CS & WC3 at Scandinavian EPS finals on April 25

ESL has announced that both Counter-Strike and Warcraft 3 Scandinavian EPS finals will take place in Inferno Online on April 25.


Electronic Sports League will be hosting the one day offline finals during April 25th (Saturday) in Inferno Online which is located in Stockholm, Sweden.

Amongst the participants are the current Extreme Masters Global champions fnatic and the European champions mTw for Counter-Strike and the Danish René 'Ciara' Krag against some newer faces like Samu 'BriNGeR' Riihelä. It is uncertain if Giants will attend the event as they have lost most of their players.

All tournament games will be played in single elimination with best of three (BO3) for Counter-Strike and best of five (BO5) for Warcraft 3. Additional matches for third places will be played. The results of Scandinavian EPS season 1 can be found here.

Participants:
Counter-Strike
Giants
fnatic
Mirror.ATS dk
mTw

Warcraft 3
Daniel 'LiiLD.C' Claesson
Samu 'BriNGeR' Riihelä
Hjalmar 'DowaQ' Högberg
René 'Ciara' Krag

Prize Money Distribution:
Counter-Strike
1. 7.500 euros
2. 5.000 euros
3. 2.500 euros
4. 1.000 euros

Warcraft III
1. 1.000 euros
2. 750 euros
3. 500 euros
4. 250 euros

MYM to leave G7 teams

With the MYM brand going down lately, the G7 have decided to remove the organisation from the teams list. This leaves the G7 with seven active members again for now.

As reported over the past weeks, the MYM brand and ESNation are disappearing slowly with ESNation going bankrupt and MYM removing all of their teams. This now also led to the decision for G7 to remove one of their long-time members even though "The G7 Teams had hoped that MYM would survive its most recent attempted transition".

"This is certainly a difficult moment for the G7," remarked Alexander T. Muller, one of the federation's senior and founding members. "MYM, as represented by Mark "Mercy" Fries, was an extremely productive and important member in his time with the G7 Teams. However, while it isn't easy to dismiss such a significant presence as the MYM brand, this decision was made swiftly and with much certainty. The G7 Teams will continue to move forward and fulfill our organization's mission."

This leaves the G7 with again seven active members being SK Gaming, compLexity, fnatic, Evil Geniuses, Made in Brazil, Mousesports as well as Craig "Torbull" Levine.

Mirror add stofqaz to complete the roster

Earlier this month Mirror have removed Michael "Friis" Jørgensen due to not fitting into the team anymore. Now they announce his replacement being an unknown player at least on the professional level. Mirror have decided to add Christoffer "Stofqaz" Gundersen.

Mirror were down to only four players after removing Michael 'Friis' Jørgensen about two weeks ago and were still looking for a replacement at that time. Now they have announced the addition of a rather unknown player at least on the professional level in Denmark being Christoffer 'Stofqaz' Gundersen.

According to manager Marc Kjærgaard they needed a player "who could fill out Michaels [Friis] position as leading AWP" and continues with "I – as well as the players, believe he is one of the best AWP-players in Denmark". But even though Stofqaz is an unknown player they want to give him the chance to prove himself and Marc states, "if you don’t get the chance, you’ll never be able to prove yourself".

Read the full statement of Marc "MarcK" Kjærgaard below.

"As most of you already know, earlier this month we announced the departure of Michael “Friis” Jørgensen. We have chosen this day, to announce our new fifth. The criteria for the selection of a new player, is that it could be someone, who could fill out Michaels position as leading AWP. Therefore it is with great joy, we today announce our new AWP’er in the Mirror-jersey; Christoffer “Stofqaz” Gundersen.

Players as well as management in mirror are all familiar with Christoffer and only know him as an exceptional character and we expect him to boost the atmosphere and morale of the team. Besides this, we have also chosen stofqaz because I – as well as the players, believe he is one of the best AWP-players in Denmark. We have wathced him the last couple of LAN’s, where he has done an amazing job for his former team CMAX.gg.

A lot of you out there will probably see this decision as a big risk, since Christoffer never has played at this level, but if you don’t get the chance, you’ll never be able to prove yourself.Christoffer still lacks certain elements in his game, mostly routine. None the less, there is no doubt in our minds, that he was the right choice. His potential, dedication and awesome AWP-skills will make him one of the biggest profiles on the Danish scene."

Mirror.ATS dk roster:
Daniel 'anizz' Aniff
Rasmus 'FaG' Møller Thomsen
Christoffer 'Stofqaz' Gundersen
Martin 'trace' Heldt
Jack 'wazorN' Henriksen

Gravitas call choice of EG over them "bullshit"

After Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen of Crack Clan voiced his anger at the list of invites for ESWC Masters of Cheonan, Gravitas members voice their dissapointment and disbelief at the choice of EG over them.

Gravitas Gaming, like Crack Clan, is on the waiting list for ESWC Masters of Cheonan after they were also not included on the direct invites list, with the ESWC choosing X30 and Team EG ahead of the KODE5 USA winners.

""We're really disappointed. Especially if you compare our past year performance to the other two US teams: WCG USA representative, won kode5 usa, top placing at esl etc," said Ben "Ben" Hui of Gravitas to HLTV.

"And then the fact that x3o just replaced 2 players - so both teams [x3o and Evil Geniuses] have yet to prove themselves - and everyone knows how Evil Geniuses have done at every event this year - but I won't get into that."

"What I would disagree about the most is the choice of Evil Geniuses over us. That my friend, is quite the bull****"

Alex "Vansilli" Nguyen, Gravitas manager does go into however, "What I would disagree about the most is the choice of Evil Geniuses over us. That my friend, is quite the bull****." Vansilli believes their inclusion is down to the fact the current EG line-up has three members who won ESWC 2006 USA; Tyler 'storm' Wood,Matt 'warden' Dickens and Danny 'fRoD' Montaner [pictured above].

"It seems as though ESWC neglected those who actually have still been playing Counterstrike 1.6 over here in North America - when the others sold out to Source," said Vansilli.

The Gravitas manager does support the choice of X30 as the other American invite, "I totally agree that x3o was chosen as one of the American teams invited, because that is a team that has been working hard," said Vansilli, "but we definately should of been there with them above Evil Geniuses - who have been dominated by teams and pugs since their return to 1.6."

SK Gaming preselected to ESWC Masters in South Korea

The list of teams preselected to participate at the ESWC Masters in Cheonan, South Korea has been revealed. SK Gaming and 15 other teams, including four top Korean teams, will fight for the title.

The two games chosen for the ESWC Masters which will be held in Cheonan, South Korea, will be Warcraft III and Counter-Strike 1.6. The four day event, starting from the 2nd of May will be held in a Gymnasium at the Cheonan Sports Complex.

SK Gaming will be facing current ESWC 2008 Grand Final champions former MYM and ESWC Masters Paris champions, and World Cyber Games 2008 winners, mTw . The four Korean teams chosen to participate at the event will be debated over two official ESWC Tournaments where the winners will be made known at the end of April 2009.

In no particular order, the following teams have been preselected to participate. Gravitas Gaming US remains on the waiting list in case someone fails to attend.

SK Gaming (Sweden)
fnatic (Sweden)
Team EG US (U.S.A)
Mousesports (Germany)
Former MYM (Poland)
mTw (Denmark)
Speeder (Japan)
Immunity (Australia)
wNv Teamwork CN (China)
x3o (U.S.A)
TitaNs (Singapore)
Ultimax (Taiwan)

Read about the Chinese dominating the invitee list of ESWC Asia Masters to see the list of the preselected Warcraft III participants which will be held at the same time.

Gather-Network Invites going out!

Gather-Network Invites going out!

