Areena #1 by SteelSeries

10-8-2012 19:43

Helsinki will host a minor tournament named Areena #1 by SteelSeries on August 25 when 20 players will gather from around Finland to battle for 300€ in cash and over 1,000€ worth in SteelSeries products.

It has been revealed today that Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen, Alex "NemeiN" Kylmälä and Janne "Kuppi" Kuparinen will be organizing a local LAN event on August 25. With the name Areena #1 by SteelSeries, it will take place at "Pelitalo" in Helsinki and the event will feature a somewhat unorthodox format.

It will not be teams that sign up, instead it will be players, and they will be accepted based on who pays first. When they all arrive at the venue, four captains will be selected who will then each pick players for their team, in a draft of four rounds.

While the draft format isn't unusual in online gathers, it hasn't really been seen on LAN where some prizes are at stake, apart from several Lethal Gamers events in Texas, USA. In addition to the 20 players, two backups will be registered in case of no-shows. They will be the first two people who show up at the venue and sign up, and they will get to play for free in case someone drops out, and will be awarded QcK+ mousespads for showing up.

Here are some of the players that are signed up so far:

Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen
Niko "naSu" Kovanen
Aleksi "allu" Jalli
Janne "Kuppi" Kuparinen
Ilkka "barrack" Mäkinen
Antti "Shiri" Mäkinen

Kovanen stated that the idea for this tournament spawned only yesterday and came from the fact that there haven't been any tournaments in their country for a while. He also revealed that the tournament will start with a group stage, where teams will have chance to practice for a bit with their fresh lineups, and then they will move to best-of-three playoffs for the actual prize battle.

The signup fee is 15€ per player, and all of the money goes into the prize purse, making it 300€ in cash. In addition to that, SteelSeries goodies worth over 1,000€ in total will be handed out too. For more information about the tournament click here (in Finnish).

HLTV.org will cover the tournament with HLTVs, hot match pages and statistics, so check back here on August 25 to see how it all turns out.

nice

2012-08-10 19:43

lurppis <3 xD hahhahaha

nice, it's like when I played football at my school's playground and there were 'captains' who built the team :D

2012-08-10 19:46

n1ce news!

2012-08-10 19:44

1 reply

Indeed!!

2012-08-10 22:28

fett najs old wings players~~~~

2012-08-10 19:45

barrack obama nice ;d

2 replies

wut?

2012-08-10 19:47

Ilkka "barrack" Mäkinen

2012-08-10 19:51

Pretty cool :D allu will build the winning team!_!

nicE

ya 300 bucks talk about big money!!!

2012-08-10 19:48

12 replies

who cares, it's a fun tournament

2012-08-10 19:49

+1. Sounds like fun tbh. Wish there was something like that over here but for a bit more players.

i think all of us would attend for free just to play cs 1.6 on lan, but having something on the line just adds a little more incentive to try hard :) it's not all about money ^^

2012-08-10 20:00

9 replies

youtube.com/watch?v=qMxX-QOV9tI AHAHAHAH forget about the price tag

2012-08-10 20:10

Will you keep playing the game even if there's no money involved any more?

2012-08-10 22:07

6 replies

if there is something to play, for example these tournaments, i don't see why i wouldn't show up. playing cs on lan is extremely fun with friends imo.

2012-08-10 23:09

5 replies

Totally agree, last year I played on a small LAN after several years not touching the game at all and it was so much fun, I cannot describe :). I hope that there will still be a possibility to follow you playing via hltv. I do not like to watch CS:GO as there are too many things distracting from the essential. Will you try to join a CS:Go Squad anyway?

2012-08-11 00:01

4 replies

i have no plans of playing cs:go as of now, i just don't like the game myself. i am interested in seeing the nip team play though.

3 replies

So you do not have that much hope that there will be updates killing the flaws of the game?

2012-08-11 00:02

it's possible it might change or i might even like it, but i've already decided to move on from professional gaming. my schedule is mostly filled with other things and playing lots of cs wouldn't fit in, plus i'm getting old so i think it's time to move on as a player. i would never rule out attending the occasional event as a stand-in however, either in cs 1.6 or csp. i will still continue doing things such as working for hltv.org, esea, helping finnish esports, hopefully host more of these tournaments that i can play in myself (which is the actual reason i came up with it, i wanted to play cs, call it selfish if you'd like). for those wondering btw: tonppa, barrack, shiri, kuppi, toomi, Twista, natu etc have all been inactive for quite a while, but the wings/serious crew was planning on getting together soon anyways and everyone wanted to play some cs so as soon as we told them about the tournament, everyone was psyched to play and signed up. it's just for fun after all, although we'll surely play seriously and i assume everyone will play some gathers since some of the guys haven't played in months or even +1 year.

2012-08-11 00:07

Who needs these big organizations anyways all that matters is that we do what we love doing most :) All the best wishes for your future.

2012-08-11 00:14

Well you are part right. Not everything is about money when you play CS :D

2012-08-11 11:04

TODAY IS DAYS NEWS:D

nice... interesting idea by Tomi :D

serious lurppis, shiri, kuppi, nasu

2012-08-10 19:50

haha nice

awesome! hope the teams are balanced

Nice! First time when I think that moving to Helsinki isn't that bad idea

The bad idea is to live anywhere else.

2012-08-11 20:35

I dont agree

2012-08-11 21:40

2012-08-14 15:54

a LAN with mix teams ....great .... this is NOT what the scene needed ...the scene needs a LAN where real teams show up ...teams that practiced strategies for the event ... not captains who pick random guys to play for them ...

2012-08-10 19:53

very few teams still practice

2012-08-10 19:57

THIS IS FOR FUN

It's called playing for fun.

2012-08-10 20:08

you are the hero the scene needs, but does not deserve right now. NOT this is a great idea, and any new tournament effort for 1.6 should be greeted with enthusiasm, within a year, there will be nothing else than a few fun events for 1.6, so lets hope there will be more like this one

2012-08-10 20:23

imo in finland there people don't have motivation to play on team and it's only about gathers/mix stuff here.

2012-08-11 18:22

Kuppi and barrack still play?? For me, they were retired for years

2012-08-10 19:54

And they might be retired, but this is for fun.

2012-08-10 20:47

yeah I've played against Kuppi recently a few times and once with him. I think he just plays for fun at times.

2012-08-13 19:41

nice!!

2012-08-10 19:55

cool

2012-08-10 19:56

Good idea, should be fun to watch :-) hopefully this idea will catch on! would be great to see it in Sweden for example too.

nice +BASiC aslak jigetus

gatheR!

2012-08-10 19:59

very nice idea

1on1 tourne?

2012-08-10 20:15

nope, read man!

i dont understand it

2012-08-10 20:25

4 captains will select players 1 by 1 and form 4 team of 5 players. Then those 4 teamss play against each othr.

2012-08-10 20:29

try throwing it into a translator? :p

2012-08-10 20:30

20 players will create 4 teams and will play against each other

I didnt read that part very well:) dyslexia

2012-08-10 20:31

Awesome!

2012-08-10 20:28

Huge respect for the players behind this!

sounds like fun. wish someone would've thought about this concept before. really cool idea actually. lets hope some more known players sign up for this.

2012-08-10 20:40

Shiri, barrack & Kuppi miss those oldschoolers <3

2012-08-10 20:41

LAN gather lol what an idea :)

2012-08-10 20:45

We've been hosting events like this for a year+ in the US

2012-08-10 23:06

kudos to you and larry, i already let him know in advance i'm copying his idea. remind him to send me the server stuff later today if you talk to him!

2012-08-10 23:10

too bad these tournaments werent hosted before

2012-08-10 20:46

nice to see something different but dont like the way teams are chosen. should have been like...each captain chooses 1 and then its random

2012-08-10 20:49

it's a lot more likely that the teams end up even when we actually pick the teams; everyone wants to win so they will build whatever they think are the best teams

2012-08-10 21:42

Great idea, should be fun :)

2012-08-10 20:56

senorgif.memebase.com/2012/08/08/funny-g..

2012-08-10 20:58

I like the idea! Can't wait to see how it will turn out..

2012-08-10 21:45

Areena? Seriously, do Finnish people have a fetish for double vowels ?

2012-08-10 22:51

Good to hear! If you like the idea how come you only came to the first one for LG and not the 20+ that followed it? =/

2012-08-10 23:02

i went to two draft lg events, one in july 2009 and another one in june 2010. i'm not sure how many others took place when i was there, but i only stayed in texas from the first draft until early feb 2010 before i moved to oregon. there's a chance i missed one draft when i was actually in texas (although i do doubt it) i think i went to every single lg event that took place when i was in the area, but some of them collided with travel for tournaments etc.

2012-08-10 23:15

lurppis nasu brothers?

2012-08-10 23:17

no... YEEEES!

2012-08-11 11:09

Cant believe someone asks that in 2012.

2012-08-12 13:27

2012-08-13 19:43

Cal Draft: Finnish edition. Also, really cool to see the old wings guys playing again

2012-08-10 23:32

Shiri? barrack? humm :D

2012-08-10 23:39

cool go naSu!

2012-08-11 01:25

naisdat

2012-08-11 01:27

we always play mixes in such a way :p

2012-08-11 05:51

very nice!

2012-08-11 08:14

Is it only for finnish ppl? :)

2012-08-11 12:03

Nice.

2012-08-11 13:09

what about a gather that has 10 n00b players and 10 professional gamers. ?! That's nice if you get picked to team that has 2 pro players and 3 noob players

2012-08-11 13:39

anyone is free to sign up, although the first one for sure favored the usual suspects who hadn't gone to lans in a while etc. if things go well and we organizer a second one, hopefully we can add another four teams which would give lesser known players a chance to show up too

2012-08-12 00:17