eSuba.INTEL brought bronze from Hungary

A few weeks ago, our CS:GO team has once again joined the row of organizations that are proudly displaying their participation in the most played game of the current times, the FPS. Over those few weeks, our team consisting of five and mostly Slovak members has already achieved some great results in online tournaments, as well as in one offline event.

Qualitywise, the Hungarian ICL could not par with Copenhagen Games, attended by  nEophyte, but it still resembled a great challenge for our team. The tournament had been attended by 32 teams which were split into groups by four. The best three out of every group proceeded to playoff.

Our eSuba team was appointed to Group H, which was scheduled among the last ones, and began playing as late as early Saturday afternoon. The opponents of our team were three Hungarian teams, none of which had fortunately been seen as the tournament‘s favorite, therefore it was supposed to be an easy game for our members.

And an easy game it sure was. Already in the first match against IMMORTALS our team won 28:2. The groups played BO1, however, for whatever reason the whole map was played until the end of the 30th round. The last two matches in the Group H were similarly unanimous, and after scoring 29:1 against NoComplain and 24:6 against RAMPANT, eSuba clearly became the winner within this group.

#	Group H	M	W	L	Points
1.	eSuba.Intel	3	3	0	9
2.	RAMPANT	3	2	1	6
3.	IMMORTALS	3	1	2	3
4.	NoComplain	3	0	3	0

The first round of the Single Elimination playoff was joined by the teams scoring 3rd or 2nd within their groups. The winners of this round then faced the teams scoring 1st. After finishing their Group H tournament at 5pm, our team found out they had an hour-long break. But that hour had unexpectedly turned into two, then three, four, and they got to the playoff as late as 10pm. Also, previously BO3 was scheduled instead of BO1. Since if they scored well in the playoff, there would have been one more match for our team, it was clear that they could only daydream about sleep that night.

eSuba.CSGO

 Tomáš „benq1“ Masaryk
 Luboš „HenkkyG“ Ilko 
 Radoslav „rdO“ Tóth 
 Martin „MonttY“ Melišek  
 Karel „fredi“ Královec

In the second round of playoff, the opponent of our team was myRevenge. The first map, Cache, was quite well-balanced and ended with the score 16:11. However, all doubts have at last been dispersed by Inferno. The map selected by our team ended with the score 16:1. Afterwards, there was once again a short break, after which eSuba met its last opponent of the Saturday’s gaming day. After pretty equally challenged maps, Team Miskolc beat ULTIMATE, thus became our opponent for the quarterfinal. It’s hard to tell whether exhaustion might have played part, however, the results of this match, 16:0 and 16:1 in favor of the ULTIMATE team, were pretty self-explanatory.

The match was over at around 2:30am and the semifinal was supposed to start already at 9am, which left not much time for rest. The next-to-last opponent of our team was Team ROCK. eSuba team dominated the first map, Cache, and the Inferno, again selected by our team, was looking promising when they were leading 6:1. Unfortunately, what followed could be only described as a total washout and 15 rounds of horror with only one bright moment within.

Team ROCK ended up winning 16:7. Such a failure of our team is really hard to explain, maybe just a streak of bad luck. Same as on the first map, many times the rounds here were so close that often one-on-one matches were what made the decision. Unfortunately, in contrast to the first map, Inferno did not go that well. The Hungarians turned to victory everything they touched, and our team had been mercilessly crushed. Even worse, the last map turned out to be eSuba’s not so popular map Cobblestone, so the whole course of the game went correspondingly. After the first half, 3:12 was not been promising anything good. At last it turned out 5:15 against eSuba. However, it is important to mention that even when facing these mostly hopeless situations, our team has not given up. And even if every following round was a match point for Team ROCK, they have taken the game to the very end and scored 10:16.

1st round					2nd round				Quarterfinals				Semifinales				Finals
	eSuba.Intel	0
	FREEWIN	0
					eSuba.Intel	2
					myRevenge	0
	NVIABLE	0
	myRevenge	1
									eSuba.Intel	2
									Team Miskolc	0
	ULTIMATE	0
	FREEWIN	0
					ULTIMATE	0
					Team Miskolc	2
	Infernalis	0
	Team Miskolc	1
													eSuba.Intel	1
													Team ROCK	2
	Team ROCK	0
	FREEWIN	0
					Team ROCK	2
					CryoCore Gaming	0
	NEUSS	0
	CryoCore Gaming	1
									Team ROCK	2
									Cyborg Factory	0
	Cyborg Factory	0
	FREEWIN	0
					Cyborg Factory	2
					KanDisznok	0
	KanDisznok	1
	Dafuq.GO	0
																	Tricked eSport	2
																	Team ROCK	0
	Tricked eSport	0
	FREEWIN	0
					Tricked eSport	2
					IMMORTALS	0
	videojatekosok	0
	IMMORTALS	1
							Tricked eSport	2					eSuba.Intel	2
								KnockOutStars		0							Teamwork	0
	KnockOutStars	0
	FREEWIN	0
					KnockOutStars	2
					Frocskolok	1
	Frocskolok	1
	TLC	0
													Tricked eSport	2
													Teamwork	0
	MONADS	0
	FREEWIN	0
					MONADS	2
					Vicious Ducks	1
	Infinite Elation	0
	Vicious Ducks	1
									MONADS	0
									Teamwork	2
	Teamwork	0
	FREEWIN	0
					Teamwork	2
					RAMPANT	0
	RAMPANT	1
	NSTEEZ	0

The dream of finals had dissolved and the breaking point was probably Inferno. That was when our players had the best chance to proceed further. But it was just probably not meant to be. Over all, when we look at the maps, we scored 1:2, and the first loss in the tournament meant we only had the chance to fight for 3rd place.

Our team still maintained the spirit, saying that „there is no 4th place for us,“ and went on to battle their last  game. Their opponent was Teamwork, which had previously eliminated Monads and which was very well heard all around the hall when on a lucky strike.

Teamwork did not have many chances against eSuba. Even though Mirage was not 100% unanimous, it was developing pretty well and ended 16:9 in our favor. Nuke was then completely dominated by our members, and during the final rounds there was visible resignation from the opposing team. The final score 16:4 resembled a clear victory and also the 3rd place for eSuba’s colors in the whole tournament. The prize money was 80 000 Hungarian forints, a little over 7.000 CZK, and Gunnars gaming glasses.

Even though the semifinal was a letdown for our members, as it definitely was within our capability to win, eSuba was still able to finish with a prize. On top of that, the 3rd place isn’t by any means a disappointment – to score among TOP 3 had been the goal of our mission from the very beginning. And what’s more, the results of our team in the whole tournament make us hopeful that there will be many more times to see them score among the top ones again.