Endpoint’s reign in UK Counter-Strike is over after fellow UK esports organisation Into the Breach beat them in the Spring 2023 ESL Premiership grand final today.
Into the Breach’s Paris Major playoffs-reaching roster, consisting of rallen (Poland), volt (UK), Thomas (UK), CYPHER (UK) and CRUC1AL (Netherlands), defeated the long-running UK scene champs Endpoint 3-1 in the final.
Up until today, Endpoint had won an astonishing ten ESL Premiership titles in the UK and Ireland, with eight of them in a row.
The victory also allowed ITB to continue their kings rhetoric, after Thomas said during their Paris Major run, ‘God save the king’. Our article on this, published earlier today, also had the headline ‘God Save The Kings of UK Counter-Strike’.
ITB went with ‘the king is dead, long live the king’ on Twitter, heralding themselves as the new kings of UK CS.
Let’s take the time to also appreciate Endpoint’s achievement up until this point, and we’re sure they will be back, having recently opened the new Endpoint HQ in Sheffield.
Endpoint’s roster today was Surreal (UK), MiGHTYMAX (UK), mhL (Poland), HeavyGod (Israel) and frazehh (UK).
In today’s final, map one (Ancient) was a quick 16-4 win for ITB, while game two (Anubis) was a close call and ITB won it in overtime 19-16.
Game three saw Endpoint fight back 16-13 on Mirage, and ITB sealed the win on Inferno 16-11.
For winning, Into the Breach took home €5,500 in prize winnings and have qualified for the ESL Pro League Season 18: European Conference, where they will go up against some of the best teams from other regional tournaments around the world in July.
‘I’d love to see ESL UK go back to a LAN event with a crowd, because the UK scene is kind of suffering at the moment’ – Thomas
ITB player Thomas (who previously played for Endpoint) said on broadcast after the win: “The majority of those seasons [Endpoint won], I was with them, so maybe I was that special magic! They always called upon me when they made the playoffs. But they played good today, it’s a hard situation from their side considering they have to play with a stand-in.
“We’re happy to dethrone Endpoint. It’s nice to get that revenge, but they done so much for us and I still fully support Endpoint. It’s nice for everyone else, but it’d also be nice for Endpoint to come back to the UK scene.
“We’ve been hard practicing, we need to build upon our map pool, we’re getting experience and getting pretty good results. We’re proving it wasn’t a fluke, but the main goal now for our team is to help the UK scene, build up the infrastructure, I’d love to see ESL UK finally go back to a LAN event with a crowd, because the UK scene is kind of suffering at the moment.
“The UK CS scene is full of talent, coming through every stage of this tournament, we were struggling. Teams were fighting back and these guys can aim, when they get the opportunity in Europe, they can perform. Viperio got to the RMR, and Coalesce are an extremely strong team.
“I’m really happy a lot of eyes are on the UK scene, Endpoint are doing their own events and doing things for the scene, I’d like to see more events, and for I-series to sort their shit out, to be honest.”
Endpoint management Adam Jessop and Peter Thompson said:
Spring 2023 ESL Premiership concludes
Looking back on the CSGO Spring 2023 ESL Premiership as a whole, and it was Coalesce and Viperio who topped group A and B respectively, with Into the Breach and Endpoint taking the second spots in the regular season.
Going into the playoffs, Endpoint beat the former eMasters roster and Coalesce 2-0 to reach the grand final, while Into the Breach defeated Arctic Raptors and Viperio 2-1 to go up against Endpoint.
Other teams taking part in the CSGO Spring 2023 ESL Premiership included Next In Line Esports, Geekz Energy, DemoDive, Team 7AM, The Last Resort and BearClaw Esports.
Viperio also came close to beating Endpoint in the most recent ESL Prem before this one, falling to them 3-2 in the grand final.
The casters today were Ne0kai and Skriv.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
