Inferno

Both of the above points are even more reinforced on another ESWC map, de_inferno. SK.swe has yet to play this map at the event by pure luck rather then veto (de_train was their veto map). During their match against NoA during the Winner’s Bracket Final for CPL Winter 2003, Element held down the banana bombsite completely by himself with assistance from Heaton. Even though Heaton would sometimes come with Element, he often spent more time in the primary bombsite on the middle left. This was tough for him as his rotations and movement where pretty ugly as he was more often out of position than in position. When rotating to either site he’d often reach the CT spawn, stop and head back the other way getting caught in no man’s land while the NoA was attacking.


Heaton is a great scorer and has incredible aim but his rotation skills are a lot weaker, leaving holes in the SK.swe defense. Part of this was a result of the respect the team gave to Element’s ability - leaving him alone in the banana site and stacking all three primary bombsite defenders on halls or the right side of middle. SK.swe could also get away with this a lot more because the other teams also gave Element that kind of respect by avoiding the bombsite he was defending opting to attack the other site. At the same time, SK.swe also did a great job of predicting rounds they would rush the banana site leaving them with both Heaton and Element ready to start the round.

Still the differences between their CT halves with and without Element were quite obvious against top tier teams. In the NoA de_inferno match SK.swe only managed three rounds (3-8) on their CT side in a 13-10 win. Against spiXel for the ESWC Sweden Finals in a 13-11 win, SK.swe picked up ten rounds (10-2). The redesign of the CT side was evident again as SK.swe shifted their defense to account for the loss of Element. Their replacement, Spawn took up the defense of bombsite B but now had company as a full time Heaton joined him. The rotation job now fell to fisker who is truly gifted at it.

By comparison to Heaton, fisker had a much better sense of what spiXel was trying to do allowing himself to often by in position quicker. He was helped with this by the spots of the guys inside primary bombsite. Instead of covering the halls from the sand pit or even inside the bombsite both Potti and ahl, he would play near the library or left middle looking to only pick off people planting in the site. The sense of the SK.swe defense was much more conservative, allowing their excellent aim to score them rounds during the half.

Again just like on de_dust2 we saw a very bunched up and confused string of terrorist strategies. A round comparison proved this as against NoA, SK.swe won their T’s half 9-3 but only manage to win three rounds (3-9) the entire T’s half against spiXel without Element. The obvious evidence could also point to the change in the money system, causing the flipflop in SK.swe’s play but after reviewing the matches, it didn’t seem to be entirely true. It did help that SK.swe was able to put weaker guns in the hands of their enemy more often, but SK.swe’s tactical timing and rushes just looked cleaner and more crisp from the Winter CPL.


So has the departure of Element hurt SK.swe? I believe it has hurt their T’s strategies but they have managed to counter that by being better strategically on the CT, which does help compensate for the loss. In addition, the strength of Spawn with an M4 really makes a difference. If SK.swe doesn’t win the ESWC, the blame could fall more on the money system that will have tipped the scale against SK.swe’s T’s side even more then losing Element. Can they improve their CT side enough and limit their losses on the T’s side? Only the final day of the event will tell us...