Register your steam under http://www.gather-network.eu/register/invite/169331/ and start play gathered clan wars in CS,CSS,TF2,L4D!

G7 Ranking system altered for 2009

The rules for which events will get included in the G7 Rankings have been altered with pure invite tournaments only counting for 20%.

The major change is that invite tournaments will not be counted in the G7 Rankings, that is unless the invite-only event is "co-ordinated with the G7 and demonstrates acknowledgement of our ranking system by inviting the top 5 teams in our rankings (at least), then the event will be eligible."

"Invite-only events may now constitute no more than 20% of annual points"

Furthermore invite-only events may now constitute no more than 20% of annual points, this is to "ensure that the G7’s top 5 teams are not given an advantage over the rest of the teams in the ranking via the eligibility criteria suggested above."

The reason for invite tournaments not organised along with the G7 is that it is "a safeguard for teams that do not receive invitations to invite-only events, because they should not be punished for situations out of their control."

Also for an event to be included in the ranking (that is not invite-only) previously only one top team needed to be in attendance but now at least two top 10 teams must be present for the event to be counted towards the rankings.

Furthermore G7 teams must announce their participation in an event at least one month prior to the event itself, to allow other teams a chance to make arrangements to attend if they so wish. Therefore "everybody will have the opportunity to participate and nobody can say the event was snuck in."

Summary of main alterations
- Invite tournaments only included if the Top 5 G7 Ranking teams are invited
- Invite tournaments may only constitute 20% of annual points
- For an non invite-only event to be eligible for rankings, at least two top G7 10 teams must be in attendance.
- G7 teams must announce their attendance at an event one month prior to it taking place to the other G7 members.

Read the entire section regarding event eligibility on the G7 website.

SK features in Atomic Magazine in Australia‏

SK Gaming has featured in the February edition of Atomic, an Australian Computing magazine, after the Australian team Immunity trained at the SK Office last November.

SK Gaming welcomed Immunity to come to the SK Office to train during the World Cyber Games, and they also had a chance to sharpen their skills with our Swedish Counter-Strike team for almost a week prior to the tournament. The piece in question came out in print down under and was entitled "Diplomatic Immunity."

Extract from Atomic's February edition

Eye of the Tiger

"In fact the walls of the SK offices are practically wallpapered in these cheques - and we spotted more tucked behind the furniture!"

"Immunity flew into Frankfurt, then hopped a train to Cologne, and - showing their commitment to the cause - they had no intention of crawling off to their hotel for a nap like any sane human after a long haul to Europe. Having arrived a week early in Cologne, the team dumped their gear and headed straight into bootcamp, having secured a great opportunity to train with one of the best teams in the world, SK Gaming.

SK is one of the world's premier pro gaming organisations, covering the gamut of core pro gaming titles. Their Counter-Strike 1.6 team hails from Sweden and was warm favourites to take out the title. SK is a superstar team on the world stage, signing autographs and earning a very comfortable living winning giant novelty-sized cheques. In fact the walls of the SK offices are practically wallpapered in these cheques, and we spotted more tucked behind the furniture - there's only so much wall space for showing off your winnings!

The gaming servers in Europe were stunning to see in action. With a real international pro scene, Immunity was granted access to a private server network to train against the best from right across the continent. When a match is organised through this network a private server will be raised at a location in a third country, when necessary, to ensure fair latency between the two competing teams. A very different world from the laggy garbage we all take for granted back home.

The team really showed they were not just here for a holiday, putting in a big effort to show the world they had real talent to bring to the table. Over the week their confidence grew, and when they started taking regular matches against some fancied competition, the team started to entertain thoughts of scoring some upset wins at the Games."

The rest of the article including the tale of what happened in the SK Office after the Aussies went on a night out can be found in the online version of the printed article here.

ESL strapped for cash, G7 teams waiting?

After announcing yesterday that the rumours surrounding the PGL were false and fabricated, the ESL is the subject of yet another rumour, this time that they still have large outstanding debts to several G7 teams from their 2008 competitions.

