Newcastle University's Gaming Society saw its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team claim their first victories in the National University eSports League last Monday on the 16th of October. NU-CS had a debut to die for, securing a clean 2:0 win in their qualifying NUEL matches against Portsmouth University (PUCS:GO) and De Montfort University (the DMU Chickens), and the team showed incredible strength on the counter-terrorist side, with dominating individual play and good understanding of rotations.
Both of the qualifying matches occurred on Mirage, one of the game's Bomb Defusal maps, and the final scores came in at 16:12 and 16:5. Even though the team was apart geographically, they were very much together in terms of communication and co-ordination, performing some impressive feats in order to secure their place in the next stages of the competition.
Image: Newcastle University Gaming Society YouTube Channel
An individual performance that stood out was that of Anthony “-ANTHEM-” Beavis who, despite his slightly underwhelming pistol play, was a solid rock who worked well to solo-capture the 'B' sites and worked with multiple 4K’s as members of the terrorist side moved onto the site. This allowed the rest of his team to focus more on the mid area, alongside 'A' site pushes, which both PUCS:GO and the DMU Chickens returned to extensively throughout the games.
Another impressive series of plays were the repeated doggedness of Jamie “Jiggins” Higgins, who rushed onto a smoked 'B' site, bullets whizzing around his head, with no qualms whatsoever. Most would’ve backed up, tried to bait the enemy team out and pick up a frag from the resulting overextension - but not Jiggins. With complete faith in his team, he walked into the middle of the smoke and planted, standing completely still. He planted. And survived. And it stuck. They won the round. They probably could have won in a less balls-y manner, but hey, why not win in style? Aside from this, strong rotation and strong teamplay, presumably coming from captain and shotcaller Edward “Xarvus” Vaudin, led to efficient site takes and re-takes throughout.
Image: Newcastle University Gaming Society YouTube Channel
Overall the team looks strong, at least against this competition. Things that are still looming overhead are their proficiency on maps that aren’t Mirage, whether Callum can return to the level he presented in scrims, and how far Sam “Ten Toes Down” Elliot, as the substitute player on the team, can actually go, given his strong rifling and good picks and the impending return of Gunnar “gunR” Ford?
Newcastle University's Gaming Society can be found over in their Facebook Group and Discord Channel. You can catch the full qualifying matches played by NU-CS over on the Gaming Society's YouTube Channel: