fnatic's Phil Rasmussen takes an in depth look at the IEM European Championship finals for Sebastian 'Spart1e' Siira. Looking at the highs of some amazing matches and comebacks, to the lows of a certain failure to make the top six of the tournament.
The intense games against strenx, Av3k and k1llsen are all reviewed with Spart1e sharing his thoughts on the day, which had a big impact on him.
There is a marginal difference between success and failure in QuakeLive. Sitting with his head buried in his hands, nobody was mistaking on what side of that fine line Sebastian 'spart1e' Siira ended yesterday.
Scheduled: 04:00 CST, 21 January 2011 to 14:00 CST, 21 January 2011 Schedule: Passed
The European Championship Finals of the Intel Extreme Masters Season 5 will take place at the CyberSport Arena in Kiev from the 20th to the 23rd of January 2011.
ESL TV is proposing a premium stream special offer for 3.99€. Joe, calipt (QL) and RotterdaM (SC2) will be the commentators on the main ESL TV stream. There will also be a second stream covering SC2, as well Russian and Polish streams.
Also, Level Up TV with nVc, Slasher, Stermy, Fishstix, ischju and friends will cover most of the Quakelive matches! Join #lvl^ for the chat / flood during the matches. You can find more details about all the streams available on the schedule page.
On days 1 and 2, the first matches will start at 05:00 CDT. And a last word: It has been confirmed that zsx will not attend the competition and won't be replaced.
Group A Marcel "k1llsen" Paul Kévin "strenx" Baéza Maciej "av3k" Krzykowski Sebastian "Spart1e" Siira Michael "madix" Hindersson Dan "zsx" Sanders
Group B Richard "noctis" Gansterer Anton "Cooller" Singov Alexey "cypher" Yanushevsky Pelle "fazz" Söderman Alexandre "GoHLinK" Fouchet Robert "tox1c" Kopczynski
Group B - Round 1
05:00 CDT: tox1c vs Cooller (Details) @ ESL TV
05:00 CDT: noctis vs GoHLinK (Details) @ Level Up TV
05:45 CDT: Cypher vs fazz (Details) @ ESL TV
Group B - Round 2
06:30 CDT: Cypher vs Cooller (Details) @ ESL TV
07:15 CDT: noctis vs fazz (Details) @ Level Up TV
08:00 CDT: tox1c vs GoHLinK (Details) @ Level Up TV
Group A - Round 1
08:45 CDT: madix vs k1llsen (Details) @ Level Up TV
08:45 CDT: av3k vs zsx (Details)
09:30 CDT: strenx vs spart1e (Details) @ Level Up TV
Group A - Round 2
10:15 CDT: madix vs zsx (Details) @ Level Up TV
11:00 CDT: av3k vs spart1e (Details) @ Level Up TV
11:45 CDT: strenx vs k1llsen (Details) @ Level Up TV
Group A - Round 3
12:30 CDT: madix vs av3k (Details) @ Level Up TV
13:15 CDT: strenx vs zsx (Details) @ Level Up TV
14:00 CDT: k1llsen vs spart1e (Details) @ Level Up TV
Friday 21st
Group B - Round 3
05:00 CDT: noctis vs tox1c (Details) @ Level Up TV
05:45 CDT: Cypher vs GoHLinK (Details) @ Level Up TV
06:30 CDT: fazz vs Cooller (Details) @ Level Up TV
Group B - Round 4
07:15 CDT: fazz vs GoHLinK (Details) @ Level Up TV
08:00 CDT: Cypher vs tox1c (Details) @ Level Up TV
08:45 CDT: noctis vs Cooller (Details) @ Level Up TV
Group A - Round 4
09:30 CDT: strenx vs madix (Details) @ Level Up TV
10:15 CDT: spart1e vs zsx (Details) @ Level Up TV
