MEMORABLE: The rebirth of Meet Your Makers
If you have ever won at anything, then you know that no victory after your very first one will have quite the same flavour and give you the same rush of euphoria. Meet Your Makers have broken this rule – in many ways winning the ESWC felt sweeter for them than anything they have done before.

Bad luck haunted this team all year like a recurring nightmare. The Poles worked unbelievably hard but when it seemed like they would finally wake up, a disaster would come out of nowhere forcing them to doubt whether they would still accomplish anything. If it wasn’t for the good will of PGS Gaming who gave their spot as title defenders to MYM, this team would not even have come to San Jose.

To be reborn as champions after what they have gone through and to become the first team in history to defend the ESWC championship… Not even they would be able to tell you how it feels. It must be indescribable.

SHOCKING: MYM’s demolition of Mousesports
After the semi final the MYM players told me that Franz 'gore' Burghardt came over to them after their semi final against Mousesports. "That was strange," he said, shaking his head. The Poles looked over at him, not quite understanding.
"Head shot, head shot, head shot," he explained.

Until the MYM game, Mousesports were doing exceptionally well, ripping through both group stages like a hot knife through butter. They went into the playoffs as the only undefeated team in the entire tournament and beat SK Gaming 2-1 in the quarterfinal. Gore said they felt like slight favourites before the semi final.

To then see them demolished 16-0 and 16-7 on two maps by the Poles was shocking. This is probably the first 16-0 match in the history of high profile CS semi finals.

UNSPORTSMANLIKE: Americans and Koreans
The "Unsportsmanlike at ESWC" award goes to the finalist eSTRO and the American teams x3o and MoB.

MoB blatantly threw their game against x3o in the second group stage of the tournament (a MoB member admitted this to SK's Rod "Slasher" Breslau). The team that took 8 rounds from MYM and 7 from mTw lost to their fellow Americans 16-1. Why? Because they thought a good round difference would help put x3o in the ESWC quarterfinals.

It did not. The order in the group was decided on a three way tie between MYM, mTw and x3o and the games versus MoB were not taken into account. The Americans brought shame upon themselves for nothing.

Not for nothing was what eSTRO did against Fnatic in the semi final's overtime when one of the Koreans climbed the red rock outside of de_nuke. This a commonly forbidden area in competitive CS, also in the Extreme Masters tournament where eSTRO got second place.

It is clear that the Koreans either did not take the trouble to read the rules before entering the tournament (?!) or they were cheating intentionally. Three rounds taken from their score was not enough to save Fnatic.



Whether taking off headphones on stage during gameplay in the CS final was intentional or not you can judge yourselves (as soon as I got this I went to the ESWC referee so he would tell eSTRO to stop).

INTERESTING FACT: Fnatic always make top 3
The eSTRO game took away Fnatic's hopes of winning the title. It is the third time that this great team comes very close but lets the cup slip away. In 2006 they were in the final, a year ago they finished third and this time they got third again.

Overall, they are the most consistent lineup in the world - no one else that I remember has won top 3 in three consecutive annual majors (unless you consider the Samsung Euro Championship a major tournament, then it would be four times for the PGS Gaming / MYM lineup).

Fnatic will pick up a major trophy, though, - it seems only a matter of time.

CONTROVERSIAL: The French against the French
Accusations of favouritism have followed esports tournaments around for years. Last year's WCG controversy with duck jumping and eSTRO was quite a shiny example of it.

This time around controversy surrounded the opposite - a French referee took away rounds from the French team emuLate for pausing the match twice against Meet Your Makers. I say good job. Dura lex, sed lex.

Obviously, many fans online will choose to blame the MYM team. Who else would have bound the pause key in an emuLate player's config?

FINAL THOUGHTS: How history is made
Had the referee noticed eSTRO cheating as they were doing it, maybe Fnatic would have made it this year. Had the referee decided that emuLate's pause was harmless, maybe the MYM players would have lost their jobs.

It is funny how little happenings in sports tend to have enormous outcomes. That is the beauty of it.

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last image courtesy of myMYM.com