A quick rundown of every team at CFS

TheHungedMan

This year, the championship is possibly up for grabs with Pacific Macta having their journey to CFS ending early along with a fragmented chinese scene. Seeding and map picks will matter more than ever. All thoughts below are based on the information I collected from the limited VODs available so feel free to suggest some additions or changes to the information presented. This year is also the first time where the chinese national finals adopt a similar format to to the global finals.

Team: All Gamers
Line-up: Tmq (Leader), TFFF/TF (Sniper), ZQQQ/ZQ, ZYYY/Ouou, Lxm
Comments: Let's start off with the last team to have qualified for CFS. As the last team to represent China, they were locked in a contested battle with Acme Exclamation for the last spot on CFS when both were tied at map point and it came down to a golden round on Port. Suffice to say it their defense was successful even though AE managed to capture site A despite the fact that AG themselves initially stacked B site. ZQ serves as their main powerhouse ACE. Unfortunately before the CFS NF started, EVEN their former leader had left the team who was thus replaced by Ouou and after k/Linkin's contract expired his position was quickly replaced by Lxm who is a former AE player. Expectations are low down to the fact that the team faces abrupt changes in their roster but they still managed 2nd place in the national finals and thereby getting revenge against Q9 for defeating them earlier in their CFS qualifier.
Strongest Map: Black Widow
Weakest Map: Port

Team: Anubis Gaming (formerly Wafflemakers)
Line-up: ShikhoN/Snare (Sniper), Monkey, Youssef, Snake, Hossam
Comments: They will be the first CFS team representing Egypt. I'm not aware of who their leader is. If everyone is honest with themselves, there is not a shred of doubt that they'll be one of the very first teams to be eliminated from the global finals since they consistently struggle with arguably weak teams at CFCL for which they have to frequently requalify again for the Elite division through Open. It's the early days of the professional egyptian scene so not much is expected out of them for whatever they do.
Strongest Map: Doesn't matter
Weakest Map: Doesn't matter

Team: Black Dragons
Line-up: vianna1 (Leader/Sniper), Wil, DANIMAL, nottziN, adrF
Comments: For the past 3 seasons they have been the CFEL champions of Brazil and have once won an international tournament. While their performance at CFGI was less than ideal but given the current condition of all CFS competitors they are a formiddable opponent as it is since they manage to have high success against chinese teams so enough said. They share some similar map weaknesses as a chinese team would.
Strongest Map: Sub Base
Weakest Map: Mexico

Team: Boss.CFVN
Line-up: ALY (Leader), LUCAS (Sniper), SHADY, KAYLE, RITA
Comments: For the past 4 seasons they have been the CFEL champions of Vietnam and now they've finally proven themsevles to be the best Vietnamese team by a wide margin during their CFS qualifers by winning the coveted 1st place. They don't have any particularly strong or weak points, they're just a solid all rounder.
Strongest Map: None
Weakest Map: None

Team: Carbon
Line-up: xfam0usx (Leader), kaiz (Sniper), michaeldrk, req, supamen
Comments: Coming hot off the heels of CFGI which was their peak ever since CFSI 2015 Brazil, they've been on a downward trend for a couple of months now. Not so coincidentally, all of their local threats have disappeared which comfortably makes the team the only game in town in North America.
Strongest Map: Mexico
Weakest Map: Port

Team: EVA Team
Line-up: BOTKONZ (Leader), RAMBO (Sniper), MAXIM, KUKON, BEAN
Comments: Let's face it, as the runner-up of last year's CFS global finals they haven't performed well in nearly a year. Getting 4th place at CFEL this year must sting a lot and while they did get strong enough again to qualify for CFS, their long time rival Boss has surpassed or rather they smashed into pieces during the CFS qualifer. Dare I say it, they are one of the weaker team's returning this year. Depending on how they're seeded or whichever map is selected they might not immediately get eliminated but somewhere during the tournament they will exit the race sooner or later.
Strongest Map: Mexico
Weakest Map: Ankara

Team: Execration
Line-up: KART (Leader), CHARLIT0 (Sniper), ARSVV/Aries, CJAMERO, M0DERN
Comments: This is the team that pushed Pacific Macta down to the loser bracket early on during the CFS philippines national finals. Before Execration formed their own team, they sponsored the Reborn Gaming Team. The once considered mockery of the philippines scene somehow managed to clinch first place in the national finals and Pacific Macta is paying down the price for it since Revenge let his own team down. Of the little I've seen, both ARSVV and M0DERN are not the most talented of players and some could even argue that they're sub-par so they are the weak points that could hold back Execration from becoming a true contender for championship. CHARLIT0 and CJAMERO makes for a powerful fragging duo. We have yet to see how they'll perform in a different tournament format but I suspect that they'll come up fairly short like they have in CFSI 2017.
Strongest Map: Unknown
Weakest Map: Unkonwn

