Epic35 esports results recap with Gumpster: ‘There were around 20 CSGO teams with 2k+ elo on Faceit, which meant this was probably our most stacked event ever’

Image credit: Epic.LAN Flickr

Epic35, the lastest Epic.LAN event, took place during the last weekend of February – and as usual it held a mix of esports tournaments featuring plenty of UK teams.

Rather than doing our usual brief news roundup with a few results and tweets, Epic.LAN league ops manager Tom ‘Gumpster’ Gumbleton kindly agreed to write a guest piece for us, full of interesting stats and facts. Gumpster is a walking encyclopedia of Epic.LAN and UK esports knowledge, and ‘the Grandfather of the UK Counter-Strike scene’, offering a unique perspective. Without further ado, over to Gumpster.

Epic35 took place over the weekend at Kettering Conference Centre and with that, there were three main esports titles at the event: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO), Valorant and Starcraft 2.

CSGO Epic35 recap: ‘Dusty’s level seemed to completely go through the roof as they went into the final’

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive attracted 30 teams from all sides of the UK, and one team (Dusty Coolbet) came along from Iceland, for a return trip after their Epic34 outing in October.

It was quite the weekend, as our previous few events, we have chosen to do pot seedings for Counter-Strike and use a “seeding panellist”, which is a selection of people, who decide on seedings for the event. Eight panellists along with the three admins give their informed view on what teams should be in each pot.

So for Epic35, there were seven pots (six pots of four teams, and a seventh pot for everyone else), then all of those teams were randomly drawn into groups like a Champions League stage. It seems to work well and gave us some pretty tough groups early on Friday.

All of the pot one seeds managed to make it through groups unscathed, with Dusty only suffering a draw to Legates Tyrian and Dripmen falling to Lucent Esports on de_inferno 16-10, which meant that Lucent ended up taking the top spot in Group C. 

If Counter-Strike was to have a storyline, it would be the storyline of redemption for the Icelandic team, who after Epic34 had finished in 5th/6th. Despite the beating they took in October, they took another particular loss in their stride at Epic35, as they came up against Shoobie and his Temperate boys. Dusty ended up losing in two maps to them (16:6 de_ancient & 16:11 on de_nuke).

This meant that Dusty had to navigate the lower bracket for a second time in a row at Epic. It wasn’t going to be an easy ride, but despite this the Icelandic team showed their mettle against some of the UK’s finest. After speaking with the admins and having a look at their spreadsheet of all the players involved, there were around 20 teams at this event who had over 2k elo on Faceit, which meant that the event was probably the most stacked we’ve ever had, with fine margins between all sides in the elimination bracket.

Lucent took down Temperate in the semi-finals whilst EKO had managed to navigate past The Last Resort. It set up a great upper bracket final which didn’t disappoint. Eko Esports took three maps to see off Lucent, but it went the distance on two of the three maps with a 16-14 de_vertigo, 9-16 on de_ancient and finally 16-12 on de_inferno.

Dusty continued their impressive run in the lower bracket, first taking out Havik, then moving on and taking out Royals before seeing off The Last Resort, which led them to the Dripmen’s formidable line-up.

Dripmen was led by former Epic31 runner-up Fraser ‘Frazehh’ Sollom, so would always be a tricky opponent as he knows how to cause possible upsets. However, despite beating Dusty back at Epic31 en route to the final, Frazehh couldn’t repeat the trick and was absolutely dismantled 16-3 and 16-6 as Dusty found their form at the right time.

This form continued into day three – finals day – as they swept aside Lucent in a similar manner. Their level seemed to completely go through the roof as they went into the final. They were slow to start in map one of the final against Eko Esports, where they were 11-0 down at one point, and eventually closed out the half 12-3 down.

From that point though, Eko couldn’t find an answer for the Icelandic bunch, as they dismantled, tortured and teased Eko through the second half and then for the rest of the final. Dusty claimed the crown an hour later with a 16-12 win on de_inferno and 16-5 on de_vertigo.

This meant that Dusty were the first international team in Counter-Strike to win a UK LAN event since insomnia58, where XPC Gaming won that event in dominant fashion.

Starcraft 2 Epic35 recap: ‘With 10-time winner RiSky not in attendance, it left the door open for someone else to steal the crown…’

If Counter-Strike was to have the story of redemption, then Starcraft 2 would have the story of perseverance. Once again the Starcraft 2 community continue to come and support Epic.LAN in the numbers they do.

25 players made the trip to Kettering this time round, with one Danish player in attendance called Spazymazy. Razerblader, who has often been in RiSky’s shadow, was in attendance and had a score to settle as his form coming into Epic35 was a bit dicey (he had lost several times online to the #1 seeded player,teebul).

