Three SK Gaming players were qualified for the ESL Pro Series Season 12 Finals in FIFA 2008 1on1 and Daniel ‘hero’ Schellhase managed to win the overall final a few minutes ago. All of the matches of this tournament were very close with mostly only one goal difference for the winner.

Meeting Joshua ‘Kr0ne’ Begehr in the first round both played a great match with actually few goals but an exciting match overall. The next opponent was another team mate facing Jannik ‘Era’ Huber in the Winnerbracket Final which was also very close and hero managed to win this with 4-3 advancing to the Grand Final.

Now in the Grand Final the only non-SK player was able to qualify with mTw|niLssoN who defeated both Kr0ne and Era before. The Grand Final was probably one of the closest matches ever played. In the first half no goals were scored at all and in the second half four goals were scored at the very end of the match with hero getting the tie in the 90th minute.

Playing the deciding third match, both had a lot of pressure on them and played a great match again not scoring goals in the first half. Then hero managed to score the last goal for him winning the 12th season of the ESL Pro Series. Below you can see the final standings:

Final Standings

1st – Daniel ‘hero’ Schellhase (3.000€)
2nd – Nils ‘niLssoN’ Nolting (1.500€)
3rd – Jannik ‘Era’ Huber (800€)
4th – Joshua ‘Kr0ne’ Begehr (400€)

Now the 12th ESL Pro Series has officially finished with some great matches in Counter-Strike 1.6, Counter-Strike: Source, Warcraft III, FIFA 2008 and World in Conflict. All the Grand Finals were played today with exception of the FIFA 2008 1on1 which was played yesterday already.

First the World in Conflict match was played where n!faculty beat KomaCrew winning the first ESL Pro Series in World in Conflict. Shortly after that the Counter-Strike: Source match was played with a surprising Speed-Link facing Team Alternate in the finals. The current champion n!faculty was not able to qualify for the finals and rather have to play the relegation in order to re-qualify for the next ESL Pro Series Season.

Alternate just played an awesome tournament more or less dominating all their opponents and getting their third title now. After Counter-Strike: Source has been finished, SK Gaming made their first appearance on this day with SK Gaming FIFA meeting hoorai in the FIFA 2008 5on5 Grand Final.

Hoorai managed to be on top after the first half of matches being up 6-4 but SK made it and got their fifth title in a row, winning with 11-9 overall. Only the Warcraft III Grand Final wasn’t as exciting where aTTaX|XlorD again dominated raptor|HLA and took home his first title.

The big Grand Final in Counter-Strike 1.6 just finished a few minutes ago where mousesports were coming from the Lowerbracket defeating Team Alternate in yesterdays match. Their opponent n!faculty already beat both favorites before but this time they just couldn’t do it again. The first half of the first map de_tuscan looked pretty clear for mousesports already being up 12-3. Still n!faculty put up a great fight but lost 13-16 in the end.

Mousesports then had to play de_inferno as second and last map where they just dominated n!faculty all the time winning 16-2 overall. This means mousesports is the new Counter-Strike 1.6 champion after losing the last two times to aTTaX and also it is the first time for them to win the Summer Season.

Below you can see the final standings of all the different tournaments.

Final Standings

World in Conflict

1st – n!faculty (2.500€)
2nd – KomaCrew (1.300€)

Counter-Strike: Source

1st – Team Alternate (4.000€)
2nd – Speed-Link (2.000€)
3rd – hoorai (1.000€)
4th – mTw (600€)

FIFA 2008 1on1

1st – Daniel ‘hero’ Schellhase (3.000€)
2nd – Nils ‘niLssoN’ Nolting (1.500€)
3rd – Jannik ‘Era’ Huber (800€)
4th – Joshua ‘Kr0ne’ Begehr (400€)

FIFA 2008 5on5

1st – SK Gaming (6.000€)
2nd – hoorai (2.500€)
3rd – mTw (1.300€)
4th – competo (650€)

Warcraft III

1st – aTTaX|XlorD (6.000€)
2nd – raptor|HLA (3.000€)
3rd – raptor|insolence (2.000€)
4th – SK|miou (1.000€)

Counter-Strike 1.6

1st – mousesports (15.000€)
2nd – n!faculty (8.000€)
3rd – Team Alternate (5.000€)
4th – pod (1.500€)

While half of the FIFA Teams in the ESL Pro Series are already heading over to the fifth playday, SK is still far behind, sitting at sixth place with only two matches played.

SK’s match versus hoorai had a sense of deja vu after the encounter last season where SK won after getting the edge over hoorai but following hoorai’s impressive ESL Sports qualification the outcome of the latest encounter was uncertain.

However the match went in SK’s favour after being a whisker ahead with a close 6:4 leadership in the first halftime, SK were able to step up a gear and win with a quite satisfying 13:7 result.

Having come out victorious against probably the strongest title contender, SK were in good shape to meet their next opponent n!faculty.

N!faculty have mixed up their lineup during the summer break and added some talented players from last season, the outstanding a-Losers team.

Although they also invited a quite unknown player coming from eus, a team that received a direct relegation, who seems to play even better under the faculty-tag so far this season.

Despite an early lead in the first half with 7:3, it turned out to become really close in the end, but SK’s nerves stood the pressure to let them bring home win a 12:8 victory.

On Thurday 11th September SK will face the newly formed team of the famous a-Losers organisation. a-Losers also overhauled the whole team, kicking all old players and getting a whole new team. However they did not get off to a good start in the current season, losing 2 out of 3 matches.

As the defending champion the only goal we can have is to stay undefeated in our third season and climb up to the top again after having played all our remaining matches. So the next task to complete is for our boys to collect another three points to continue on our upward journey through the rankings.

Sunday was a great day of triumph for SK Gaming. The FIFA team proved its hegemony in the game and won its fifth consecutive ESL Pro Series championship! SK’s pigvomit and mario took photos. Below are the galleries:

Pigvomit’s Sunday gallery
mario’s Sunday gallery

More EPS Galleries

For many of us EA Sports was the «mother» of sport simulators. Starting with FIFA 94, Need For Speed I or any other sport simulator from back then, EA became in a short while the leader of this kind of games. Now for the first time in the world cyber-sport history, first-rate company in the field of interactive entertainments Electronic Arts concluded a sponsor contract with Russian cyber-sports club PinCho. By the terms of agreement Electronic Arts assumes obligations for financing activities of this FIFA squad and its participation in official tournaments, both in Russia and abroad. The uniform of PinCho players will be decorated with the trade mark of official team sponsor, Electronic Arts Company.

«We are glad to give financial and technical support to the best FIFA team in Russia,» says Tony Watkins, Director on Business Development of Electronic Arts in central and East Europe. «Our company focuses particular attention to cyber-sport. We consider that collaboration with PinCho club will let us not only to understand the needs of modern players, but also to contribute to the development of Russian cyber-sport on the world level,» Tony Watkins marked.

«Considering our gaming experience, we associate Electronic Arts with high-quality games, thanks to which cyber-sport is developing in the correct direction. We are giving all of our time for reaching best results in FIFA discipline and we are pleased with support of the world leader in the field of interactive entertainments», Alexey Novgorodtsev, manager of team PinCho mentioned.

The last playday turned out quite well for SK, beating dzs.beyerdynamic by 13 to 7. The match forced SK to draw on one of their strengths, the ability to come back from behind which they provded dozens of times, more recently at the ESL Pro Series finals 12, where they managed to win the final 11:9 after being behind 4:6.

So SK once again were 4:6 down until the second halftime where they were able to turn this match around and get 9 out of 10 possible points, winning 13:7.

SK and mTw have been the spearhead for many seasons now. Whilst mTw managed to win the EPS finals 3 times in a row, SK countered and won it 5 times in a row, at a time where everyone was quite sure already that no one will continue such dominance.

In this season SK is again on the right road to achieve what Daniel ‘miou’ Holthuis already achieved in his career, which is to win the ESL Pro Series finals 6 times in a row!

While SK managed to beat each one of their Finals-Candidates so far, mTw just recently struggled against the team of eSportBL Allstars. Even though mTw did welcome two new promising additions this season they could not live up to their typical performance and so they will have a very tough time on the way to qualify for the EPS finals since opponents such as hoorai , Competo and n!faculty are their next stops.

Last season, SK performed superb at the Intel Friday Night Game in Munich beating mTw 15:5 after leading 10:0 until the halftime, already.

If you are interested in watching our livebot, feel free to join #ESL.Live6 at Quakenet!

Earlier this year, the EOL, decided to create a new FIFA league, called VFBL «Virtuelle Fussball Bundesliga» (Virtual Football League).

Formerly, the EOL was the executive agency of the German FIFA league, esport BL, also previously known as ESBL, before breaking up with the league earlier this year.

The VFBL implies quite an innovation in its format, since all the 18 attendees are going to play each one of their play days offline at the SK Gaming office in Cologne. Also you will be able to follow each match and even bet on it, since all play days are getting broadcasted live at the website of bwin, which will support the VFBL.

Together with bwin, the EOL is giving out a prizemoney of over 30.000 €, whereas the winner gets 10.000€, 2nd 5.000€ and 3rd 4.000€. The full list below:

1. Place: 10.000€
2. Place: 5.000€
3. Place: 4.000€
4. Place: 3.000€
5. Place: 2.000€
6. Place: 1.600€
7. Place: 1.300€
8. Place: 1.000€
9. Place: 800€
10. Place: 600€
11. Place: 400€
12. Place: 300€

For the kickoff of the new league, the EOL decided to invite some very talented and good players to the league, whereas 6 of those 18 participants are SK players. Here is a list of all players:

Stefan ‘BroDo’ Bromund
Peter ‘BennyBenassi’ Kirschner
Daniel Naim ‘sev’ Herzog
Benjamin ‘bEn’ Müller
Thomas ‘Vander’ Vander
Gabriel ‘SplasH’ Polat
André ‘AndResoN’ Richter
Michael ‘Chocoyote’ Oprée
Kai ‘deto’ Wollin
Kevin ‘bvbstar’ Waldschmidt
Damian ‘poleone’ Jasiczek
Roman ‘Cristiano’ Zech
Daniel ‘hero’ Schellhase
Dennis ‘styla’ Schellhase
Jannik ‘Era’ Huber
Joshua ‘Kr0ne’ Begehr
Daniel ‘eNnu’ Ennulat
Mohamed ‘TornAdo’ El-eter

The VFBL will kick off tomorrow with hero vs. Vander opening the first play day at this weekend.