With tournaments for Counter Strike: Source, DOTA and UT2k4 raging around them, Ireland's top Call of Duty 2 players went head to head once more in Lucan this weekend. Gamecon is considered by many as the country's premier LAN party event and the twelfth edition certainly lived up to that accolade. Despite the late addition of Overlord in place of ptr, the Midlans champions dp were hot favorites coming into the event and looked set to pick up their second Irish LAN title. Their main rivals this time around would be kotiC, a side eager to earn revenge after suffering an 11-0 thrashing from dp at Midlans.

Both sides opened with 13-0 victories and progressed relatively untroubled through the following rounds. Overlord was proving an able replacement for dp and put in his best performance of the tournament in the semi final against Scousers, where he dominated on Dawnville with the mp44. KotiC's latest addition Drakai also seemed to be fitting in well as his team booked their spot in the finals with a 13-4 victory over Irish e-sports. The stage was set for a Midlans rematch between dp and kotiC, this time on Burgundy.

Having won the bash, kotiC opted to start Allies but were unable to break down dp's strong B bomb defense in the opening rounds. Crow and Precise sported the sniper rifle for their respective sides, contesting the middle street in a long-range battle. KotiC's first round win prompted a cheer from the underdogs and gave them the spirit to take three more before the end of the half. Eager to wrap things up, dp ran a fast B strat on Allies with crow again covering the main street with the scope. KotiC did pick up two more rounds with some impressive play from Precise in particular, but there was only ever going to be one winner here.

Finishing the final at 13-6, dp claimed the Gamecon XII trophy as well as €150 in prize money. Although small in size, this event again proved the strength of the Irish competitive gaming scene and was the second recent tournament to give out cash prizes for Call of Duty 2. With a strong following for the CoD series in Ireland, we can expect more of the same upon the release of Call of Duty 4 with events such as Gamecon and Midlans committed to supporting the scene.

For more information on the Gamecon LAN events visit gamecon.ie.

Gamecon XII Final Standings:

dp ( €150 )
kotiC
Scousers / Irish e-sports