of that...for the girls then sure:) but doesnt need to be mentioned with the actual tournament. If the girls were good enough to play with the guys then they would b mentioned!

2013-04-03 16:48

Great article. I watched most of the tournament together with friends, and what really bothered us most were the admins taking an hour to reach a decision. At that point, it doesn't really matter whether the decision is right or wrong (although, to be clear, none of them seemed particularly difficult) - the important part is that someone makes a decision, sticks by it, and tells teams to resume play or be penalized. The worst part was the tiebreaker in the Na'Vi group. After game two, I saw the potential for a three way tie in the group, and read up on the tiebreaking rules. I mentioned to my friends that "points" is a bad word to use in rules for a game that has "rounds" and "maps", but assumed the admins would know what it meant. Boy, was I wrong - and it only took the admins three or four more hours to see the same problem I did. While the shoutcasting was mostly fun, I thought it was weird that the four man crew didn't regularly dispatch their two extra reporters with a DSLR or at least an iPhone to show viewers at home how things looked in there. Couldn't have been too hard. And Corey Dunn kept telling us that Western Wolves lost their first playoff match to NiP, when it had actually been Copenhagen Wolves, while WW went out to VP. Seems like someone could have taken a look at the actual bracket in the TWELVE HOURS he spent repeating that. But (no sarcasm) a fun event altogether. I just wish things could be slightly more professional...can't wait to see how things go at ESEA.

2013-04-03 16:22

i honestly think esea will make all of these events look like a joke. i have 100% confidence in laurent hosting another great event with minimal issues. can't wait.

2013-04-03 16:36

all i learned is that NA > 95% of euro teams lol

2013-04-03 16:24

NiP,VG,VP,WW > all of american teams

no, Quantic > 95% of euro teams

2013-04-03 16:38

huh?

Your 3rd best team was beat by fmtoxic mate... the 3rd best team in the UK (Well.. if they can be considered a UK team anymore) !

2013-04-03 16:47

in one map ^ :P

2013-04-03 18:59

Nice Article , Actually Lurrpis always write Amazing Articles Really Nice

2013-04-03 16:29

I agree

2013-04-03 18:55

all i learned is that EU Nip,VP,WW > 100 % NA LOL HAHA lOL HAHA

stock rising, where is mousesports there? i don't like that team but i think they deserve a spot there.

they only beat weak n!, esc and anexis teams and got demolished by quantic and western wolves. i think they ended up getting lucky with who they played more so than anything else. their play versus quantic and western wolves proved they still aren't a top team imo.

2013-04-03 16:44

so what is temp.no doing there then? o_O

2013-04-03 16:53

mouz has already had similar results online (beat n! twice online and tied once, beat esc once online), whereas temp.no clearly outperformed themselves, as they haven't gotten any big wins online or at past tournies.

2013-04-03 16:59

Not even tournament admins on the picture, just normal hall crew. Maybe you should've been there.

2013-04-03 16:40

hence the wording "copenhagen games admins", not "tournament admins". i definitely shouldn't have been there, i avoid events for a reason - they are 95% of the time huge disappointments.

2013-04-03 16:43

That NaVi is lowering their level each tournament.

2013-04-03 16:42

Kovanen teacher.. You gotta be shitting me.. :D

Had the same reaction. Hahah.

2013-04-03 20:45

Good read.

[...] Copenhagen Games could have hired someone like Marc "Nix0n" Winther, formerly of HLTV.org, [...]. What do you mean? Nixon isn't anymore part of HLTV.org's stuff?

2013-04-03 16:54

he hasn't written anything in six months, i thought that was obvious to everyone

2013-04-03 17:01

Please share some of your information, lurpis

2013-04-03 18:58

wicked article, well done dude. Agree with you that I really don't see a team getting close to NIP. If anything Verygames were close once and then RPK retired and no one has even come close to touching them except for Virtus Pro who were immediately shut down for trying. I would have added disappointing and impressive players to the article. Fifflaren gets so much shit on this website yet no one mentions the holy Neo who is just failing in CS:GO. Would like to hear a little about up and coming players, that temp.no were really impressive. Will defo be following them more! Also, I know this is random, but does anyone know what happened to the swedish player Haz who used to play css? And proph from the old fnatic css? Would love to see them in csgo.

2013-04-03 17:13

14 replies

neo is nowhere near his 1.6 level currently, but he is still a much more important player to his team (and has better statistics to back it up) than fifflaren. i didn't touch on individual players too much because i believe tgwri1s and miraa are planning on writing something about players, but skadoodle and hiko impressed me the most at cph. i expected good performances from the others (although f0rest was just out of this world).

2013-04-03 17:16

12 replies

yeh i thought that was why you didnt go into players. looking forward to that piece. I understand what you are saying about Fifflaren but he clearly plays a role in that team which brings out the best in some of his team mates so I don't think it's always about the numbers. No one knows why they are winning (as in it's not an obvious thing they do but get_right and f0rest being insane must help) but Fiff defo plays his part as a great support player, or in delaying the enemy enough so that f0rest and Get_Right can clean up. Credit where credit is due. I honestly think they have found the right balance of personalities, ambition, skill and friendship which all go into making a team. If he was replaced (even by a swedish speaking Shoxie/Scream etc) I am convinced they would end up losing. I hope Neo sorts it out and I'm well aware that he isn't playing to his 1.6 standards but ESC and Navi have really had the time to catch NIP. Markeloff has had his moments but only Edward has really impressed from either of those teams for me. I can't see them ever catching NIP though and I find myself looking at teams like temp.no and thinking that if they got it together they might have a chance of beating NIP. That's how desperate things are getting because NIP are just unbeatable!! Let's see how 4k get on! Anexis - you really need to give them some time. It's exam time in England and they are studying and writing dissertations etc so it's really difficult to practise. Over the summer you will see them improve a lot though.

2013-04-03 17:49

9 replies

you're correct, nip clearly has a good mix of everything in the team and it is unreasonable to expect fifflaren to match f0rest's of gtr's numbers, but an eye test confirms that he makes some bad moves at time etc. so it's not all about stats. i don't expect that 4kings team to do much to be honest, i can't imagine someone like mangiacapra, who was already washed up in 2006, to be much of a threat in 2013. afaik rattlesnk's teams have always used lack of practice as an excuse and i hear they kicked out a player just now, so i think not practicing well is just the norm for them. even for dreamhack they said they couldn't practice for. we'll see i guess. temp.no are a solid team, but they aren't a nip beater in my mind. na`vi, esc and virtus.pro are teams who know what it takes and have been there before, so that's why i give them so much credit. once you're good enough at cs, a lot of it is psychological. they just aren't there YET.

2013-04-03 18:04

8 replies

i liked your last sentence, that's something you can only know from playing at that level so I will take your word for it and bare in mind. As for Fiff, hmm, i'd like to see an example. He misses shots a lot with the awp but he has never been an awper and he is not bad at all with the rifle. I will watch his decisions more closely and come back at you! I just find myself glued to f0rest when they play and I try to avoid streams. I hope Anexis have replaced prb and that they brought in another hungry and talented player like Vertigo from dignitas. If they kicked Weber because of his issues with Rattlesnk then I will be pissed and they are defo going nowhere because Weber is their best player and will come back to bite them on the ass. Rattlesnks went to Uni after CGS and it's all been mediocre since then, if he cba to dedicate the time needed then his teams will never succeed. It really has been a lack of time and practise but players still want to associate with him because even if hes a dick he is good. I think this might be his year to come back strong though and find some motivation/dedication so don't underestimate them. Agreed about 4kings, just a bit curious to see how the hell they will do. If the WW lineup who weren't anything special at CSS can become very good at CSGO then you never know! I was using temp.no as an example of how dominant NIP are in my mind that I have to go to that extreme! I havent seen enough of them to judge tbh. Do you think there are any real contenders out there? Or just ESC Navi and more recently Virtus Pro? What about fnatic?

2013-04-03 18:28

i think fifflaren is stuck in a situation where his teammates are good with what he does since they are winning but he allows fans' opinions to affect him, and that results in him playing some situations differently. that's just my interpretation of it, of course. re: 4k: i don't know about ww players, but i do know they are young and hungry. i doubt that applies to 4k. i think we've seen both verygames and ww are not capable of beating nip, they've had a few chances and look completely outmatched. i think fnatic, na`vi and virtus.pro would be my favorite candidates right now, but i haven't seen fnatic play enough to really comment on them.

2013-04-03 18:48

thanks for the chat, look forward to the next article. Tell that guy in your podcasts with carn (thor or something, I forget now) to not talk so much and let you guys speak!!

i think him talking is an equally important part of the podcast because all the things he says invoke responses from me and carn.

2013-04-03 19:07

I agree with most of your points on Fifflaren but I think he's slowly catching up, I guess it's really hard to push yourself to exceed your team mates level when you're 'forced' to play awp and have arguably the best IGL (at least in GO), 2 beasts shooting with rifles and friberg getting better and better every day. For reference I could say that Fifflaren is kinda like Granlund, can't stand up to big boys skill level yet but will hopefully evolve to be great. PS. When you're recording the next podcast make sure Thorin has a proper connection so people can hear what he says :)

2013-04-03 19:26

fifflaren is someone people don't consider to be a very good player, while granlund is super overrated. i don't see any connection between the two. pretty sure thorin won't be moving or changing his isp anytime soon so there's nothing we can do, either it's good or it's not, we can't control it.

