UKCT - UKCounterTerrorist

ESL UK adds CS 1.6 King of the Hill.

The avid admins at ESL:UK have advised me that they are holding signups for another type of King of the Hill. Unlike that of theSGL this tournament holds a 16 team cup and the winner of that will be crowned KING!

The reigning king gets to own a 16 slot DirectClanHosting.com server.

Cups are run every 2 weeks and only the reigning KING has control of the server.

Signups are at: Here Teams

If you wish to see a league tier instead of these cups for ESL and future / current Gaming Leagues e.g. theSGL, Enemydown, Clanbase etc, there is a poll on the site.

Click YES if you like the constant cups and tournaments.
Click NO if you want a League Tier.

The choice is yours.

Today the first pieces of information about the new UKeSA organisation have been announced in the form of a press release. Although not painting a complete picture it does give an initial look at what they are trying to do and what partners they have involved. You can read the full press release below.

26th November 2008 (London, UK) – Throughout 2008, TNWA and X League TV together with a number of prominent eSports organisations including Team Dignitas, Reason Gaming, Infused Gaming, Fnatic, Quad V, Cadred and many others have moved to found a UK eSports Association (UKeSA). Set up as a not for profit organisation (all profits will be reinvested into the organisation and development of UK eSports) the objective of the UKeSA is to provide a comprehensive, well supported professional organisation for eSports in the
UK which will:

· Coordinate Government, Industry and eSports Community projects
· Encourage & support eSports from grass roots initiatives to professional gamers
· Communicate and act as a focal point for mainstream media

A number of Organisations have formally supported the UKeSA in attending open session forums, including The Metropolitan Police, The BBC, ELSPA, Proctor and Gamble, Future Publishing, EA, Codemasters and a number of other publishers, retailers and media entities Team Managers are going to form the cornerstone of the UKeSA. The organisation is investing in creating a structure that will directly benefit community level Teams.

Benefits to teams participating within the UKeSA are:

· Coordinated, professional mainstream media promotion
· Significant sponsorship from multiple sources
· Longevity of the organisation
· Administrative coordination and non conflicting with multiple events

Over the last three months there have been a series of Steering Committee meetings involving Industry figures, Government, Media and the all important Community figureheads which have defined and refined the optimal structure for the UKeSA.
Over the next week there will be a series of articles posted outlining:

· Event structure and seasons
· Entry requirements
· Support and training
· Game titles for the first Season
· Internal structure and organisation

Thank for your support. If you have any questions please look at the UKeSA website or email the team on info@ukesa.com.

Once a few more pieces of information have been released I will write a complete column outlining what this actually means for CS 1.6 and what you guys need to do if you want to put some more money in 1.6 in the UK.

The former EvilZone team have been picked up my a new organisation called Giants since parting ways in October.

Lanklan, as they went by, join Giants, a Spanish organisation with backings from a group of private investors, not dissimilar to MYM's management structure.

threat stated on the website:

Today is a very special day for us as we finally found the organisation we were looking for.

From today forward we are part of Giants and we hope this partnership will last and benefit both parties.

The team is:

Emil "FYRR73" Karlsson
Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund
Frej "kHRYSTAL" Sjöström
Finn "qp" Sjöström
Bjorn "threat" Pers

Good luck.

Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen has made a return to the Finnish powerhouses, GamePlay. Kovananen used to be the captain of the team before he left six months ago to make room for Samu "plastE" Aalto. Now lurppis is taking the place of Tino "tihOp" Puumala who has left the team.

In an interview with g0tfrag tih0p claims that it was Juuso "contE" Sajakoski that was to be removed as his attitude was bringing the team down and that lurppis would be brought back into the line up to call, he went on to say he felt it was a mistake to remove lurppis from the team orginally. But it seems that the other members of the team made opted to keep contE for personal reasons and instead tih0p has been removed.

lurppis commented:

GamePlay contacted me last Thursday or so, I missed the travelling and playing in tournaments and I still enjoy playing the game so it was an easy decision to make.

Rekrut.ru seems like a good tournament with a decent prize purse, we'll just practice online 5 days a week as much as we can and try to get ready for it.

We played with this line-up for about 8 months in the past and GamePlay didn't exactly go nuts over new strats during the time I was not part of the team so it shouldn't be too hard to get things clicking!

The team will be making their LAN Debut at Rekrut.ru after they replaced Kovananen's mix team HaHa earlier this week. The team will not be attending Dreamhack, as it was earlier thought.

GamePlay is:


Juuso "contE" Sajakoski
Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen
Niko "naSu" Kovanen
Samu "pLaStE" Aalto
Oskari "ruuit" Aspe

Good Luck!

The Icelandic Team-Seven who placed 4th overall at WSVG UK in 2006 have now returned to their full glory in the form of an updated lineup.

Their lack of funding and disappearance of online qualifiers for such tournaments as WCG, kode5 or ESWC prompted them to disband in 2007.

Their aims for 2009 are to disrupt the international scene as best they can and bring dominance back to Iceland.

Their roster is as follows:

Vignir "WarDrake" Vignisson
Guðmundur "roMim" Jónsson
Arnar "Vargur" Ingvarsson
Birgir "sPiKe” Águstsson
Brynjar "deNos" Jóhannsson

UKCT wishes the team the best of luck for 2009.