Team: Flipsid3 Tactics
Line-up: SEVEN (Leader/Sniper), ecYD/DYce, DeNis, favouR/ScreaMjr, bL4ME
Comments: This is the team that's been responisble for much of the decline of Europe's strength in the international stage since the beginning of last year. F3 is simply an unremarkable team if their CFCL performance is anything to go by. If they have to face up strong regions early on in this tournament then expect to see them eliminated quickly.
Strongest Map: Doesn't matter
Weakest Map: Doesn't matter

Team: INTZ
Line-up: paiZao/stk (Leader), kyojin1/akemy1 (Sniper), bryanL/pancadA, v1nNy, nnM/neneM
Comments: This is the second brazilian team to quality for CFS. Unfortunately, this came at the casualty of Vincit Gaming who played very close maps with INTZ to qualify for the CFS slot but they were on the recieving end of bad luck even with their superstar roster. Not to underscore INTZ's achievement since they too have an experienced roster as well so I won't count them out too quickly as they're probably as strong as Vincit Gaming is.
Strongest Map: Unknown
Weakest Map: Unknown

Team: JKOSAV
Line-up: zata/Torono (Leader), drones (sniper), EV9, Baron, FP
Comments: An Indonesian team led by the former leader of Warfare from CFS 2014. Not much to say here really but I guess Indonesia improved some since XCN didn't make it out of the qualifiers but to this day Indonesia as whole still lack a lot in shooting technique.
Strongest Map: Doesn't matter
Weakest Map: Doesn't matter

Team: KOWAI
Line-up: Alejo (Leader/Sniper), Flich, Felix, Pablo, Clarenz
Comments: Coming 3rd in CFS 2016, KOWAI showed to the whole world the Latin America can compete. While they did put up a good showing in 2016, the bar still remains low for Latin America after nearly every region has reached new heights. The question for them becomes can they make the leap like the rest of the whole world has ? It remains doubtful that they have given the stagnant state of the Latin American scene.
Strongest Map: Doesn't matter
Weakest Map: Doesn't matter

Team: Pacific Wara (formerly TNC Pro Team)
Line-up: M4CMAMBA/XM4C (Leader), HECK (Sniper), ZARREN, KRAM, DAGSS
Comments: TNC has been a philippines esports brand organization since it's inception and over the past years they've underwent many team reformations in crossfire. This year the founding members of the team are primarily from Pacific Macta/Wara with the strong addition of HECK who is their key sniper. This team is the other upset in the philippines national finals since they single handedly ended Pacific Macta's journey to CFS by eliminating them in the lower bracket. In general the philippines national finals was the biggest upset in the regions competitive history. Overall there is very little expectations for this team to become a real threat to the top teams since the veteran players behind it don't have a particularly great past history of being the strongest of players.
Strongest Map: Unknown
Weakest Map: Unknown

Team: PENTA Sports
Line-up: phaze (Leader/Sniper), Snox, nLs, KREEDZ, AWSM/MooN
Comments: Representing Europe, PENTA is simply the best that the region has to offer with it's highly stacked line-up of players such as combining both the best sniper and rifle aim. PENTA is Europe's last chance that it can stand toe to toe with the top regions when all else has failed.
Srongest Map: Port
Weakest Map: Sub Base

Team: Qing Jiu
Line-up: Solo (Leader), b/bean (Sniper), zzhy, k/Linkin, jerry
Comments: Coming in 3rd place at their CFS qualifier they swept AG to advance in the finals. This is one of the 3 teams that will be representing China and they're back in nearly full form again with one of their key players, Linkin. Unfortunately, this is still not the same roster that had won the championship of CFPL S12 since x1mo left the team but jerry from Modern as some of you may know from the earlier CFS times or more recently as we saw from TGF at CFGI last year completes their roster and is a reliable replacement. As the only team that was able to contest against Pacific Macta during CFGI this year and with a more fully formed team they show great potential.
Strongest Map: Sub Base
Weakest Map: Port

Team: ruLegends
Line-up Treaks (Leader/Sniper), Exiwer, Vais, drace, Strey
Comments: The arguably strongest team from the CFCL Elite division this year will have represented Russia for 5 years straight. The team should be proud of themselves that they've somehow managed to keep evolving with the most stable roster in all of CFS. I suspect that they'll get even stronger in CFS with better conditions than CFCL Elite.
Strongest Map: Unknown
Weakest Map: Unknown

