Breaking down the Gamedock Cup #1

This past weekend saw the maiden Gamedock Cup take place. Eight teams competed in the event to win their share of the R25 000 prize pool. In the end it was the tournament favourites, ATK, who dominated the competition and picked up a cool R6 500 for their efforts. 

Teams

There were a total of eight teams that took part in the event, four of them were directly invited and the other four earned their spot through an open qualifier that was played the weekend before. The four teams that received direct invites were ATK Arena, Goliath Gaming, Energy Esports and DNMK Esports, while the teams that made it through the qualifier were Online Kingdom, Royalty Esports, White Rabbit Gaming and Sinister5. 

Format

The structure of the event was a double elimination bracket with best of threes being played throughout the event, bar the grand final which featured a best of five. The team that reached the grand final through the upper bracket was awarded a one map advantage in the final. The opening matches featured the four teams who were invited to the event against the four teams that qualified for the event, seeded accordingly. 

Matches

Saturday

The majority of the event’s matches were played on Saturday, including the opening matches of both upper and lower bracket, the upper bracket semi finals and final as well as round two of the lower bracket.

Upper bracket

The tournament commenced on Saturday with all four opening matches kicking off at the same time. ATK, Goliath Gaming and Energy Esports all progressed to the next stage without breaking a sweat, as they overcame Royalty Esports, OnlineKingdom and White Rabbit Gaming 2-0 respectively. The one opening match that wasn’t nearly as clear cut was Sinister5 vs DNMK Esports. 

It was a spicy matchup for numerous reasons, but none more so than Lately going up against his former teammates. It’d be fairly unfamiliar territory for him playing against the likes of Heartbreak, Nexus and bny considering he’d been a teammate of theirs for over a year prior to the changes. Sinister5 won the first map, Nuke, 16-13 after a hard fought back and forth. DNMK replied with a 16-14 win on Inferno, which was again very closely contested. Heading into the decider Dust_2 the teams were inseparable. DNMK had an absolutely banging T-half managing a 13-2 scoreline, however it still wasn’t enough. Sinister5 had an insane comeback, displaying some really impressive composure, they managed to win in overtime 19-15 and secured the series 2-1. 

The next set of winner bracket matches saw ATK take on Sinister5 and Goliath Gaming go up against Energy. Both of the matches consisted of one map going to overtime and the other a heavily one-sided map. ATK dominated Sinister5 on Train with a 16-1 win, but they had to fight a lot hader on Overpass, where they eventually won 19-17. This turned out to be the closest anybody came to taking a map off of ATK. Goliath Gaming got the better of Energy Esports after they won on Overpass 22-18, including a momentum swinging ninja defuse by ZipZip in overtime, after which they made easy work of Energy on Inferno, winning the map 16-7. 

That meant we had the winner bracket final between South Africa’s two top teams, ATK Arena and Goliath Gaming. The winner would secure themselves a one map advantage in the best of five grand final as well as at least R5 000. Not only that, but they’d also avoid having to play any further matches in the event outside of the final, allowing them to be fully fresh and prepared the next day. 

It’s common knowledge that ATK have been consistently getting the better of Goliath Gaming over the past few months, and this time was no different. Goliath Gaming tried something different in this series where they decided to pick Vertigo, a map these teams hadn’t played against each other until this point. It was a closely contested map with the score 13-13 at one stage. With both teams on a shoddy buy, the winner of the round could assume a commanding grip on the game. ATK won the round and closed out the map 16-13 and from there it was smooth sailing. The next map was Nuke which ATK comfortably won 16-9, solidifying themselves a spot in the grand final while Goliath dropped down to the lower bracket final.

Lower bracket

In the first round of the lower bracket WRG went up against OK, while DNMK Esports played Royalty Esports, with the loser of each match being eliminated from the tournament. Both of the matches went the full distance and eventually it was OK and DNMK Esports who prevailed and kept their tournament hopes alive. 

The next set of matches in the lower bracket saw DNMK Esports pitted against Energy Esports and Sinister5 against OK. Both of the games were a 2-0 scoreline won by Energy and Sinister5, however that scoreline doesn’t really do the Energy vs DNMK game justice. 

Both of the maps were hotly contested, and DNMK were inches away from completing the comeback on Nuke and taking the game to overtime. In the last round Energy managed to deny them the comeback and in the process eliminated DNMK Esports from the tournament. Sinister5 had to grind out the first map, Mirage, against OK which they eventually won 19-17, however the second map couldn’t have had a bigger contrast. Sinister5 dominated Train and secured a 16-0 win and in turn eliminated OK. 

Sunday

On Sunday the final three matches of the event were played out, which were the lower bracket semi final, the lower bracket final and the grand final. 

Lower bracket semi final 

Energy Esports went up against Sinister5 in the lower bracket semi final which they managed to win 2-1. Proceedings began on Train, which was won by Energy 16-13 largely thanks to Tiaantjie and mango who managed 59 frags between the two of them. Sinister5 responded with a 16-10 win on Overpass after a solid CT side where they managed 11 rounds, setting up Nuke as the decider.

 

Sinister5 had a solid first half performance where they wracked up seven rounds on their T-side. They then followed up with a few early rounds on the CT-side, taking them to 11-9 up. Normally from that position the CTs are expected to close out the game, however Energy Esports had other plans in mind. Energy Esports went on to win seven of the eight rounds thereafter and closed out the map 16-12, and in turn the series 2-1. 

Lower bracket final

Immediately after their win against Sinister5, Energy had to play against Goliath Gaming in the lower bracket final. The match began on Nuke, Energy’s pick. Keep in mind that these two teams played against each other earlier in the competition and in that series Energy picked Overpass which they narrowly lost 22-18. While there was a clear change in plan in this game, unfortunately for them it yielded the same result as Goliath Gaming won the map 16-9. 

The map loss spelt trouble for Energy as the next map was Inferno, which they got demolished on 16-7 the day before by Goliath. Surprisingly there was a stark contrast between the performance on Inferno the day before and here in the lower bracket final. Energy had made right their wrongs on the T-side and looked way more resolute. Energy won Inferno 16-8 bringing themselves one map away from the final. Overpass was the third in the series, which actually turned out to be heavily one sided. Goliath Gaming secured a 16-6 win over Energy and stamped their ticket into the grand final eliminating Energy in third position. 

Grand final 

It was the headline fixture in local CS that formed the grand final: ATK vs Goliath Gaming. Goliath Gaming had just come off of the 2-1 against Energy Esports where they had to expend some of their energy to get across the line, leaving them in a less than ideal mental state heading into a best of five final where the opponent has a one map advantage. 

The final began on Mirage, traditionally one of ATK’s best maps. Normally we’d see Mirage as the third map between these two teams in a best of three series but Goliath Gaming decided to try and mix things up this time around and picked it first. Fadey absolutely popped off picking up 31 kills across the map, including eight multikills. ATK secured the map win 16-11 leaving them one map win away from the title. Overpass was up next and this time it was the SlowYe show. The AWPer managed to pick up 30 frags and in the process helped his team to a resounding 16-6 victory. 

Once again ATK proved too hot to handle and were head and shoulders above everybody else. They continue to display enterprising Counter-Strike while they dominate the local scene. ATK took home R6 500 for their first place positioning while Goliath Gaming received R5 000 for placing second. 

Conclusion

The Gamedock cup #1 was a success. It attracted decent viewership throughout the weekend with the final even featuring on the number one CS website HLTV. You can catch all of the VODs on Gamedock’s Twitch as well as some of Saturday’s action on MyNameIsNiix’s Twitch.

Images via Gamedock’s Twitter | Header image by Valve