Once again, due to a combination of bad timing and the usual batch of LAN dodgery there aren’t as many teams attending as were anticipated to do so, leaving the field of competition not particularly strong outside of the top tier teams. This may prompt the European and UK competitions to merge and could make it a bit more interesting and give the spectators more decent matches to watch. The best of the rest in terms of UK sides is probably Club: AI, who are still at the time of writing actively seeking their fifth as a stand-in for the underage Danny “Kentish” Keane. Although a team that not many have heard of and one that is licking its wounds after a trouncing at the hands of Guns 4 Hire out at LAN79, it does boast a lot of experience in the roster. Ryan “Raii” Kemmery and Craig “Farley” Farley may not win any awards for imaginative gaming handles, but they have probably attended more competitive LANs than any other UK players in the last eighteen months and have always paired up. Having taken part in last year’s televised section of CGS as part of the fourth pre-drafted team, Infused, they know what CGS is about and they also harbour no illusions of being drafted. James “Pez” Perrot, more known in the UK for his uncanny ability to make teams collapse than any ability he may possess, is also in the team and has been making a good fist of his last few LAN appearances. They won’t be attending with their full strength team however and outside of this three their showing will depend largely on which two UK players they can pick up in time for the tourney.

The teams who are already drafted of course have made their decisions already it seems to most of us on the outside. Birmingham Salvo, as you’d expect, have handled themselves with the closest thing you can find to dignity and decency in CSS. Whether the players who we are told “retired” did so for personal reasons, or because they were in essence kicked from the team, we don’t know because they have handled it the right way. I would be amazed if they now elected to draft any individual outside of the two players that they will be attending the combine with – namely James “Wilzooo” Wilson and Elliot “Wez” Welsh – as they have the quality and existing relationships with the Salvo set-up to fit right in to what is undoubtedly the best UK team right now. Michael “ODEE” O’Dell continues to be the hardest working and most well informed manager in the UK scene and knows exactly what he wants. Wilzooo had a brief spell with London Mint but was tempted away to play with Salvo obviously with a draft spot in mind.

Stark contrast to London Mint who after their i-series defeat spent their time holding what amounted to little more than open auditions for new players to fill the two spots left by Tom “beta” Hanna and the forgotten man Jonathan “JoNo” Finglass who seems to have faded into obscurity since he was deemed not up to standard by his former team mates. Certain members of Guns 4 Hire have all been touted as potential replacements and have spent periods playing with Mint in what are being labelled as nothing more than “mixes” by the team. The prevailing rumours are right now that George “HudzG” Hoskins is playing with them at this event to see whether the chemistry is right and if not they have another player already lined up as a second choice for his spot. This would lead one to conclude that Richard “ritch” Gibbs will be drafted into CGS come the end of the event; a weird turnaround for a player who effectively turned his back on CGS the first time around by leaving a 4kings line-up that was assured of being drafted. There have also been question marks about the message that drafting him would send out given some of his more controversial moments in the past, but in terms of ability there is no question that he has done it at the highest level and will likely do so again…

But those are rumours and equally another set of Chinese whispers put forward the view that HudzG is a lock for a draft spot and it is in fact Mr. Gibbs who has to play for his place. These stories seem to have snowballed given the appointment of Ben Woodward as manager – not a bad move given the casual indifference of Sujoy Roy – who just so happened to be part of the management team that ritch walked out on when he left 4kings shortly before The Experience citing a fear of flying as the primary reason. When you put all this information together though it does suggest that London mint have not settled on their fifth choice and if any one player is going to perform and get drafted in a surprise fashion he will be wearing the colours of Mint the following season rather than those of Salvo. Of course, that’s the thing with speculation… You never can know for certain until it happens. As has already been said the likelihood of a player outside of those already playing with the franchises being drafted is very slim and it’s going to take some kind of spectacular collapse from one of them, coupled with a lifetime best performance to alter that.

With fewer European teams attending there is even less to know if you wish to sound knowledgeable about the subject… Simen “warclown” Henriksen, part of the Reason Gaming team that briefly dominated Europe then imploded, has put together a Norwegian mix team that could shock a few people. There is a lot of interest around them given that they have tempted Sondre “REAL” Svanevik across from 1.6 and he is highly thought of by those who know his ability in that particular game. How quickly he can get to grips with the differences in CSS could be a huge factor in how well this team does, but with the rest of the players not exactly being slouches themselves some of the UK teams need to watch out should they play them.

Fnatic are back… When they weren’t drafted last season audible boos rang out around the venue and since then the team has failed to reach the heights that we are all accustomed to them playing at. They have had several disappointing finishes in both online and LAN competitions since then. They now return to CGS and will be going all out to show what they are capable of. This time around they can play with Sandor “proph” De Munck. Being without him last time is one of the reasons that so many felt they failed to conquer all at the first season CGS LAN, but even without him they did not lose many games and when they did it was only by the odd round. If they can reclaim that dominant form they will be quite a prospect, but as much as it might be great to see one of the greatest ever European CSS teams back together and back on form, most would conclude it is an unlikely outcome.

The other “big” story is that Finnish Insignia Cadre stalwart Juha “aNgeldust” Kurppa will be playing as the fifth for Berlin Allianz, replacing Ted “haunted” Svensson. Whether it is realistic that he can be drafted or not is another thing entirely – the question of national service raising its head - and one certainly believes that the handful of European players in attendance all have a much better chance of being considered for the draft than those competing for the UK spots. I think if any surprises are coming at CGS then the fifth spot with Allianz could well be it, although there are some people claiming that Stockholm Magnetik are looking to make wholesale changes after some disappointing performances.

So with all of these individual plot strands set up before the event all that remains now is to see how it all pans out in one high-stakes weekend of CSS. The 1.6ers may scoff, but for now it doesn’t get much bigger than this in Source from the viewpoints of the players. Cue the drama…