Written by Nick “JetBlk” Shaw
(This is an editorial piece. The opinions in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of compLexity Gaming or its parent company.)
Over the past few days we’ve been hearing a lot of noise about the ESWC Asia Masters event. The rambling started shortly after the announcement of the invited teams. With some of the more “obvious” names missing from the list, people began to rage and voice their opinions about the “bullshit” list ESWC had prepared. Let me get this out of the way first and foremost for the trolls: This isn’t a LoLmEmAd post about how coL didn’t get an invite. And I repeat, this isn’t a rage post about coL not getting an invite.
OK, good! Now that that tidbit is out of the way, onto more interesting points of the matter: Where the hell is Gravitas on that list? To be completely honest, I wasn’t the only one shocked to see that the KODE5 USA winners were sitting on the waiting list. I can see where x3o got the invite as they have been a top American talent since the “big dogs” hopped over to CGS, but has EG proven themselves over Gravitas? Many good points about the x3o roster shake-ups have been made but there are still 3 of the guys there (arguably, people say the team is nothing without mehLer) that can still hang with the rest of the world (except for the embarrassing blowout against WinOut the other night), but what has EG done this year?
Lurppis says that the World Rankings were last updated 3 months ago after the new EG was announced, and before any match was played by them, while North American rankings were updated over 9 months ago when n0thing was the only current EG player on the roster at that time.From several different sources that I have talked to, the word is that the invites had been in the works for a long time now. Lurppis from Crack Clan stated on a news post over at SK Gaming, that after receiving e-mail from the ESWC Korea organizers, some of the picks became clear. He stated that ESWC claimed that “EG was invited 100% cause they were ranked best out of American Teams on GotFrag” and continues to say how both rankings are outdated. Lurppis says that the World Rankings were last updated 3 months ago after the new EG was announced, and before any match was played by them, while North American rankings were updated over 9 months ago when n0thing was the only current EG player on the roster at that time. I had to go check this out for myself and guess what, EG and x3o were the top ranked NA teams on GotFrag. /me looks for Gravitas, oh boy they are no where to be found?! From this information it seems as if ESWC just jumped on over to gotfrag.com and looked at the rankings for teams to pick back when they did so.
It baffles me as to why ESWC wouldn’t go back to the drawing board after the first few 2009 events that these teams participated in. From a fan/spectator standpoint, you would think an event would want the top talent invited based off of performance, not idealism on paper. Some of the Gravitas members voiced their opinion on a news post over at HLTV.org. Here are some of the quotes from them.
We’re really disappointed. Especially if you compare our past year performance to the other two US teams: WCG USA representative, won kode5 usa, top placing at esl etc. And then the fact that x3o just replaced 2 players – so both teams [x3o and Evil Geniuses] have yet to prove themselves – and everyone knows how Evil Geniuses have done at every event this year – but I won’t get into that. – Ben “Ben” Hui, Gravitas Player
What I would disagree about the most is the choice of Evil Geniuses over us. That my friend, is quite the bull****. Maybe they held on to the fact that three of those players won the ESWC for the Americans in 2006, but just like lurppis said, they haven’t accomplished anything since then. It seems as though ESWC neglected those who actually have still been playing Counterstrike 1.6 over here in North America – when the others sold out to Source. I find it quite unfair that these players think they can just come back and toss aside all the other teams that have still been playing and working hard to be the new #1 in North America. – Alex “Vansilli” Nguyen, Gravitas
As you can see Gravitas is quite upset about the invites, as they have expressed above. Just shooting the shit, another good point has been brought up in the small talk. I know this may be beating a dead horse but, the last event Hostile (Gravitas) went to, he was out at 1am then blamed the league for it and the person I was talking with said that if that were the case, they wouldn’t want that person at their event either. ESL was probably pissed as hell over this deep down.
I’m sure there are other explanations that haven’t been made public, but the main argument seems to be that the invites were done way prior to the recent results that we have seen. Whether that is the case or if politics were involved, we may never know. Gravitas still have a chance at being in the event, along with Crack Clan. It is just a matter if some teams drop or not. Either way, we shall see how the two Americans do at the event, then the “shoulda, woulda, coulda” statements will begin, and the trolls will be fed once again.
Feel free to share your own thoughts on the invites in the comments below. Just remember to stay civilized and we can have a good discussion!