Review of ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018

Yesterday ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 ended up. This tournament turned out to be unusual and very surprising. The viewers got especially surprised by the results of the first matches. We will tell you about that and other interesting things in today’s material summing it up.

Overall impression about the tournament

We think that we should praise the work done by ZOTAC. There was no big problems related to the technical input during the tournament. Of course there were some service breaks but if we don’t take it into account we can say that the technical input was done well by the organizers.

As for the organization of the tournament in total, the collectives were satisfied by the championship. We want to remind you that ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 was held in Hong Kong and the holding place was Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. It was the first event of this level for ZOTAC. Before ZOTAC didn’t hold the championships with the prize pools of more than $30,000. As for the tournament which opened the new CS:GO season, ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 happened to be a good competition.

The disappointing teams

ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 was very rich in interesting results and it could be especially seen at the first mathes. Many collectives were fell short of expectations of the viewers who like to make bets and earn money. Meanwhile, many outsiders really surprised the viewers who like to watch a beautiful game. OpTic Gaming, Virtus.pro and TyLoo could be seen among the disappointing collectives.

Virtus.pro

The Polish CS:GO collective haven’t been able to recover for a long time. After the triumph of the team at Adrenaline Cyber League 2017, held among four participants, by the way, Virtus.pro couldn’t realize their potential fully. The change of the roles in the team and the change of the players in the roster didn’t help them. TaZ and Snax have already left the Polish team. According to the rumours, byali will also leave the team after DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018. Despite their poor state, the majority of the viewers thought that Virtus.pro were one of the favourites of getting to the semi final but MVP PK and some other teams at the tournament were able to make a sensation winning over Virtus.pro. After snatchie from AGO Esports joined VP, no one expected any good performance from the Polish team, but very few people expected that Virtus.pro would get to the semi final.

As a result, the Polish players took the 5-8 place in the tournament bracket and didn’t get anything from the prize pool. Virtus.pro may get a better place at DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018 where they could perform better but at this tournament they played really poorly. It may happen that byali’s leaving from the team makes a pressure on the moral of the player and the team and that results in the failure of realizing of the potential of the collective.

TyLoo

The Chinese team also turned out to be disappointing for the viewers. Recently at CS:GO Asia Championships 2018 with the prize pool of $300,000, TyLoo took the 3-4 place in the tournament bracket. Also they performed well at Asia Minor Championship - London 2018, taking the second place there and at Intel Extreme Masters XIII - Shanghai, becoming the silver finalists of the tournament. The roster of TyLoo was completed on 18 January 2018 when the Indonesian player Kevin “xccurate” Susanto joined the team. That is why many people were expecting that TyLoo would become not the champion but getting to the semi final but they were other clear favourites. When the first pairs of the quarter final were revealed, many people were sure that the Chinese would win the battle of TyLoo and Team Kinguin, but it didn't happen.

As a results, TyLoo together with all the losing teams from the first match took the 5-8 place and left the tournament with nothing.

OpTic Gaming

The Danish collective OpTic Gaming is at the top of the list of the teams disappointing the viewers. In our opinion this roster was the main favourite of the win at the last ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018. First of all, OpTic Gaming are one of the strongest teams with the biggest number of titles among all the participants in ZOTA Cup Masters 2018. They are placed on the fifteenth position in the list of the best CS:GO rosters according to HLTV. Secondly, the team OpTic Gaming wasn't given a strong opponent so OpTic Gaming had win at the first match. As a result, Ghost Gaming were able to win over OpTic and make it to the semifinal getting a money reward of $20,000 and after that left the event taking the 3-4 place in the tournament bracket.

No one was expecting for such results but now OpTic Gaming must learn the lesson and get prepared for DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018, that is planned to start on 29 August.

The teams surprising the audience

Many collectives couldn't meet the expectations of the viewers but some of the teams really surprised the viewers by their performances and results at the championship. Such teams as Team Kinguin, MVP PK and Ghost Gaming turned out to be the collectives that managed to surprise their viewers.

Team Kinguin

The biggest discovery of this tournament was the team Team Kinguin. TaZ together with his team were seen among outsiders before the beginning of the event, but it was changed after the end of their participation in the first match. Kinguin performed against one of the favourites of the tournament, the team TyLoo and won over them by the score of 2-1 on such maps as overpass and train. At the next round they met with another team Ghost Gaming which also attracted the viewers with their win and defeated them on the maps nuke and inferno by the same score.

Doing his best, Wiktor Wojtas together with the other members of the team Team Kinguin managed to make it to the final where they lost against clear favourite and one of the strongest teams in the world MIBR. Thanks to this result, Team Kinguin got a good money reward of $60,000.