11:00 CDT: av3k vs k1llsen (Details) @ ESL TV
Group A - Round 5
11:45 CDT: strenx vs av3k (Details) @ ESL TV
11:45 CDT: madix vs spart1e (Details) @ Level Up TV
11:45 CDT: k1llsen vs zsx (Details)
Group B - Round 5
11:45 CDT: noctis vs Cypher (Details)
11:45 CDT: GoHLinK vs Cooller (Details)
11:45 CDT: tox1c vs fazz (Details)
Saturday 22nd
Quarter Final #1
06:25 CDT: A2 vs B3 (Details) @ Level Up TV
Quarter Final #2
07:45 CDT: B2 vs A3 (Details) @ ESL TV
Sunday 23th
Semi Final #1
05:00 CDT: B1 vs QF1 (Details) @ ESL TV
Semi Final #2
06:00 CDT: A1 vs QF2 (Details) @ ESL TV
Bronze Final
11:45 CDT: SF1 vs SF2 (Details) @ Level Up TV
Group B - Round 1
05:00 CDT: GoOdy vs Socke (Details) @ ESL TV2
05:00 CDT: PredY vs ClouD (Details) @ ESL TV2
06:15 CDT: SjoW vs SarenS (Details) @ ESL TV2
Group B - Round 2
06:15 CDT: PredY vs Socke (Details) @ ESL TV2
07:30 CDT: GoOdy vs SarenS (Details) @ ESL TV2
07:30 CDT: SjoW vs ClouD (Details) @ ESL TV2
Group A - Round 1
08:45 CDT: Naama vs White-Ra (Details) @ ESL TV2
08:45 CDT: merz vs Tarson (Details) @ ESL TV2
10:00 CDT: Kas vs DemusliM (Details) @ ESL TV2
Group A - Round 2
10:00 CDT: Naama vs Tarson (Details) @ ESL TV
11:15 CDT: Kas vs White-Ra (Details) @ ESL TV
11:15 CDT: merz vs DemusliM (Details) @ ESL TV2
Group A - Round 3
12:30 CDT: Naama vs DemusliM (Details) @ ESL TV
12:30 CDT: Kas vs merz (Details) @ ESL TV2
13:45 CDT: White-Ra vs Tarson (Details) @ ESL TV
Friday 21st
Group B - Round 3
05:00 CDT: SarenS vs ClouD (Details) @ ESL TV
05:00 CDT: GoOdy vs PredY (Details) @ ESL TV2
06:15 CDT: SjoW vs Socke (Details) @ ESL TV
Group B - Round 4
06:15 CDT: GoOdy vs ClouD (Details) @ ESL TV2
07:30 CDT: SarenS vs Socke (Details)
08:45 CDT: SjoW vs PredY (Details) @ ESL TV2
Group A - Round 4
10:00 CDT: Kas vs Tarson (Details) @ ESL TV2
10:00 CDT: Naama vs merz (Details) @ ESL TV2
11:15 CDT: White-Ra vs DemusliM (Details) @ ESL TV2
Group A - Round 5
12:30 CDT: DemusliM vs Tarson (Details) @ ESL TV
12:30 CDT: Kas vs Naama (Details)
12:30 CDT: merz vs White-Ra (Details)
Group B - Round 5
12:30 CDT: Socke vs ClouD (Details) @ ESL TV
12:30 CDT: GoOdy vs SjoW (Details)
12:30 CDT: SarenS vs PredY (Details)
Saturday 22nd
Quarter Final #1
06:30 CDT: A2 vs B3 (Details) @ ESL TV2
Quarter Final #2
08:15 CDT: B2 vs A3 (Details) @ ESL TV
Sunday 23th
Semi Final #1
07:00 CDT: A1 vs QF2 (Details) @ ESL TV
Semi Final #2
08:40 CDT: B1 vs QF1 (Details) @ ESL TV
Bronze Final
11:30 CDT: SF1 vs SF2 (Details) @ ESL TV2
UPDATE: VOD's of the finals are now online :) some very exciting games finished with a controversial ending
After a fairly quick group stage 7 out of an expected 8 qualified for the final Single Elimination stage in the Intel Extreme Masters Oceanic Championships. The upset ofcourse New Zealand's Jake "CHV" Hope defeating his rivaled counterpart Nomey and team hero wch. Another interesting result was young David "ZenAkU" Addati defeating Peter "Ventz" Kiddson three maps to one. Although a lot of finalists were expected now is time to separate the boys from the men, and the men from our Oceanic hero.
