UK Regional Finals Preview

Posted by: xilef

Having just flown out to LA, in a few days Mint and Salvo will go head to head in one of the most important matches of the player’s lives. The winner will get to stay in LA for the world finals, and the loser will be sent home packing.

A year ago the two franchises went head to head, and even though Salvo looked like the favourites going into it, they were demolished by Mint when it came down to it. Will there be a repeat this year, or will Salvo pull it out when it counts?

Counterstrike Source

Both teams have new lineups here, and it will be a bit of a wild card. Salvo had a much stronger appearance in LA last year, but after replacing 2 of their key players, will they be able to replicate it this time around? They performed well at iSeries earlier this year, but were pipped at the final hurdle by London Mint, so their rivalries will be even stronger than expected.
Mint undoubtedly have a much stronger team this year, and will be looking to pit themselves against the rest of the world, so will be going into this guns blazing. Will they be able to control RattleSnK’s AWP, or will Salvo prevail?

Mint – ritch, HenryG, url, Hughsy, HudzG
Salvo – wez, Mangiacapra, wilzOOO, RattleSnK, pete

Forza Motorsport 2

In the draft for Forza, the two GMs went for very different tactics, and the results of which will be on show in the next few days. The Salvo GM, ODEE, chose to draft two individual superstars, DaveySkills and iPicaso for his team. These are two of the fastest racers in the game, and will undoubtedly perform amazingly individually. However, their teamwork and cohesion as a partnership is yet to be proven, and this will be their first major test.

Ben of London Mint went for a different tactic, redrafting the PGR team of Season 1, in the hope that their superior tactics and teamwork would pay out. That said, Stune was clearly the fastest individual at the combine, so if he can perform at his peak, their teamwork should pay off.

Mint – Stune, Nt_101
Salvo – iPicaso, Daveyskills

Dead Or Alive 4

The Dead Or Alive 4 draft was incredibly similar for the two franchises. In the Male section, both of last year’s representatives were re-drafted, and in the Female section the two Harrison sister’s were drafted. Both partnerships are incredibly close matched on paper, and it will come down to who has prepared the most at the end of the day.

Messy had an amazing combine, outperforming all the competition and showing exactly what he was capable of. Paddaman looked a little shaky at times, but he has been known to pull it out when it counts, demolishing Messy 5-2 in last year’s UK finals, and he has reportedly been putting an incredibly amount of time into preparation.

That said, a lot of his time preparing has gone into preparing Strobe for LA, and she will be looking to pull out all the stocks against her sister. Although her sister beat her in the combine, Strobe was only attending for fun, and was thus a lot less prepared than her sibling, and with the help of Paddaman, she should be able to exact her revenge.

Mint – Paddaman, Strobe
Salvo – Messy, Sarah_Lou

FIFA

Another game where the draft was pretty straight forward, as both of last year’s competitors return to prove themselves the second time around.

For Mint we have ChrisyB, the UK champion and the franchise player of Mint. Chrisy is at the top of his game at the moment, having recently won i33, and demolishing all the competition at the combine.

That said, Bazza is also a great gamer, and will have put a lot of preparation into this match up. Having only lost by 1 point in the shock result of last year’s UK finals, he will be looking to improve on that this time around.

Mint – ChrisyB
Salvo – Bazza

We will be keeping you up to date on all of the progress of the finals, and you can find the scores up to date below: