As Season 3 of the Cyber-athletic Championship Series (CCS) passes its halfway point a number of changes have been made regarding new orgs, new teams, new CCS talent and new rules.
New Teams
XBOXMasterRacegained their spot in the EU CCS League after the recent departure of DavE eSports due to them prioritising their Pro League and Challenger League games. XMR, with their roster of ProYo, M4DMAN, ASTRO, Ryazu and HvKz, was then offered the position as they had finished 3rd in the 4th CCS Qualifier in March. Previously, the core of this roster was just 2 victories away from qualifying for the Six Invitationals in February via the Open qualifier. We spoke to the team’s captain, ProYo, about the team and what we can expect from them in the future:
Can you tell us a bit about your team, for instance how the players came together, what your current roles are and how you got your team name?
We created the team a while back, around November 2017, 4 out of the 5 main players were from Xbox and that is the exact reason to why we came to name ourselves #XBOXMasterRace. We qualified for the closed invitational playoffs, beat Vitality (now known as Mock-It Esports) and unfortunately came short of qualifying for the LAN event. After we failed to qualify for the invitational, we disbanded. To this day, I do not fully understand why we did as we was a very solid team. Due to the time frame and how close Challenger League qualifications where to us disbanding none of us ended up qualifying with our other teams. A few months have passed and 4 of the 5 members of #XboxMasterRace have reunited to take on CL, CCS and plan an attempt on the upcoming Paris Major and other events. I honestly have high hopes for the team. We have a great set of talented individuals on the roster, who can adapt and also vitally understand the game from key perspectives. I am the IGL for the team, the lads listen and a lot of the time we win, sometimes we lose. Either way it's okay because each time we learn.
You currently stand in 4th position in CCS after inheriting DavE eSport’s game record, what can we expect from your team going forward in the competition?
It is very sad to hear DavE eSports pulling out of the tournament due to Pro League and other player issues, with that being said we are tremendously grateful for the opportunity and would like to thank CCS for allowing us to partake in the rest of the tournament. We plan to make playoffs this season and hopefully win the thing. If we do not manage to win we will come back stronger next season.
Your roster recently left Team Enyx, can you explain how this came about?
Our roster was not under an organisation. Team Enyx is just an Xbox team that M4DMAN the co-captain of #XBOXMasterRace created and thusly made a twitter account for the team. Due to his team performing very well on Xbox winning multiple titles and LAN events, their popularity grew on social media. Team Enyx was a great Xbox team that transferred to PC but due to players commitments and other in-game issues the team slowly disbanded into something better now known as #XBOXMasterRace
Last week your team finished the T3H League Season 1 in 4th position, was this in line with what you expected?
Throughout the T3H season and more so towards the end we had multiple roster changes and it affected our team synergy to the point we completely felt that we underperformed. Regardless of the roster changes and multiple chokes we are still generally happy with making the playoffs for T3H Season 1.
Another recent team change was seen in the NA league of CCS as Oof eSports (also known as “Pixel Peak” and “The Dedicated”) withdrew from the competition allowing Impact Gaming to inherit their 1 win to 5 loss record. Impact Gaming, with the roster of Gib2k, SirFatMatt, Toasty, Lil_Azn and Utiliy, is a relatively old team in R6S however they have yet to make their mark on any major tournament; we spoke to Utiliy about their entry into CCS:
Can you tell us a bit about your team, for instance how the players came together and what your current roles are?
Most of us have been a team for a while now. There have been some roster changes and that was very hard time for us. We are fortunate enough to play with gib2k, Lil_Azian, and Matt as newest members. For current roles, we do not have fixed roles for one. Depending on teams and maps, support plays entry, entry plays support.
You currently stand in 7th position in CCS after inheriting Oof eSport’s game record, what can we expect from your team going forward in the competition?
1-5 into the mid-end season isn't good, and we know it. We are just going to use this opportunity to work on our synergies. You can at least expect that we are going to do better than 1-5.
Which teams are you most looking forward to playing in the coming weeks?
All the teams. It will be fun to learn from such competitive teams.
Can we expect your team to participate in any other competitions in the future?
We will be doing a lot of competitions that get thrown at us. We are already doing Paris major, and prepping for CL and US nationals. We currently sit at 3rd place for Paris majors and we are grinding late night for the upcoming CL qualifiers. Canadian National members already won and qualified for Northern Arena.
Organisation Changes
As well as the team changes the past few weeks have seen a number of new organisations enter both the American and European leagues. In NA the team known as Hydra Gaming, with the roster of RTC, Rooty, aviation, Sippin and Vein, was picked up by the organisation SiNister and will now be known as SiNister Academy. This mainly underaged team currently remains the only undefeated team in either league and so will be a valuable pick up by SiNister.
Another North American change saw Armada Esports pick up Devious eSports’ roster of Anthony, Detox, Jay, TWiX, Ekko and Floq. This team is currently right in the middle of the table at 3 wins and 3 loses putting them, at the halfway point through the season, just out of the required top four positioning needed to qualify for the CCS playoffs.
In the EU league, meanwhile, after a series of roster and org changes the team previously known as myRevenge has disbanded so another add-in qualifier will take place this coming Saturday to find a replacement.
The second change comes from the French side and top EU team of dizLown who have been picked up by Mock-It as of June 21st meaning they will be playing under the name “Mock-It Academy” from now on. The roster also saw a change as Alphama left the team to move to Supremacy and was replaced by sNKY from the Mock-It Esports meaning the roster will now be sNKy, Krunch, BlaZ, Mootiii and SETzz.
CCS Changes
Finally changes are also happening in CCS itself as staff positions have been advertised for both the roles of caster and observer, however, one of these positions recently got filled with Matthew Waters stepping in as the new NA caster starting as of last week. Furthermore, a change in the CCS rulebook has also just occurred to further match the new ESL rulebook.
You can catch up with CCS when it begins tonight at 7:00PM CEST for the European League and 8:00PM EDT for the American League.