With 10-time winner RiSky not in attendance, it left the door open for someone else to steal the crown temporarily and claim Epic.LAN as their spiritual home. All but one of the top eight seeds managed to make it through unscathed. The eighth seed Countess was the biggest casualty in terms of seeds in the groups, as he ended up finishing third in Group D after losing 2-0 to Chelch.

The elimination bracket went according to plan, as the top four seeds made the semi-finals as expected before we saw the upper bracket final, which of course would be Teebul vs Razerblader. Once again as the online form had shown, Raza couldn’t seem to handle teebul at his best and lost 3-1 in the upper bracket final, which meant Raza had to fight his way back up the lower bracket. He would do so by taking out Danish player Spazymazy who got swept aside 3-0.

This set up the perfect rematch with teebul in the grand final on the Saturday night of LAN. It was a tense affair, with the match going the distance, but Raza finally managed to redeem himself and take his second Epic.LAN crown, his first coming at Epic27. This also meant he remained quite a few short of the second place finishes at Epic, with around three or four runners-up medals needed to finally topple Liam ‘Doopz’ Whitehead’s record at Epic. Not sure if anyone truly wants that record though!

Valorant Epic35 recap: ‘Emzuwu was insane for The Goose House, with a 1v4 clutch and 45 kills in the final’

Finally, Valorant saw out the main esports titles at Epic35, and with 14 teams in attendance. We actually had enough teams to cater for the Four Nations trophy if we wanted to pull that old tournament out of retirement, as we had several Welsh teams along with a Scottish team and of course the English teams. What we were lacking was Irish players.

However, Vexed Gaming had a point to prove as current reigning champions of Epic(34), they had lost several key players between events and were looking to keep hold of their title.

Whilst Counter-Strike remained incredibly stacked in this event, the variety of skill was certainly on offer in Valorant. There seemed to be two teams that were of a higher calibre compared to everyone else, and that of course was Vexed and The Goose House (TGH).

The Goose House brought 40 members to Epic34 last time out and had numerous teams within Valorant, however their main team showed up to Epic35 and showed why they’re not to be underestimated. They pretty much wiped out everyone in their group, bar Gladius, who they narrowly beat 20-18 which secured the top spot in the group for them.

Vexed in group A had a similar outing, dismantling their first four opponents before having to escape close calls in their final two matches. However, both sides were unbeaten in the group stages. The elimination bracket saw no difference, as both sides continued their respective paths to the final where they met and this was where the story was turned upside down somewhat.

Knowing that Vexed had lost key players, TGH really turned the screw in the upper bracket final and put Vexed through some tough phases, as DaNi and sw1ze both put up phenomenal scores against Vexed with 39 and 37 kills respectively over the two maps. The difference was becoming clear to see though as TGH were picking apart their opponents. The first map was close, but the second map was sheer domination from TGH.

Despite the loss, Vexed were quietly confident they could come back and take TGH down. It took some doing but in the end Vexed found out who they would be playing, and that would be Temperate, whom Vexed had beaten in the group stage 13-8, so they were confident of pulling off a similar result. And that they did.

The first map was an absolute crushing performance from kinghaS and the guys as they threw down a marker of 13-2 on Icebox. However, it wasn’t all plain sailing for them, as the second map was a lot tougher. Ultimately everyone got the rematch they wanted though as Vexed took the second map 13-10 on Split. 

This meant Sunday morning was the real showdown, and what turns out down the line, had a lot riding on this outcome. TGH were the fancied underdogs here, whilst Vexed were the reigning champions. This was a chance for glory like no other, without the backdrop of 40 community members being there watching your every move.

Despite the key players from the upper bracket final under performing, what truly showed is the teamwork, chemistry and desire that the others had to take hold of this match. Vexed were incredibly slow off the mark and they paid a dear price for that, as confidence started to ooze out of TGH’s players.

The more mistakes were made by Vexed, the more TGH took hold of the series and pressure Vexed. The first map finished 13-6 in favour of TGH and it was another slow start on map two that pretty much solidified TGH as eventual champions here.

It was Emzuwu delivering some insane numbers in this series that made some key differences with a 1v4 clutch won too, and a massive 45 kills, he was absolutely controlling TGH’s every move, and made it near impossible for Vexed to break down a defence that had so much firepower.

Vexed finally saw their champion reign end 13-10 on Ascent. Within the next few days, Vexed had then let go of the Valorant team. A sad end to a once promising side.

Thanks to Gumpster for this guest article. You can follow Gumpster on Twitter here and see the full Epic35 esports tournament placements here.

More Epic35 esports links:

• Counter-Strike Epic35 Liquipedia page
• HLTV Epic35 event page
• CS Epic 35 stats data spreadsheet
• Valorant Epic35 Liquipedia page
• TheSpike.GG Epic35 event stats
• Starcraft 2 Epic 35 Liquipedia page