No EPS IFNG in Stuttgart due to School Shooting

It has been reported that the Intel Friday Night Game in Stuttgart of the German ESL Pro Series has been cancelled due to the school shooting earlier this month. This once again brings up the discussion about the killer games in Germany.

As reported on Fragster.de the Friday Night Game has been cancelled due to Stuttgart "not accepting events like this at the moment" says mayor Wolfgang Schuster. The event has been discussed for a week about whether to cancel it or not but they made the decision to not support this right now.

This is due to the school shooting earlier this month where 15 people have been killed and several German politicians again blame so called killer games in Germany which the killer has been playing. The ESL have announced to looking for another location right now but nothing has been decided yet.

ESL calls PGL rumours "false and fabricated"

The ESL have apparently decided to take action against rumours circulating that the CEI - who organise PGL - could go bankrupt because of ESL not providing financial support of late.

"We have already taken legal action against these wrongful accusations"

"We have noticed a number of false and fabricated rumors surrounding PGL and CEI," said David Hiltscher of ESL to SK Gaming, "These rumours were wrongly reported and have not gotten any kind of confirmation from us. We have already taken legal action against these wrongful accusations."

According to ESL they have been "creating and shaping eSports in China for more than 3 years now," and "will continue to deliver high standard eSports events to the industry".The Professional Gamer League (PGL) is one of the flagship products of China E-sports Interactive and due to the global recession as we informed you last week has allegedly hit the stop button on all running operations, laid off the majority of its staff, and is struggling to maintain its existence according to one Chinese website.

"The rumours about CEI which are currently circulating, show that the young eSports industry still has to mature," said ESL, who call for the industry to stick together in these difficult times. "We should work together within the industry and try to build a healthy eSports market."

ESL believes there should be firm repercussions for those who wish to damage the reputation of a competitor within the scene. "Any actions of trying to create negative and false rumors in order to hurt a competitor within the industry should be penalized by the law and the eSports community as a whole."

In order to run eSports leagues China an organisation must obtain one of two licenses, one of which the ESL currently holds. The ESL believes the culprit who seeks to damage their reputation regarding the CEI and PGL is doing it with the premise to secure the aforementioned license for themselves.

"The rumours about CEI which are currently circulating, show that the young eSports industry still has to mature"

This statement from the ESL comes after further rumours were published on a Chinese website recently regarding the status of the CEI and PGL.

Made in Brazil change again, Kiko out

More changes have been made to the Made in Brazil roster after a disastrous performance at ESL Extreme Masters III Finals. Carlos "KIKOOOO" Segal will have to leave the team while an old face returns with Wellington "ton" Caruso but also a new player is joining up being Arthur "prd" Resende.
The team is bringing back an old Made in Brazil player with Wellington 'ton' Caruso returning to Counter-Strike. He has been away for a few months but Thiago 'btt' Monteiro believes in his mate saying that he is a great player and should be able to keep up the practice to attend tournaments soon. Also they have announced the addition of Arthur 'prd' Resende who has played for teams such as vsONE and Firegamers before.

Made in Brazil has lost two players with Renato 'nak' Nakano leaving only days after the ESL Extreme Masters III Finals while Carlos 'KIKOOOO' Segal has been removed now. MiBr have placed last in groupstage by only winning once against SK Gaming.

Made in Brazil roster:
Thiago 'btt' Monteiro
Rafael 'cogu' Camargo
Arthur 'prd' Resende
Guilherme 'spacca' Spacca
Wellington 'ton' Caruso

InsideTV UGT video with zet, Smaugy and co

Nicolas "Pops" Estrup of InsideTV (and also Frontspawn) was on site at the recent Ultimate Gamer Tour in Stockholm over the weekend and has put together a neat little video documentary of the event.

Yesterday we released an interview with the winner of the UGT tournament Markus "Smaugy" Sundqvist if you want to find out more about the underdog who took home over 9,000 euros, why not have a look? Also pani- has uploaded a great gallery here on SK Gaming which you can see here.

Blank disbands, Snajdan inactive?

It has been rumoured for a few weeks already but now it is official, the Swedish team Blank disbands and the players are free agents. The team was in trouble for a couple of weeks, losing one of their players and were also almost unable to attend EM3 Finals.

It is now officially reported that the team of Blank completely disbands and some players might not continue playing. Niklas 'niko' Johansson told HLTV.org that it is now official but the future is unknown for the players. Rumours currently are that Mattias 'Snajdan' Andersen is going inactive again as well as Inferno Online might pick up players from the two disbanded teams Giants and Blank for a new squad.

The rumours about disbanding have been floating around for a while and when Rasmus 'GuX' Stahl left to fnatic, the team was unable to find a replacement and also almost were not attending ESL Extreme Masters III Finals in March. This just means Sweden lost another Swedish top team only leaving SK Gaming and fnatic at the very top for now.

Germany to ban addictive video games from kids?

The German politicians have suggested banning "addictive" video games from kids. The list of the addictive video games may include titles like World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike.


The German politicians have disclosed a proposal to ban addictive video games from kids once again. The list of the addictive video games may include titles like World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike.

Mechthild Ross-Luttmann, the German Minister for Social Affairs in Lower Saxony says she will request a general age restriction for "addictive" video games. Reports say video games like World of Warcraft, which is currently available for kids, may only be sold to adult. Ross-Luttmann is asking for an investigation regarding this case.

The German Minister believes video games are the "potential danger" that exists in children's bedroom. Andreas Rosenfelder, the author of Digital Paradise however sees little connection between the addictive video games and school shootings. Several news reports have also proved that video games like Counter-Strike does not teach teen violence.

vilden, fisker, SpawN & striker to play CS

Four oldschool players are coming back to Counter-Strike, at least for this week. Tonight they will play the Fragbite SteelSeries King of the Hill as well as the IOL Season 3 this weekend. The team is completed by zyppe, a former playzone player.

The team called Lemondogs features four old SK Sweden players with Christian 'vilden' Lidström, Christer 'fisker' Eriksson, Abdisamad 'SpawN' Mohamed and Emil 'striker' Westerberg. Vilden has actually left the Counter-Strike scene for a while to play World of Warcraft at WSVG tournaments but ever since there was no sign of him anymore.

Now they make a short comeback to attend the Inferno Online League Season 3 Finals this weekend as well as playing the SteelSeries King of the Hill tonight. This will most likely be a one-time comeback again at least for fisker and SpawN. Make sure to watch their matches to see some oldschool vilden AWP.

Lemondogs roster:
Christer 'fisker' Eriksson
Abdisamad 'SpawN' Mohamed
Emil 'striker' Westerberg
Christian 'vilden' Lidström
Samuel 'Zyppe' Martinsson

No Sponsors for KODE5 Poland

The KODE5 Poland Regional Finals were actually to be played next week offline in Warsaw with six teams attending. Now it has been revealed that no sponsors have been found to hold this offline event.

As reported on HLTV.org KODE5 were unable to find a sponsor to support the Regional Finals providing needed equipment and financial support. This forces KODE5 to play out the finals online next week at 29th March 2009.

A total of six teams have qualified through online qualifiers and invites with one of the teams being the Ukrainian team of KerchNET. Only the winner of this event qualifies for the KODE5 Global Finals in Russia later this year but participants still have the chance to attend qualifiers in other countries.

KODE5 Poland Regional Finals

former MYM (invited)
Frag eXecutors (invited)
DELTAeSports (Winner of Qualifier #1)
Team Plantro (Winner of Qualifier #2)
Betsson Voodoo Gaming (Winner of Qualifier #3)
KerchNET (Winner of Qualifier #4)