MVP PK

MVP PK as the other teams surprising the audience got the place in the category thanks to their win over the favourite at the first stage of the tournament. The opponents of the Korean roster were the players of Virtus.pro, that have recently made a replacement in their CS:GO roster. We should mark that this match and the majority of the other matches of the tournament wasn't easy and the game ended by the score of 2-1 for MVP PK. The Korean could do nothing on dust2, losing by the score of 5-16 there, but they prepared inferno and mirage, where they won by the scores of 16-13 and 16-10. At the next match MVP PK were playing against one of the main favourites of the tournament, the team MIBR, where they lost on inferno and dust2 by the score of 9-16 and 10-16.

Thanks to their efforts, MVP PK managed to get the 3-4 place at the tournament and get a good money reward of $20,000.

Ghost Gaming

Ghost Gaming added such players as Joshua “steel” Nissan and Kenneth “koosta” Suen to their roster on 10 June and also got James “JamezIRL” Macaulay as their coach. Since then, their only achievement has been the win at the American qualifier for ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018. At the moment Ghost Gaming have only four players in their roster and at ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 one of the players of The Imperial, Kevin “kRYSTAL” Amend, played for them helping the team to get to the semi final. The win of Ghost Gaming was also doubtful due to the fact that the first match must have been played against one of the clear favourites of the win the Danish team OpTic Gaming. Nevertheless, the preparation of OpTic was overly bad while Ghost had prepared for the championship very well.

Ghost Gaming managed to get to the semi final where they lost against the Polish roster Team Kinguin by the score of 1-2. There Ghost were able to get the win on the map nuke by the score of 16-9, but such maps as mirage and overpass resulted in the win for Kinguin by the score of 16-14 and 16-8.

The results of Ghost Gaming got the audience interested in them and now we are waiting for their participation in DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018 with a huge anticipation. We want to remind that kRYSTAL was leased from The Imperial during their participation in ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 and DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018.

The teams that didn't surprise the audience

Flash Gaming

Flash Gaming is a very weak team from China. In 2018 they managed to earn only $3,000 and that is why they got a direct invitation to the tournament where they got the last place. Flash Gaming played on inferno by the score of 3-16 and on cache by the score of 1-16 and after that they lest the tournament with nothing as usual. Flash Gaming couldn't impress anyone with their performance. They performed very poorly as it had been expected.

MIBR

At the moment the Brazilian and American CS:GO roster holds the 7 place in the list of the best teams according to HLTV.org. The win of MIBR can hardly be named as a surprise. Before the start of the tournament the viewers were divided into two groups: those who thought that OpTic Gaming were the main favourite of ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 and those who thought that MIBR were the main favourites of ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018. After the first match it was obvious that MIBR would become champions at the tournament so this team and Flash Gaming couldn't surprise anyone either in a bad or good way.

The next stop of MIBR is DreamHack Masters Stockholm 2018. There will be many dangerous opponents for them and they can't be compared with the participants in ZOTAC Cup Masters Stockholm 2018. It will be interesting to look at MIBR performing against stronger opponents in their renewed roster which was completed on 14 July.

Interesting facts and conclusion

• It was planned that Team Liquid would take part in the tournament instead of OpTic Gaming but they refused to use this opportunity and OpTic were invited to ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018. If Team Liquid had come to ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018, the results would be different.
• Flash Gaming were invited to the tournament as VG.FlashGaming, but some time passed after the invite and the organisation однако Vici Gaming terminated their participation with Flash Gaming. If the Chinese change nothing in their roster, the are likely to play at the same level as they do now.
• It was a debut tournament for the renewed roster of MIBR. The first performance of MIBR with their new roster can be surely named as successful.
• Four players from MIBR are in Top 10 best players of ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018. Three of them were placed on the fiat three places: Stewie2k, coldzera and FalleN. Meanwhile, tarik took the 7 place in the list of the best players of this tournament.
• As for the team that plays with a leased several days ago player, Ghost Gaming played very well. To defeat one of the favourites of the first match is not an easy task.

Statistics

• Best player of ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 — Jake “Stewie2k” Yip
• Three the most usable weapons at ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 — AK47 (36,77%), M4A1 (20,2%) и AWP (17,56%).
• Two the most popular weapons at ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 — P250 (2,31%) and Desert Eagle (2,31%)
• The most winrate side at ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 — Counter Terrorists on nuke(69,4%).

Statistics of the played maps

inferno — 4 maps
mirage — 3 maps
overpass — 3 maps
dust2 — 3 maps
train — 2 maps
nuke — 2 maps
cache — 2 maps

Results of the tournament

1 place — MIBR — $200,000
2 place — Team Kinguin — $60,000
3-4 place — MVP PK — $20,000
3-4 place — Ghost Gaming — $20,000
5-8 place — TyLoo
5-8 place — Vairtus.pro
5-8 place — OpTic Gaming
5-8 place — Flash Gaming