IEM comes to pass - 60 views

This year marked Overload Gaming's debut in the Electronic Sports League's Intel Extreme Masters, which is the biggest European Quake Live league in terms of price money and the skill level of attendees. It is also one of the most exclusive leagues, as to be able to participate players either need to be directly invited, or manage to end among the top four in one of the very though qualification tournaments.

Qualification
Overload Gaming was very happy to have our very own Quake Live duelist Richard Krooman (alias Weird) do his best to be able to grab a spot in the tournament. He embarked on this adventure when he joined the first qualification tournament, in which he was able to reach the third round before getting beaten by the up and coming player Charles Moriceau (alias FooX).

Considering just four players qualify per qualification tournament the ESL hosted four of these competitions. When the second qualification tournament took place, Krooman was once again one of the players in participation, looking eager to secure himself a position for the IEM. This time with success, as by taking home well deserved victories against players such as Stafano Conoci (alias spartano) and Ejthor Kristjansson (alias linkoo), Krooman qualified for the main phase of the European arm of the Intel Extreme Masters.

The tournament
Krooman was joined by his old foe Ejthor Kristjansson, as well as by Mousesports's Magnus Olsson (alias fox) and Benjamin Jakob (alias calipt) in group F. His first match was to be played against Jakob.

We were all very excited on the evening of the first match. However the match turned out to be disastrous for Krooman, who was not able to get into his game at all. Losing both maps things were already starting to look down, however there was still a chance if he would be able to repeat his feat against Kristjansson.

However things did not work out the way we hoped - Kristjansson was in great shape and managed to beat Krooman. Two matches down was not a good start at all in approach to Krooman's match against the toughest player in his group. Our fears proved right, Olsson played his A-game, taking down Krooman in two straight maps.

For Overload, the IEM has come to a very unfortunate end, as we know we could have done better. However this was the first IEM for Quake Live, and we where there, so watch out for the next season - as we will be back.

Posted by: Sainted in category Quake Live at 28 December 2009 22:02

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