Team: Super Valiant Gaming
Line-up: 18 (Leader), ELEGANT (Sniper), N9, DBQ, ANKE
Comments: After the ghosting scandal incident in the last season of CFPL, their former leader MZiN was banned for supposedly 6 months and was forced to retire in disgrace. Nevertheless their replacement has shown competence in his skill to contribute to his team in his own way since they managed to get 1st place in their CFS qualifier. Their roster has more in common with the defunct Red Lantern team than it does with the former iG team since 3 of their players were familiar with each other prior to the formation of the VG team which was then subsequently rebranded into SV.
Strongest Map: Ankara
Weakest Map: Port

All in all the front runners look to be All Gamers, Black Dragons, Qing Jiu, and of course Super Valiant Gaming. The close follow-ups which aren't much behind the favourites in all honesty are Boss, INTZ, PENTA, and ruLegends. The top 8 is fairly close so even smallest of things will affect the results in matches between them. The lower tier teams would be Carbon, EVA Team, Execration, Pacific Wara. The bottom tier teams are obviously Anubis Gaming, Flipsid3 Tactics, JKOSAV, and KOWAI. Isn't every team now happy that they don't have to face the possibility of Pacific Macta ? (especially Carbon)

ForgysS

Btw, ez for BD, Vienna is going to eat every good player on opposite teams

TheHungedMan

The only reason why BD was rated as highly is because I needed to fill a spot LOL

Pacific Macta couldn't make the cut and I wasn't all that compelled to give Carbon the benefit of the doubt seeing as they kept struggling against PENTA and ruLegends well after CFGI despite the fact that BD themselves haven't made the play-offs in the last two international tournaments! I might have to reevaluate BD if they lose against weaker teams like Boss or Carbon again ...

[Quinn

"EVA TEAM: they haven't performed well in nearly a year." CFPL S13 Top 4?

"F3: This is the team that's been responisble for much of the decline of Europe's strength" They have a completely different lineup compared to last year

"PENTA: strongest map Port" That's why they either ban port or mexico

"SV: strongest map Ankara, weakest map Port" Their main ban has been always sub base

In my opinion they are no favourites at CFS this time. Almost any team can make it to the final. Lets see.

CaptArcher

I'll bet money on egypt having a top 4 finish this year

TheHungedMan

[QUOTE=[Quinn;n6869189]"EVA TEAM: they haven't performed well in nearly a year." CFPL S13 Top 4? (1)

"F3: This is the team that's been responisble for much of the decline of Europe's strength" They have a completely different lineup compared to last year (2)

"PENTA: strongest map Port" That's why they either ban port or mexico (3)

"SV: strongest map Ankara, weakest map Port" Their main ban has been always sub base (4)

In my opinion they are no favourites at CFS this time. Almost any team can make it to the final. Lets see.


[/QUOTE]

1) They only got top 4 because of an incident regarding a semi-finals match between AE and SV involving both teams ghosting. After the incident both teams were disqualified from the season's league with players such as MZiN and Weii being banned from the league for about one season. MZiN didn't go out of retirement for one season to just play CFPL the next only to have his position being all of a sudden replaced by ELEGANT. The organizers of CFPL basically just setup a match between EVA and HG cause it would massively effect their viewership with the season ending prematurely with AG being the champions by default cause both of the competitors at the other side of the bracket were caught ghosting ...

EVA Team getting beaten by HG even if it is a different format is not good at all since HG is a joke team when they got humiliated in the national finals (which was the same format as the global finals this year) by U9 which is another joke team themselves. EVA Team straight up is not good and you should take a look at how they did at the national finals against Boss which wrecked them pretty badly who weren't all that powerful at CFGI this year ...

2) Yes and their new line-up is way worse compared to the start of last year where they had both the best sniper and rifle which were phaze and snox respectively. KREEDZ, another talented player also once played for F3 too. F3 is just a former shell of themselves ...

3) Mexico, yes. As for Port, I can't see why they would considering so few teams can play the map very well. The only other team I can potentially see dominating PENTA on Port is maybe Pacific Macta but since they didn't qualify I don't think PENTA has very many contenders against them on Port at CFS this year ... (Would ruLegends be a possibility or are they mediocre at Port too ?)

