The first map of the game cobblestone, began with Fnatic on the favorable terrorist side in the first half where they were able to pull off a next to impossible pistol round in a 2v4 scenario with Krimz taking triple straight kills and advancing to the game followed by 2 anti-eco rounds. Fnatic, as usual, triggered the nerves of the Polish players in the first half when they were leading 8-2, but soon to deny them any more charity, Neo took the responsibility and drove VP to quick 4 rounds win making the game less favorable to either side and an ordinary 9-6 favoring fnatic on terrorist side.
The second half, which rather was a one-sided affair by VP as they completely outclassed fnatic in the second half by beating them on aim duals and strategies having the likes of Kuben as a coach and Neo as the IGL for the game.
The first map ended up in favor of Virtus.Pro after they allowed Fnatic just to have double-digits on board and finally closing down the map with the strong and unexpected scoreline of 16-10.
Despite giving us a good show, dennis was unfortunate to have been carrying the team alone.
The second map Mirage which was Virtus.Pro’s pick unlike the first one, started very balanced and regular for Fnatic as they were able to make the round chaotic and being able to win a couple of following rounds making it 3-0 after a flawless ace by Dennis in very early rounds of the game. VP, however, were not late to reply as they win quick two rifle rounds making the score 2-3. The sixth round, the masterpiece from VP completely out-played fnatic and the streak continued for the rest of the half as VP nailed down fnatic 10-5 in the first half of the second Map even when being on the less favorable side of the map. To replicate their performance from their regular standard of playing, fnatic once again won the second pistol round in the most chaotic way possible.
As the game progressed in the second half the chants in the audience also started to build up as Virtus. Pro stomping back-to-back clutches to beat fnatic on multiple rounds making life difficult for the Swedish side and making the score 14-8. The final nails in the coffin were even hit by the VP IGL Neo who denied fnatic utterly of their dreams for being able to bring it back from that deep.
Virtus.Pro finally closed the series with 16-10 in the first map and 16-8 in the second map. They take home $390,000 and a trophy to respect their fans all over the world.
Luminosity Gaming, who were the world champions at MLG Columbus has signed a new roster after losing their previous one to SK over legal disputes. The Brazilian organization will grab the squad from the current lineup of WinOut.
The new lineup of Luminosity Gaming would be: nak, destiny, bit, yeL, PKL. The organization announced on Twitter.
ESL India Premiership Challenger #1 – CS:GO comes to an end with Invisible Wings beating the national champions Team Brutality 2-1 in a best-of-three matchup. The game saw some amazing show of skills by the fresh lineup led by Simar ‘psy’ Sethi, Team Brutality however, gave a tough fight and ended up losing to them on cache 11-16 after tying up the series 1-1.
The match began on cobblestone where both the teams were taking rounds back and forth with nothing going right in the favor of the predictions. Not to mention the win of Invisible Wings came in comfortably after their lineup swaps, and with the addition of Akshay ‘Kappa’ Sinkar (formerly one of the India’s top professional athlete of Counter Strike 1.6) in the lineup, Invisible Wings played a devious gamble which was appropriately a good move by taking in an entry fragger as aggressive as him. Team Brutality, however, being down on multiple occasions on all of the maps were able to steal the momentum back in their favor thrice which demonstrated their level of skill and experience of the game.
The grand finals between Brutality and Invisible Wings had no delays whatsoever and the games successfully progressed with no technical glitches even. We could call the matchup to be by far, the perfect game of the event in terms of execution and skill levels.
Players to look out for
Not to forget about the best players in our industry but in the lights of the heavyweights, we shouldn’t sideline some of the emerging talents in the country. The players who came out of nowhere to be some of the most impactful to exist in this tournament were from different teams. Noticing ‘psy’ and ‘Kappa’ from Invisible Wings or be it the young players from West Bengal. ESL India Premiership surely, has been successfully being able to pull out fresh talent and players from almost every part of the country.
Looking at the current lineup of Invisible Wings and their performance in the Challengers #1, we hope they stick to their squad and work on themselves to enhance their skill set even further. The team surely has the potential to compete at international levels. And talking about Team Brutality, the favorite Indian CS:GO lineup of all time, they even need to work more on their consistency and strategy considering they already have some of the top aimers in the country judging by the performance of V3nom boys today.
And a final shout out to the cast, talent, and organizers responsible for producing this event of such a large scale. Shoutout to Bleh, CloudX, Aequitas, Vivek, the production team and also to the games administrators present on stage, our trainee caster Siddesh Sawant and the team led by our very own Head of Content for TalkEsport, Mr. Vishal ‘Arrow’ Gupta for pulling this off in a very significant fashion, special thanks to NODWIN group.
ELEAGUE finals is a day away and we have with us the 10 best players of this season who will be seen playing for their teams to battle for $1.4 million prize pool. Fnatic will be seen playing against the Polish kings Virtus.Pro in best-of-three grand finals.
Cobb Energy Centre in Atlanta will be full of Counter Strike enthusiasts when the Swedish powerhouse plays Virtus.Pro to present the ELEAGUE fans their winners of this season.
ELEAGUE FINALS
Olofemsiter handshakes seized
Fnatic, who beat Na`Vi in the semi-finals are believed to be back in form after losing Olofemeister for a long period of time due to his injury. After his return earlier in ELEAGUE, there were speculations of him losing his legacy of being the best player in the world and not being able to catch up to that level of performance where he left the game. But leaving no prisoners, Olofmeister yesterday proved the world that he is now back where the team needed him to be. With the likes of dennis even, who is considered by far the best aimer in the Swedish side, Fnatic destroyed the dreams of the Ukranian territory after thrashing them 16-4 on cobblestone and 16-14 on de_train.
On the other side of the table, we have Virtus.Pro who are by far the most underperforming team whenever it comes to performing where it matters. Virtus.Pro did manage to eliminate the German squad mousesports even when denis (of mousesports) swiftly extended his support to the team but ended up losing two consecutive maps in best-of-three semi-finals. The ELEAGUE finals will be played tomorrow at 01:30 (Indian Standard Time), in best-of-three format between Fnatic and Virtus. Pro, it will be a treat to watch how the fans observe and react to the matchup between TaZ and Olofmeister. The match will also be broadcasted live on TBS network.
ESL India Premiership kicked-off with their regular announced Challenger series today and we have the complete report of the development on the very first day of ESL India Premiership. The first day of the event featured some of the games from both CS:GO and DotA 2, which were streamed live on Twitch after innumerable glitches in the setup, and were also resolved from time to time as the day progressed. ESL India Premiership Challenger #1 will be a two-day event and will conclude on 30th of July 2016.
The games overview
Counter Strike: Global Offensive
Quarter-finals
The CS:GO matches which were scheduled to begin at 12:00 PM (Indian Standard Time) witnessed massive delays as the matches finally began 4 hours late than scheduled time, at 16:00 PM (IST). Cast by Bleh and Aequitas of SoStronk, the first quarter-final was to be played between Team Brutality and Team Goutfits scheduled at 12:00 PM which was later on swapped with a DotA 2 game Beyond Infinity vs Standin 5 because of the unidentified technical obstacle in one the Team Brutality’s members. The first CS:GO game of the day was convinced a rather one-sided affair for Brutals as they disrespectfully thrashed their opponents Team Goutfits from Calcutta, out of the tournament with a strong scoreline of 16-1 on Brutality’s favorite map, Mirage, leaving the team in clouded thoughts of dubiosity.
The following match between SemperX and Dare2Dream (also from Calcutta) was pretty interesting to watch as the favorites for the match SemperX had the old-school beast couple ‘The Bhatia brothers!’ (WuZz and PeXxer) who had their performances replicated from the era of their Counter-Strike 1.6 as they were able to beat Dare2Dream 16-11 comfortably on cobblestone. The significant comparison of the players from the days of Counter Strike 1.6, necessarily was to shout out to the guys on the team and also greeting them with best wishes as they made into the top 4 teams of CS:GO in India after a trajectory difference. SemperX will face Team Brutality in the semi-finals. The third match, Invisible Wings vs WeBreakTeams was a hell of a match, no, not in terms of the quality of the match, but due to the delays. The match, unfortunately, had to be reset thrice which progressed later on which ended up with Invisible Wings beating WeBreakTeams by 16-8 on cache.
The fourth and final match of the day as per the schedule was between Team Overcome and GoEasy, which was by far predicted correctly by the analysis desk and the community people who forecasted an easy win for Overcome, which held on its fate and the match ended comfortably in favor of Team Overcome, GoEasy could only get 4 rounds on the board and got knocked out of the tournament with the scoreline of 4-16. The second semi-finals were then destined to be between Team Overcome and Invisible Wings for the CS:GO stream.