Wasn't the greatest finals we all could have hoped for but still finals never the less. Daniel "dandaking" De Sousa taking victory over Andrew "chacha" Chacha in a very "interesting" grand final matchup. The mood was set through-out map one, furious heights being pinned into overtime with twenty seconds remaining. Lost World was looking the same as the second map encountered a dramatic finish with Dandaking disconnecting at 7 minutes played with equal scores of 3-3. After the replay of lostworld finish in dan's favor chacha was hoping to bring it back with a promising bloodrun as once again dandaking disconnects at the six minute mark with scores at 2-1 in favor of chacha. The game came down to the rule book as we waited patiently for a decision to be made, but the replay of the remaining minutes was once again not to be as dandaking crushed any hope racking up frags on the hard-done-by chacha. Although the finals were much of a disappointment to our viewers the show must go on, as dandaking will be once again representing our nations on an international stage in the Intel Extreme Masters World Championships.
Dandaking and Ventz known usually for playing on the same team always find themselves meeting up in their favoured mode of Duel. It's always hard to predict an outcome and a lot of people will argue that when these two played in the Quakecon Qualifier finals for 2010, the server could have made a big difference in the outcome of result. Hopefully with a more prepared rule and mind set Ventz will be able to get his revenge from losing out on a big international debut in the Qcon`10 Aus Qualifier Grand Final.
Chacha vs rep will be another interesting matchup. Never playing each other in a public duel will proove a great testimate to this matchup. Also conflicting playstyles of aggressive meets defensive will be displayed in hopefully a very firey game from both players. Pride more than glory at stake for this match.
The two youngest competitors left in the finals ZenAkU (17) takes on Xcope (16) in the Quarters. Both very exciting and promising players to watch, and I don't doubt that even if neither of these two do not make it to the Grand Final they will get their moment in the near future.
Zealor vs CHV, this time zlr gets to crush New Zealand's hopes and dreams of an International appearance. Zealor's controlled game should hopefully stop CHV's powerful aggression and see him into a Semi Final appearance. But the fire burns bright inside CHV and proving such an easy upset will have him set to prove a little more to our community.
In January 2010 Alexei "Cypher" Yanushevsky won the IEM European Championship and it’s time again for Season 5 of IEM to kick off with the European Championship Finals in Kiev, Ukraine on 20th Jan 2011. Having beaten some of the most formidable opponents like Anton "Cooller"Singov at QuakeCon, the Belarusian talks to Stuart "SwitchbacK" Macdonald in this pre-IEM interview about the tournament, his current shape and motivation to win the World Championship and his favorite Quake Live match.
You practically owned the latter half of 2010. Is the whole of 2011 in your sights?
"Before the new year came, I aimed myself to win every single tournament in 2011."
Professional Gaming team SK-Gaming interviewed one of the most entertaining players outside Quake. fnatic's player Sebastian "Spart1e" Siira. How will he do at Kiev? What are his toughs on his Group.
Little preview:
Would I be right in saying that it's been a while since I've seen a dominant Spart1e?
Yeah that is true. I didn't change much in my playingstyle, while everyone else changed a lot and got a lot better. I find it hard to learn new things and change what needs to be changed when I am always tired while practising. The times that I improve are when I can concentrate on Quake and only on Quake.
In a continuation of their IEM V Quake Live European Finals interview series, ESFIWorld.com have sat down with Pelle 'fazz' Soderman from Reason Gaming. Fazz talked about how he considers himself an e-sports nerd and how he thinks the third spot in his group is a wide open race.
fazz: "I think in my first game versus k1llsen, I played really well, except for my aim, which was horrible. I managed to only lose by 3 frags on both maps (or something like that), while just hitting 15% of my rail shots. After that, it kind of got under my skin and it was all downhill from there."
Following their first interview with Dignitas player madix, ESFIWorld.com has published their interview with Alexandre "GoHLinK" Fouchet. GoHLinK talks about his time in Unreal Tournament 3 and why he decided to switch to Quake Live. He also predicts who will do best in the tournament and who he'd most like to play.
