UK Counter-Strike has never really hit on the same scale as many other countries. It’s never had a team at the top level (the only UK organisation to find sustained success is Fnatic, who have stuck with a Swedish core of players throughout their time in CS), and its only real impact on the international stage has come from a select few players, such as ALEX at Vitality, and smooya at BIG Clan. So with everything going on in 2020, nobody really expected much from the UK scene.
As the year comes to an end, while UK Counter-Strike is still nowhere near the level of Sweden or Denmark, enough steps have been made to suggest progress for the future. So what changed?
What’s the state of play?
As we move into 2021, there are 3 UK players representing organisations in the HLTV top 30: ALEX and mezii (both Cloud9) and mantuu (OG). Another two (MiGHTYMAX and Surreal) spent 7 weeks in the top 30 near the end of the year as part of Endpoint, but points decay means they will not be in the top 30 as the year ends.
Cloud9 picked up ALEX as the star and focal point for their new “colossus”, paying his €500k buyout and offering him a similar annual salary to lead the team, and he was joined by another, more unexpected UK face in mezii, a young rookie who started the year playing with Vexed Gaming and ended it playing teams such as Virtus.Pro and Complexity. (It even looked for a time like Cloud9 might go all out and make their team a UK core, but it seems that woxic, es3tag and floppy were preferred). Cloud9 are a work in progress, but have already achieved some strong results at the BLAST Fall Showdown and Dreamhack Masters Winter.
Endpoint spent much of the year close to the top 30 with a UK core of MiGHTYMAX, Surreal and Thomas, before Thomas left the organisation in August to join Envy. They entered the top 30 for the first time ever in October, and secured a huge win in season 35 of the Mountain Dew League, which means Endpoint will take part in the next season of ESL Pro League — a huge opportunity for the organisation. While their replacement for Thomas, flameZ, is Israeli by birth, my sources tell me the org are hard at work seeking “professional document accreditors” to find him a UK passport.
None of this is close to what other nations can boast: the UK is no Denmark, with its two teams in the top 10. But compared to where it was at the beginning it’s a great start, and should serve to help put UKCS on the map and inspire the next generation.
To see the future, look to the past
The link between Cloud9, Endpoint, and even OG (where mantuu plays) is that all of their rosters are international, that is, they combine players from multiple different countries. Even when Endpoint had a UK core earlier in 2020, they had Dutch AWPer Cruc1al and Swedish support rifler robiin. Moving on from the assumption that the only way to represent the “best of British” was 5 UK-based players has been key to Endpoint’s success as robiin’s experience and Cruc1al’s raw talent have made them vital contributors to the team.
This is not surprising if you look at Surreal, the team’s secondary caller and anchor player. Surreal brings bags of experience but most crucially (no pun intended), he moved to North America in 2016 to join Complexity, and has spent his entire career since on international rosters such as Method, Epsilon and Phoenix. He quickly spotted that staying in the UK would limit his potential, and made his efforts to explore beyond the boundaries that many UK players find themselves limited by.
ALEX, now the leader at Cloud9, took it one step further: aside from a brief stand-in appearance with Endpoint in 2017, ALEX has never played for a UK organisation, spending his entire professional career in France with LDLC and Vitality before he joined Cloud9 following frustrations with the tier 1 travel schedule. Given the struggles other UK organisations such as Vexed Gaming have faced (not to mention previous Endpoint rosters), compared with the success Brits have found travelling abroad, it’s not hard to see why they did it.
Consequently 2020 was in many ways the culmination of these previous efforts. Thomas left Endpoint in mid-2019 to join up with NoChance before teaming with Surreal and Cruc1al in Phoenix. mantuu has played for most of his career in German teams, and helped Alternate ATTAX to two domestic titles before joining OG. Smooya might not have found the same success this year, but his trial with c0ntact deserved a better ending and his record with BIG speaks for itself. Endpoint and Cloud9 are reaping the rewards for the efforts their players have put in in previous years.
The teams following by example
The ESL Premiership — the UK’s domestic league — saw what could be considered a changing of the guard in 2020, as a new generation rose up to overtake veteran players. There were not one but two mix teams in the winter edition consisting of familiar faces from the UK scene: NoPurplesAtTOB and It’s Dame Time. Dame Time won only a single match all season; NoPurplesatTOB finished 6th in league play (though they did surprise CeX in the play-offs). On the flipside you had Vexed and Radix, who bolstered young UK prospects with international talent, and overtook the elder statesmen of the UK scene — proving that, for all their experience, the scene has slightly left them behind.
Vexed, in particular, made a name for themselves beyond the UK scene at the end of the year when they picked up the Project 5 Esport roster. With Norwegian AWPer shynne and Latvian rifler EIZA joining volt, leaf and dox from the UK, they finished second behind Endpoint (running the UK champions close on all three maps in the final), picked up a win in the Kayzr League, and even made MDL Relegation through the Climber Cup, where they were unfortunate to lose to Winstrike in two maps that both went to overtime, and then to Nordavind in a close three-map affair. Fans will hope they can do damage in the upcoming season of ESEA Advanced which starts next month.
The newbies
Before 2020 very few people had heard of mezii. As recently as April he was playing on the roster of Vexed Gaming and not achieving much of note in domestic competition. Following his release from Vexed he made a key decision: he joined GamerLegion, a German org who at that time only had a single player to their name, the inactive Swede Rusty. Combining with his Vexed team-mate Adam9130, he added Swedish AWPer eraa and Slovak rifler Zero to form a brand new roster who maintained GamerLegion’s status in MDL two seasons running, to the surprise of many, with mezii key to their success.
It was not surprising that a bigger org would come calling for mezii, but few were expecting that org to be Cloud9, to make the youngster a part of their self-proclaimed “colossus”. To put it into perspective, before joining Cloud9, mezii had never played a single official fixture against a top 20 team. Nevertheless, he took the role in his stride; he has been a consistent performer since joining, and he has shown his talent for aim and movement in Cloud9’s YouTube videos where he outperformed some of his more experienced — not to mention better-paid - team-mates. While not the finished article yet, mezii’s meteoric rise to the top is one of 2020’s biggest success stories, and it will be exciting to follow his progress in 2021.
2020 was also a breakout year for Thomas. He was the star of Endpoint’s roster in the first half of the year (and remains one of the top 10 rated players on Vertigo, his best map, on HLTV), as his entry frags carried them to victory in the Home Sweet Home Cup 8 and to the brink of the HLTV top 30. His decision to leave for Team Envy in the middle of the year left fans heartbroken, not helped by the fact that Envy have only played 4 official fixtures since he joined them (all at the second edition of Flashpoint). 2021 is where he will need to prove that the move was worthwhile to help him develop his obvious talent as a player beyond the plateau he clearly felt he had reached with Endpoint.
It is a crying shame that mantuu does not have a trophy to his name at the end of 2020. OG’s international roster, spearheaded by IGL AleksiB’s desire for revenge against ENCE, reached two finals this year (IEM New York and Flashpoint 2) but could not close out either. mantuu has been a key part of their run into HLTV’s top 10, proving that giving him the AWP full time was a gamble that has paid off handsomely, both in highlight plays and results. Here’s hoping that 2021 will see OG take that final step.
Names you may have missed
mezii got most of the attention at GamerLegion for obvious reasons, but he didn’t go there alone. Adam9130 not only went with him to the German organisation, but is now the leader of the team, having taken over IGL duties mid-way through the year. He’s joined by mezii’s replacement dobbo, another youngster who explored beyond the UK’s boundaries having played with KPI Gaming before stepping into mezii’s shoes. While results for GamerLegion have been somewhat disappointing, with only one league win to their name since mezii’s departure, they maintain their MDL status going into the new year and will look to build on their potential.
One player not to be slept on is Cypher. First he formed part of the CeX side who made MDL Relegation in the summer, before fizzling out due to off-server issues (which eventually culminated in murky’s retirement). Not to be deterred, Cypher teamed up with the Swedish Tikitakan roster under the banner of Cream Real Betis, where he was their highest-rated player. They made ESEA Advanced play-offs, but despite overcoming a strong Budapest Five side, losses to Sangal and Lilmix put them out. Cypher has since left the team on good terms and is seemingly looking for a step up in his career in 2021 — if he can play like he did with Betis, there will be no shortage of suitors for his services.
What can we look forward to in 2021?
At the top level, you have Endpoint qualifying for ESL Pro League, which will take place in March, and a decent shot that Cloud9 will join them. There’s also lots of room in the calendar for events which haven’t been announced yet, as only the top-tier events have so far been announced. Relog Media have announced their “Snow Sweet Snow” series which will include a UK and Germany qualifier, while future editions of the European Development Championship will no doubt have UK organisations looking for a chance to break through.
In terms of individual teams at a lower level, CeX went through some struggles in the middle of the year alluded to above, but they’ve recently announced a new roster including the return of znx, a UK pro who won ESL Premiership with Endpoint in 2019, playing alongside ifan and impact who have been with the org all year. The ex-RADIX line-up are looking for an org to represent, and UMX Gaming are sticking together — hopefully making for an exciting Spring edition of the ESL Premiership.
Most excitingly, there are multiple UK players grinding and trying their luck internationally. Surreal ended 2019 after a frustrating year that saw him released by Epsilon, playing in various mix teams before striking lightning with the roster that Endpoint ended up signing. Who’s to say that Cypher, or swaggy, or smooya won’t do the same going into 2021? If Vexed, or CeX, or UMX keep trying their luck in open qualifiers, and one of them gets into a Dreamhack Open, maybe they start picking up more invites and climbing through the rankings. Here’s looking forward to the end of next year when, all being well, I’ll be writing an even more optimistic piece about UKCS’s brilliant 2021.