Semi-finals
Entering into the finals of CS:GO ESL India Premiership Challenger #1 was with no doubt the tournament favorites, Team Brutality, which beat SemperX 16-8 on Dust2 in the semi-finals. The second semi-finals was also a dominant show by Invisible Wings as they completely outplayed Team Overcome with a monstrous performance by Simar ‘psy’ Sethi who utterly destroyed the dreams of Team Overcome and closed the map at 16-8 on de_train. It will be Invisible Wings vs Team Brutality in the grand finals of CS:GO – ESL One Premiership Challenger #1 tomorrow at 2:00 PM which will be a best of three matchups.
DotA 2
The DotA 2 matches, which were streamed by CloudX of AFK Gaming, were seen running smoothly. With few matches played offline and the rest being broadcasted live, the results of the matches were favorable as Beyond Infinity, Aggressive 5, xRg and Invisible Wings were advanced to the semi-finals. The very first team to enter into the finals of DotA 2 ESL India Premiership – Challenger #1 were undoubtedly Beyond Infinity as they beat Aggressive in the first semi-finals. And on the other hand, Invisible Wings will be playing Beyond Infinity in the finals of Challenger #1.
TL;DR- In the grand finals of ESL India Premiership Challenger Cup #1 tomorrow, Invisible Wings will face Team Brutality and Beyond Infinity in Counter Strike: Global Offensive and DotA 2 respectively.
Event execution – The positives
India hasn’t seen any large scale event of such level and the credits are due for Nodwin Gaming, ESL and the sponsors ASUS and HyperX for making this event possible. The venue is surely jaw-dropping as it seems like the setup has been constructed for International level events, and since ESL has been taking care of the majors in India, this should quiet be a benchmarking theme set for the event organizers out there looking to assemble gamers at a place.
Another point to be noted is that, ESL India Premiership, the parent series to the Challenger Cup #1 was launched a couple of months ago without any sponsors, the supporters have later joined the brigade which also suggests the trust and significance of the ESL’s continued vision for the growth of the sport in India. Of course we had BYOC back then in the CS 1.6 times, but the setup and the production quality of this level were never foreseen so soon to be available to us. The conviction by the moderators, administrators, the staff entirely exhibited
The conviction held by the moderators, administrators, the staff entirely exhibited the intentions and patience of the people out there. It was really a test of patience for the team behind the scenes to pull this thing off without getting agitated even though the event ran at the utmost delay and out of the schedule. Cheers guys!
Things to get resolved for better finals tomorrow and following events
The main stage setup for ESL India Premiership Challenger Cup #1
Technical glitches, delays
There is no doubt about the intentions of the organizers, but sometimes things don’t go your way and the victim isn’t solely you. The unnecessary delays and change of schedule were a bit too much for an event of this caliber. Viewing it from the perspective of the attendees or the visitors who planned to come to the venue to know about this emerging industry would have been surely disappointed by looking at the way things were going.
The delays were really really massive and turning a blind eye to the technical glitches, it was the viewers and the participants who were the victims. Not being ignorant of the existence of these petty issues in a larger event, but imagine if you were one of the people sitting in the audience waiting for a match to begin and you witness that almost all the matches have had delays back and forth.
The LED Screen for Audience
I am not sure how relevant will this appear to the readers and to the organizers of the event but thought that it is our responsibility to share the opinions if it makes a difference. The LED Screen right behind the playing setup can quite arise controversies if there is any misuse observed and the result will by then be irreversible. From my POV, I can easily visualize any of the members of the team who can look around to have a sneaky glance onto the screen and can communicate the valuable information over to their teammates which will surely give them an unethical advantage over the opponents.
I am not accusing anybody of doing so, but that seems possible to me. And to counter the argument that the organizers have set cameras on the teams, that might not be a very feasible solution to this as nobody can monitor the 10 players playing at the same time. The solution to this could be an artificial wall or a back-drop just behind the players’ sitting arrangement so it is entirely impossible for them to gather some information through misconduct. And to back my point I asked some of the professionals about their views, Karan ‘Excalibur’ Mhawadkar of Team Invictus said, “They wouldn’t look back, but if they do, it is easily visible.”
The hopes are high with the players, teams, and organization in this fascinating event which is destined to be revolutionizing the core fundamentals of e-gaming in India. The event is scheduled to be starting at 12:00 PM IST today with CS:GO, DotA 2 and Hearthstone aligned for the day and the following.
The ESL India Premiership Challenger #1 starts with the quarter-finals with the following teams playing in the brackets today:
India’s most awaited LAN event is down the line and will be presented to the world tomorrow. Top 8 teams from the country will battle for the prize pool of over ₹ 10,00,000 INR.
The Venue selected by the organizers is in Pune, players of CS:GO, DotA II, and Hearthstone will be seen gathered together at Alpha Bachat Bhavan, Pune on 28th July 2016 to compete against their rivals and bring themselves the trophy along with the reputation of being the best in the country in their particular skills.
ESL India Premiership runs in a format which includes 6 Online Starter cups for each game, 2 Open qualifiers, 2 Challenger Cups and a Masters cup which is the most awaited event so far in the country. Premiership Challenger #1 will witness 3 starter cup winners and runner ups which make a total of 6 teams and 1 slot will be filled by the winning team from the offline qualifiers and the last slot is an invite-only.
Open qualifiers will be held near the Challenger Venue where from all over the country can assemble and fight for the slot in Challenger. The winners and the runner ups of each starter cups are also awarded a prize pool of 35,000 INR and a slot in Challenger cup.
1: 25,000 INR
2: 10,000 INR
Challenger #1 – Format
Challenger will include the teams who are the finalists and semi-finalists of the starter cups and the winner of open qualifiers. One team will also be invited to the event directly which will make the count of teams playing the Challenger cup to 8.
The prize pool for Challenger #1 – Dota 2 section is 3,95,000 INR divided into 8 teams.
1: 1,50,000 INR
2: 50,000 INR
3rd -8th : 35,500 INR
The format for the event will be best of one – Single elimination.
Viewers can also spectate the live matches at the venue by booking their tickets on Bookmyshow.com
Address:
Alpha Bachat Bhavan HH Prince Aga Khan Rd,
Agarkar Nagar, Pune, Maharashtra 411001
The ELEAGUE Season 1 came down to its playoff stage where Fnatic took on Envyus in the first quarter-final. The first map of the game was Cobblestone.
Things started pretty well for fnatic as they won the first pistol round and led 3-0 in the map. Envyus weren’t left behind for quite long and picked up some important rounds and equalized the scoreline to 4-4. Some important clutch rounds by ‘Krimz’ helped fnatic secure the first half with a scoreline of 9-6. Fnatic extended their lead in the map by winning the second half pistol round and taking the scoreline to 12-6. However ‘apEX’ picked up some important rounds for his team and Envyus started to comeback on the map. The comeback didn’t last for too long and fnatic closed down the map with a scoreline of 16-13.
The second map of the match was Dust2 and Envyus starting on the CT Side secured the first pistol round with the help of ‘Kenny’s 1v2 clutch. The french team looked pretty confident in this map and took over six rounds in a row. Although fnatic replied back as they got a streak of five rounds to come out on top and closing the half 8-7. In the second pistol round, we saw some amazing play by ‘JW’ who picked up four incredible picks securing the round for his team. From there it was all over for Envyus as Fnatic led their way to victory and closed down the map 16-7 and becoming the first semi-finalists of the ELEAGUE Season 1.
The second match of the ELEAGUE Season 1 playoffs was between Na’Vi and Cloud9. The first map of the game was Overpass.
Cloud9 starting on the T-side of the map secured the first pistol round with a B site execution. In the buy round, ‘Edward’ stepped in for his team and picked up a quad kill helping his team open the scoreboard. The following rounds went back and fourth and ended up 8-7 in the favor of Cloud9. Na’Vi started pretty well in the second half as they won the pistol round and later on followed by winning seven of the first eight rounds to get to the match point. But Cloud9 didn’t lose hope and came back even stronger equalizing the scoreline to 15-15 and taking the map into overtime. Despite Na’vi losing some important rounds, they played a flawless offensive game and closed down the map 19-15.
The second map of the game was decided was Dust2. As the game started Na’vi was off to a great start by picking up the first pistol round and some crucial buy rounds as well. Despite off this Cloud9 backed themselves up and won five rounds in a row to secure an 8-7 lead in the first half. In the second half pistol round, Cloud9 held on to the site pretty well and secured the round. With the help of ‘shroud’ and ‘Stewie2k’ cloud9 picked up some important rounds in the Ct side and later on closed down the map 16-9 taking the match to the third and the final map Cobblestone.
