WinOut

As a mediocre start to 2009, spring time surely did not bring much hope to the Counter-Strike scene. The loss of both ESWC and CAL, in an already weakening North-America scene, left a bitter taste to some, who felt that the scene might be plunging towards it's final stop. The summer, however, barring any last moment cancellations or missing payouts, brought us a booked events schedule, as teams were looking forward to some much needed prize money. Follow us today for the second of three parts, as we take a look at 2009: A year in Counter-Strike.

May

The beginning of summer, May would be one of the busiest months in eSports last year. With three major international tournaments within a three weeks period, both players and fans had their hands full of exciting games, all across the globe.

Kicking off on the 3rd, was the ESWC Asia Masters of Cheonan, an invitational tournament featuring the top Asian teams, as well as the like of EG.us, mTw, fnatic, mouz, AGAiN, SK and many more. Starting off with a group stage that saw almost no surprising results, with the exceptions of wNv.cn being knocked out early and AGAiN failing to move past group C, in which they were pitted against fnatic and SK-Gaming. Teams then faced off in a single elimination bracket, playing best of three maps to advance. As they did in the past few European events held before this one, the Americans failed to impress, being quickly dispatched by mouz, who were themselves sent back home in the very next round. As the tournament progressed, the two Swedish powerhouses, fnatic and SK, both steamrolled their half of the bracket, with clean 2-0 sheets all the way to the finals, where they would face each other. In the end, fnatic would keep their bracket record perfect, winning the first two maps, sweet revenge one might say, after losing to SK in a 16-10 nail-biter during group play.

ESWC Asia Masters of Cheonan 2009:
Finals demo
1st. Fnatic (cArn, dsn, f0rest, GeT_RiGhT, Gux) – $20,000
2nd. SK Gaming (allen, RobbaN, Tentpole, walle, zet) - $7,000
3rd. mousesports (cyx, gob b, Kapio, gore, Tixo) - $3,000

Only four days after ESWC's Asian stop, it was time for the KODE5 Global Finals. Winners of the national finals from each of the participating country were drawn into a single elimination bracket, a very unforgiving tournament format, in which they would play best of three maps. Sadly for EG, they would be the first victims of the drawing being done at random in the absence of prior group play. The Americans would have to face SK-Gaming in the first round, a daunting task for which EG would start as the underdog. Nonetheless, they would manage to somewhat impress by making the task much harder than expected for SK, even taking a map, before bowing out in a 2-1 loss. They would surely, however, take a bit of pride in the fact that SK would go on to defeat mibr and mTw to access the finals. In the top half of the brackets, usual contenders fnatic were still as hot as they were in Korea a few days ago, bulldozing past DTS.Chatrix, emuLate and AGAiN with clean 2-0 wins. Once more, we would be offered an all Swedish finals. In a repeat of the prior week's finals in Cheonan, fnatic and SK faced off, with the same two maps to nothing outcome in favor of fnatic, earning them their second consecutive KODE5 Global Finals champions title.

KODE5 Global Finals 2009:

NO HLTV
1st. Fnatic (cArn, dsn, f0rest, GeT_RiGhT, Gux) – $25,000
2nd. SK Gaming (allen, RobbaN, Tentpole, walle, zet) - $10,000
3rd. WICKED (kuben, NEo, TaZ, LuQ, Loord) - $5,000

If two tournaments within a seven day period wasn't enough, exactly one week after KODE5 concluded, eSports' elite was in to Ukraine for yet another major championship, the DTS Cup. The event drew the majority of eastern Europe's finest, with names like Virtus.pro, tp.uSports, DTS.chatrix, forZe and AGAiN (then WICKED) all competing for the top prizes. After an uneventful group play which saw H2K-Gaming exiting after two disappointing performances against k23 and tp.uSports, it was down to eight teams, seeded into a double elimination bracket. AGAiN, led by Neo's stellar play, would go on to dominate the brackets, entering the finals from the winner's bracket, giving them a one map advantage in the best of three finals against the winners of the loser's bracket, in this case Korean side WeMade FOX. Right from the start, the Poles established themselves, winning seven rounds on their de_train offense, a very comfortable score heading into the CT side. It would only take nine rounds from the half, all of them won by AGAiN, to secure the victory. It was a welcome win and some very welcome prize money for a team which had been bounced from an organization to the other for the last few months.

DTS-Cup 2009:
Finals demo
1st. WICKED (kuben, NEo, TaZ, LuQ, Loord) – $10,000
2nd. WeMade FOX (glow, solo, lsw, bail, termi) - $6,000
3rd. Amazing Gaming (B1ad3, weiss, strike, valentiniCh, xaoc) - $4,000

On the American front, besides EG's disappointing results internationally, compLexity was also creating waves. Lake's organization, after poor results domestically, announced that it was releasing their CS squad. It was only a few days later that they announced the signing of the former x3o team.

CompLexity – As of May 09
Andrew "dRew" Timmerman
Ryan "NineSpot" Bell
David "saviOr" Park
Jeff "hero" Mettetal
Derek "dboorn" Boorn

Other notable events for May:
- Evil Geniuses drop their Canadian Squad
- wooSai loses its CS team
-EG.usa receives a DreamHack Summer invite
-k23 wins Arbalet Cup #2
- mTw wins “The Blast” LAN