2013-04-03 19:30

The reference was only for the point that I made, hoping he'll get better. After reading it a few times though I realized it makes no sense since everyone is trying to get better... Oh well, my bad. On the Thorin point, somehow I understood from the previous podcasts that it was only temporary connection but if that was his own connection then it explains.

2013-04-03 20:58

temporary lag i believe is what everyone meant since it was better in the previous podcasts but yeah it's his normal internet.

2013-04-03 21:01

One might say that glaive is getting better, and niko as well :-) those two (in my eyes) has lifted the performance of WW. And yea +1, skadoodle where insane at this event. GeT_RiGhT also gave him the compliment, as one of the best awpers he has ever seen :-)

2013-04-03 19:01

WW is still a team with four almost equal players in terms of fragging (pimp, msl, nico, gla1ve) so none of them really stick out. get_right is too nice of a guy; he will never say anything negative to anyone. if you asked him to describe 100 different players he would say all of them are at least good (and most "really good" or "amazing", even though that is simply not possible. skadoodle was good, but calling him one of the best ever is just ridiculous based on one event.

2013-04-03 19:09

IMO Virtus.pro was closer to NiP's level than VG has ever been.

2013-04-03 19:51

Extremely well written and fun to read. Agreed with every point(that's a first). Hopefully, the next episode of Podcast w/ cArn and Thorin will shed more light on this tournament, as well as pre-tournament analysis for this weekend.

2013-04-03 17:17

wat was disappointing about VG? this competition was stacked and as competitive as anything so far in csgo, they came 4th, thats a pretty good showing imo. If they placed outside of the top 8, I would say thats disappointing. america not stock rising?! edit: also great read lurppis, really appreciate the work you do :) I really like the format of this article how you have sorted in descending by top 5 points. It really engages readers.

2013-04-03 17:31

curse.na did slightly better than expected (i thought they'd finish in the 9-16th region) but it was mostly thanks to skadoodle. quantic underperformed if anything. verygames are expected to be #2, and now they are clearly starting to lose that status - hence their stock is falling. they are no longer the number two team in the world - it was confirmed in copenhagen. that spot is now wide open.

2013-04-03 18:06

i think quantic performed exactly as expected. it was just unfortunate that they lost a close match to VP, because that probably not only tired them out, but also put them on tilt.

2013-04-03 22:07

I wouldnt even care to read this kids raging. wow man.............................. kids diary turned into newssite.

2013-04-03 17:52

Curse.NA stock rising. They crashed out in group stages at Dreamhack 2012, then placed 6/7 here. I'd say thats a pretty good improvement. If they drop michael3d they could be a contender. Quantic underperformed this event, we will see how they do at ESEA lan.

2013-04-03 18:02

we learn that NIP haz 85-0 ...

2013-04-03 18:17

You shouldn't ban some teams from bringing water or Red Bull to the event (ESC Gaming) and allow others. Really?

2013-04-03 18:54

Suddenly f0rest o.O I agree with you Tomi, people are maybe thinking WAY too much on how to complicate the game, JUST so they can beat NiP, maybe (as Fifflaren already said) you should try to develope your own playing style with some few "NiP counters" in the book, and take it from there. Cause their strats aint working yet, both VG, ESC, Na´vi, WW and so on.. Online wins dosnt mean S**t. They need to get their game to perfection when playing NiP, that is NiP contesters problem atm.

2013-04-03 18:57

I think people need to cut admins some slack, it's an unthankful job that requires way more time and work then most of you seem to realize. Not to mention is under payed, that is if you'r one of the lucky few that get payed. But don't get me wrong, I don't disagree that this admin crew made some mistakes :P

2013-04-03 19:06

if you can afford to pay the trip of a caster from usa and pay him for casting, you can afford to pay someone to run the tournament. if not, it's on the organizers. the admins did a terrible job, once again. cutting slack wouldn't even allow them to survive the first day (qualifier); the slack had already ran out by the time the actual tournament started.

2013-04-03 19:11

the caster has a ROI an admin doesn't (directly)

2013-04-04 11:31

so how much value do you think corey dunn brought versus some european caster they could've saved $1000 on? how much value do you think cph games lost in terms of pr because their admins were retards? if that's how cph games people thought, it just proves the bosses running the show are also stupid.

2013-04-04 14:41

I don't know the background of the CPH organizers but you know some events want to use 'high profile' casters. will it have made a change? (in csgo) doubtfull. And yes they've prbly lost more with the admins then they gained with dunn. Very unfortunate.

2013-04-06 14:03