Time for some more practice, hopefully next LAN we can finally get a result we can actually be proud of without having to rationalize our losses.
Ah, yet another LAN finished. I took off from Aalborg Thursday morning in my dad’s car, heading to Aarhus to pick up Steffen. I’d told him I’d be there around 1 o’ clock, but as always I was running about an hour late. Little did it matter, as Steffen hadn’t even finished packing his stuff. He went on to whine about his life being hard, since his brother hadn’t been home to cook for him the last couple of days. I nodded so as to give an impression of listening, whilst trying to pace him to pack quicker. It was time for LAN after all.
As you might or might not have read in 3k2’s blog about HK LAN, Steffen and I usually drive to LAN together, as we come from the same part of Denmark. Unfortunately for us, it seems to be the wrong part Denmark if wanting to attend LANs, as we always have to drive 400kms to get there.
To make the time go by faster, I always make a mix-CD with different music. The playlist this time ranged from Kanye, to Bon Iver, to Crossfade, amongst others. I have yet to see Steffen sing a long though. I tend to do enough of that for both of us anyway.
Around the Storebæltsbro, we stopped at McDonalds to fill our chubby faces with some delicious unhealthy food. Steffen proclaimed to me he actually doesn’t eat at McDonalds that often. I could tell he was lying, by looking at his facial expression, and his size.
On we went, doing a good 150km/t average in my dads Audi. I actually try not to exceed the speed-limit, but I tend to lose my concentration and focus if I drive the permitted 110km/t on the motorway, since it goes soooo slow.
Somehow I manage to convince myself its safer for everyone if I drive too fast, just to pressure myself to keep focus. Steffen reminds me to slow down when I’m doing twice the speed-limit, so it’s all good.
Finally we arrived at the LAN, after a slight inner-Copenhagen-detour provided by the GPS telling us to do a left-turn where it wasn’t permitted. God I hate driving in large cities, with other cars, pedestrians, and especially cyclists everywhere.
We were greeted at the door by our teammates who was standing outside smoking. Since wantz and FeTiSh smoke every other 5 minutes, I wasn’t surprised.
We set up our computers, and in a matter of minutes we were practicing against Verygames. De-di-ca-tion.
The next day we had a few practice matches more, before we had to play the Danish Championship on the stage.
We were playing Speedgaming who we beat in the HKLan final, so we were pretty confident.
After losing first match, we had to step it up, and so we did. I played one of my best halves ever, dropping a thirty bomb as CT on the third map which was train. Also did an ace on that half – wish I had the demo!
Next up was the Fridays group stages. We were behind schedule due to having to play the Danish Championship, so had to play nearly all our group-stage matches without breaks. Everything went as expected except against Value who we met on season. We could never get our T tacs to work, since they played extremely aggressive. And when you then lose CT gunround, defeat is nearly inevitable.
This meant that in the group-play Saturday, we had to meet two good teams: mTw and Xayagaming.
First up was mTw on train. We had a really good match, but lost a couple of important rounds, especially an antieco as T. At 15-14 to mtw, we had to do win the last for a tie, and we had nearly no bank. Somehow we managed to get the last round with almost only deagles.
Next up was Xaya, which was also played on train. In this match we had even more rounds thrown away. Antiecos, 4on2s, etc. The outcome was a 16-14 loss.
This left us in a very ugly position: In order to advance from the second group stage to the playoffs, Xaya had to beat mTw at least 16-14, and then we had to win against the Norwegian team Alchemists, with a better result than mTw did, which was 16-6.
We finished our match against Alchemists pretty quickly, ending it 16-2.
Fetish, Bo and 3k2 couldn’t bear watching Xaya against mTw, but gravity and I went to spectate it.
Never have I hoped more for another team than my own to win every round they could. Xaya won the match 16-11, after great play on dust2, and especially Jokern had a great match.
This meant we advanced to the playoffs with a second place in the group.
In the playoffs, we immediately faced Verygames. A shame, since the tournament in the playoffs was single elimination, which meant we were out if we didn’t win.
First map against VG was on train. As before against mTw and Xaya, we couldn’t finish what we started, and the map ended 14-16. A very demoralizing blow, especially because Ex6stnce used kill in console to get money the next round in a very important round for them, which wasn’t allowed. However the rules weren’t clear on that specific part in the english version of the rules, so they weren’t punished.
Next map was inferno, and we got off to a great start. As CT we were up about 8-0, but then VG started to find our weaknesses, and the half ended 9-6. They locked both sites down as CT, and we were out of the tournament, on a 5-8th place.
At the time I was very depressed about our result, but in hindsight, I feel better about it.
We went out to the best team, and the winners, of the tournament, and we were the team that got the most rounds against them.
Had there been a lower-bracket in the playoffs I’m confident we would have ended at least 3rd or 4th, if not 2nd.