GoHLinK: "Sadly UT3 (Unreal Tournament 3) only had a few tournaments. When it died competitively, I still wanted to compete in tournaments, so I decided to try to switch to Quake Live which was going to be the biggest fast FPS at that time. I am glad Dignitas had faith in my skills and accepted me in their QL line-up even though I never played any Quake before."
Scheduled: 22:00 CST, 8 January 2011 to 07:00 CST, 9 January 2011 Schedule: Passed
In late 2010 Australia and New Zealand were blessed with the news from the Intel Extreme Masters that a spot would be given for the combined nations to participate in the 2011 Season 5 Intel Extreme Masters World Championships for Quake Live. In late December, 4Seasons Gaming ran qualifiers for the Aus/NZ Intel Extreme Masters to narrow the participants down to a final 16. These players would then compete in a week of finals stages of groups to single elimination knockout for the first place prize of paid flights and accomodation to the event. The Qualifiers ran fantastic and the matches were very exciting to say the least. It will be hard for many of you to be awake for the majority of our matches but we hope that some of you will enjoy the VOD's listed below :) and stay tuned on our tournament page. The group stages start from January 9th until January 15th, and a Schedule for now (until confirmed) will reside only our 4SG main page. However the finals day on January the 16th will be setup properly to accomodate our international spectator base.
Also big thanks to Tt eSports who will be lending a hand to sponsor the finalist over to Germany. Countdown timer has been added for this tournament
Support the Cause
4Seasons Gaming would love your support! Even a donation of $5 brings us closer towards our future goals, and everyone will be remembered no matter what region you're from!
Want to follow along? Register on 4seasonsgaming.com to be notified. We also have a facebook page and twitter page setup for the e-socialites. Alternatively we have an interactive chat channel setup on irc for open discussions. This page will also be used to stream the tournaments LIVE as they happen, with special guest casters to join us for the final event.
Group winners will directly go to the semis, players who place 2nd and 3rd have to play a "quarterfinal". We know this mode from the previous Intel Extreme Masters Final in Cologne, 2010
Top 6 (excluding k1llsen who already secured a spot by winning the Global Challenge of Gamescom) will qualify for the Global Final later in 2011
Last Sunday was our first qualifier for the Australian and New Zealand in which our tuned-in viewers witnessed probably the greatest and most exciting games held within the Australian and New Zealand region since the introduction of Quake Live. Quake 3 Australian national representative Andrew "python / Chacha" mixed it up with Quake Live Australian national representative Daniel "dandaking" De Sousa and our usual high-end players Peter "Ventz" Kidson, Tim "zlr" Shey and David "ZenAkU" Addati. The competition was double elimination with the "spoiler brackets" if you can't wait to watch the three hours worth of classy commentated games between these 5 players. Because of the length the VOD's were broken into two parts in-order of the games below. I would also like to take the time to mention that if you do enjoy our coverage we are still raising money to send the winner Germany for those of you with big hearts :)
Qualification Tournament #1 on 20:30 CST, 11 December 2010 (Double Elimination)
Qualification Tournament #2 on 03:30 CST, 13 December 2010 (Single Elimination)
Qualification Tournament #3 on 03:30 CST, 17 December 2010 (Single Elimination)
Qualification Tournament #4 on 20:30 CST, 18 December 2010 (Double Elimination)
Qualified players will then submit schedules for the actual Draft event week which will run between January 9th to the 16th
Support the Cause
4Seasons Gaming would love your support! Even a donation of $5 brings us closer towards our future goals, and everyone will be remembered no matter what region you're from!
Want to follow along? Register on 4seasonsgaming.com to be notified. We also have a facebook page and twitter page setup for the e-socialites. Alternatively we have an interactive chat channel setup on irc for open discussions. This page will also be used to stream the tournaments LIVE as they happen, with special guest casters to join us for the final event.
The 2nd episode of the Intel Extreme Masters show on Eurosports will cover the IEM5 Global Challenge Gamescom 2010 and should be aired on November 11th on Eurosport 2 at 14:30 CDT. See the schedule as the broadcast hour might differ depending on the region.