The third map of the game was Cobblestone and Cloud9 started off things pretty well by picking up the pistol round and then leading the map 6-1. Despite this Na’Vi picked some important rounds but trailed behind by 6-9 in the first half. After switching to the CT- side, Na’Vi came back stronger than ever and took a comfortable lead for the first time on the map. With the help of ‘nothing’ Cloud9 again started to make a comeback by equalizing the scoreline to 14-14. However Na’Vi closed down the map 16-14 and progressed to the semi-finals of the ELEAGUE Season 1.
The recent shuffling in the professional CS:GO scene has knocked doors of the many, but not Virtus pro. In an interview recently with Cybersports.ru, Virtus.pro’s prominent rifler pasha marked the words affirming that he won’t ever play for any other team except Virtus.pro.
Jarosław ‘pasha’ Jarząbkowski, the 28 year old athlete is famous among CS fans for his generosity. He is also an active streamer and is known to entertain his viewers at maximum. Pasha, who earned fame for being a part of the Polish lineup Golden Five is one of the founding members of Virtus. Pro and have been sticking around with the same Polish lineup and his mates from more than a decade. The tags he has rendered and beard with may have been different, but by heart, he always has been with his friends-and-mates, NEO, TaZ and Kuben.
Pasha was even among the top 3 contenders for the best CS:GO player in the world rated by HLTV.org in 2014. When he was asked why don’t they change rosters like the rest of the world and are still one of the top Counter Strike organization to have ever existed. His response will peak the level of respect you had for this man.
Pasha responded.
You know, after the storm there is always rain. You can either part ways or wait for the rain to beat everyone. Oh, it’s actually the sun that comes after the rain! Anyway, this is about our team. You can’t always be on top, and that’s okay. We have been doing the same thing for 10 years, we are a big family. It is not only about results and money. The life is quite short, and it is very good to have friends on your team.
Teams attending The International are facing issues with Visa rejection
This is the third time when Xue ‘September’ Zhi Chuan’s visa is declined for ti6.
September, a support player of LGD Gaming who are invited to ti6 directly fails to get visa the third time for their support star September.
Having invited directly to ti6, LGD announced recently, They will not be able to attend the event with their full roster due to Visa issues. While this announcement was made, September’s visa was already denied 2 times. Since it was unclear regarding the 3rd attempt of Sep’s visa. He recently posted on his Weibo page stating it was rejected.
LGD Gaming’s statement after Second rejection.
” Because of education history issues, September and new manager ReBorN0405’s visas have been denied twice. We are currently contacting Perfect World and Valve and are preparing for a third attempt. ”
LGD’s management states they are contacting Valve and Perfect world for any kind of help they can get.
This situation of Visa getting declined is not only a problem for Chinese countries, but also for Filipino teams who have qualified for wild card i.e Execration and TNC who qualified first form SEA region.
Exectration and TNC also got their visas declined for Seattle, both the teams are now reapplying for the visa.
Execration on Social Media
To Clarify: instead of B1 Visa , we are asked by the Embassy to Apply for P1 Visa which is for “athletes” , That’s how Big is eSports (1/2)
The Philippines dream to attend TI since there are now two teams who will be competing in the tournament is now in danger. TNC who qualified and Execration playing for the wildcard slot shows the potential of the country from where they belong.
Statement form TNC’s Manager
” This is the dream of every Dota 2 player, not just for our players but for everyone. Especially sa Filipino community. It’s been awhile that Pinoy teams have participated in the International. This time, we have two. This is not a negative thing to look at. This clearly means that eSports is growing big. Now, they are considering the players as real athletes, that’s why they are requiring P1 Visas. We would like to thank Valve and Sen. Bam Aquino for trying to help us in the process to make it to TI6. All of these are okay, it’s all for the growth of eSports. ”
Statement from Execration’s Manager
” It has been an emotional roller coaster ride for us, this is actually turning out to be harder than the qualifiers. It has been the dream of our team to qualify to The International 6 since TI1 and now that it finally happened, we’re facing this visa issues and it’s emotionally exhausting to be honest. We are thankful to Senator Bam and Valve for helping us out throughout this process. Hopefully, somehow some way we get our visas in time for the event. ”
Senators have now started supporting eSport in their country and they will be helping teams like TNC and Execration to attain visa for The international 6.