This episode will last 25 minutes and will be focused on Quakelive, with Cooller and rapha!
Due to the many problems with Quakelive in the past 2 weeks and the attendance at DreamHack Winter 2010 of several players, a few late matches of the IEM5 European Championship will be played tonight. The streams infos will be announced as soon as known!
Yesterday the ESL published a news about the removal of Nitrino and Stermy from the competition, because of the penalty points they accumulated.
Finally, the tournament our Australian and New Zealand followers have been waiting for has arrived. The Intel Extreme Masters Season 5 will debut an Oceanic blooded participant in Germany, Hanover, next year for Quake Live. Thanks to our gracious and giving community, 4Seasons Gaming has successfully raised enough funds to fly over a representative to compete on behalf of Oceania. This will be Oceania's second debut at an International Quake Live event, the first being Quakecon 2010 in which we saw ArchaicMSI's Daniel "Dandaking" De Sousa take out 7th/8th spot, defeating the likes of Draven and dkt then losing out to some nice games against DaHang.
Qualification Tournament #1 on 20:00 CST, 11 December 2010 (Double Elimination)
Qualification Tournament #2 on 03:00 CST, 13 December 2010 (Single Elimination)
Qualification Tournament #3 on 03:00 CST, 17 December 2010 (Single Elimination)
Qualification Tournament #4 on 20:00 CST, 18 December 2010 (Double Elimination)
Qualified players will then submit schedules for the actual Draft event week which will run between January 9th to the 16th
Support the Cause
4Seasons Gaming would love your support! Even a donation of $5 brings us closer towards our future goals, and everyone will be remembered no matter what region you're from!
Want to follow along? Register on 4seasonsgaming.com to be notified. We also have a facebook page and twitter page setup for the e-socialites. Alternatively we have an interactive chat channel setup on irc for open discussions. This page will also be used to stream the tournaments LIVE as they happen, with special guest casters to join us for the final event.
The last Playday of the IEM5 European Championship is starting tonight with two matches, as well as two other late games. Make sure you hang in #masters.ql to get the stream infos!
The last playday is the 24th of November. As the rules mention, it's not allowed to reschedule it to the next after, even with wildcard. The players going to DreamHack are highly encouraged to pre-pone their last match to an earlier date as soon as possible.
Update: As Quakelive still seems unstable tonight, no matches were played yet.
15:15 CST, 24 November 2010: reload vs Nitrino (Details)
15:45 CST, 24 November 2010: srs/rzr/cypher vs calipt (Details)
15:45 CST, 24 November 2010: madix vs serak (Details)
14:30 CST, 25 November 2010: noctis vs fazz (Details)
14:30 CST, 25 November 2010: Spart1e vs strenx (Details)
[TBR]: winz vs GaRpY (Details)
[TBR]: xrebzy vs spartaz0rd (Details)
[TBR]: assign vs stermy (Details)
[TBR]: Krysa vs UwU (Details)
[TBR]: GaRpY vs av3k (Details)
[TBR]: strenx vs xrebzy (Details)
[TBR]: stermy vs GoHLinK (Details)
[TBR]: Cooller vs stermy (Details)
[TBR]: Nitrino vs fire_bot (Details)
[Protest]: tox1c vs guard (Details)
Updated: After the failed Wednesday, a bunch of good matches were rescheduled for tonight! A few matches have a stream planned, feel free to contact the admins if you can provide a stream for any match!
The last playday is the 24th of November. As the rules mention, it's not allowed to reschedule it to the next after, even with wildcard. The players going to DreamHack are highly encouraged to pre-pone their last match to an earlier date as soon as possible.
13:00 CST, 21 November 2010: stermy vs GoHLinK (Details)
14:00 CST, 21 November 2010: serak vs dem0n (Details)
14:30 CST, 21 November 2010: spartaz0rd vs plaZmaa (Details)
15:00 CST, 21 November 2010: calipt vs madix (Details)
14:00 CST, 22 November 2010: strenx vs xrebzy (Details)