4) Again, bans don't tell us very much about the relative strength of each team on a map. AG currently bans Ankara but how many other foreign teams do you think can actually contest a chinese team on Ankara ? Even a crippled Q9 that switched out Linkin for YaZhe at CFGI managed to beat Pacific Macta on Ankara which was the strongest team on Ankara aside from the chinese teams themselves. Besides, SV only started banning Sub Base since CFSI last year. Their main ban prior to that was Mexico like we saw at last year's CFGI tournament. There's really nothing wrong about how SV plays Sub Base in normal conditions. There's only 3 teams they lost against in Sub Base. One of them being EVA at which a couple of their players were sick during the match and they successfully got revenge a month later on that same map against them at CFS. One was against STDX but that was probably just a fluke since they couldn't replicate the same success on that map during their match against EVA Team. The other was from BD but considering they've had tons of success against other chinese teams such as AG or Q9 (both of which are pretty strong on Sub Base) it's totally understandable why a ban on Sub Base would be warranted in that case since BD obviously dominates at Sub Base and that it's a bad idea even for a chinese team to challenge them on that map ...

Bans need to start being appropriate and one of the biggest reasons why AG lost to Carbon during CFGI is because of their ban on Ankara being based just on blind fear of a match in CFPL and Carbon took advantage of their fear since they were probably relieved that they didn't have fight against a chinese team on Ankara even if kaiz was a big boost to them on that map so it was automatically banned for them in comfort while carbon took away Sub Base from them. Map bans need to be thought on a case by case basis rather than by pure confidence. It would make far more sense for chinese teams this time around to ban Port instead since it's an arguably a harder map for them to dominate on along with the fact that many of them haven't done well on it such as AG or Q9 and lower teams like carbon can and will beat them on it ...

Special care needs to be taken on quite a few teams this time around since strength isn't equal across all maps for every team. If you're facing against BD, banning Sub Base is probably the rightmost choice even if your team is weak on both Mexico or Port since BD is also bad on those maps as well so there's arguably a bigger window of opportunity on those maps regardless compared to Sub Base. If you're facing SV, banning Ankara always helps since that team can never seem to let go of that map. If you're facing AG, banning black widow could be a smart idea cause their near invincible on that map so it's probably better to find an opportunity in a map that you believe you're weaker in ...

I would be disappointed in SV if they kept banning Sub Base even when facing PENTA again considering they're not all that threatening on Sub Base. In general, professional chinese teams seem to have become less strategic with their map bans and it might come back to haunt them if they don't study a specific team in depth they're facing against because different teams will obviously have different strengths and weaknesses. SV fumbled when they banned Sub Base and AG probably fumbled when they banned Ankara. I did say that "map picks will matter more than ever" and if teams don't pick the right maps to ban then they probably don't deserve to become CFS champions because a single team can't just keep dominating on every other map but if teams aren't going to take steps to rectify this then they can take the easy way out of the tournament ... (SV is just lazy in regard to studying their opposing teams so it's no wonder why they are tunneled into banning a single map and if things get too hard they just change it without ever thinking again which is really shortsighted)

With all that out of the way sure there may not be favourites but I highly doubt "almost any team" can make it to the finals. There's literally less than ideal teams competing in CFS like Anubis, F3, JKOSAV, KOWAI, and I doubt any of the philippines teams are good this year since Pacific Macta isn't representing the region this year ...

[MOD]Zzxq

This should honestly be the most competitive CFS ever.

My favorites to make the final right now are Execration and All Gamers, but I am always up for a good surprise.

I am also interested to see who makes if the furthest out of the CFCL 5: Anubis, F3, PENTA, Carbon, RuLegends (My current guess would be either Ru or Penta could make semis, but Carbon usually has a strong LAN game so you never know)


Good luck to everyone going, looking forward to seeing who comes out on top.

TheHungedMan

[QUOTE=[MOD]Zzxq;n6869534]This should honestly be the most competitive CFS ever.

My favorites to make the final right now are Execration and All Gamers, but I am always up for a good surprise.

I am also interested to see who makes if the furthest out of the CFCL 5: Anubis, F3, PENTA, Carbon, RuLegends (My current guess would be either Ru or Penta could make semis, but Carbon usually has a strong LAN game so you never know)


Good luck to everyone going, looking forward to seeing who comes out on top.
[/QUOTE]

Oh, I agree that this is probably the most competitive CFS tournament out there. Mostly thanks to Pacific Macta not showing up and with the Chinese competitive scene getting worse ...

All Gamers is a little iffy if I do say so myself after they've lost many of their OG veterans who have maybe been on the team since it's inception such as Lsn and EVEN but hopefully Tmq knows what he's doing and ZQ is an absolute monster like N9. I'm not feeling all that confident in AG since they let go of Linkin who was a pure god with an AK for Lxm who was a rookie for Acme Exclamation. TF was supposed to be the successor to 70KG since 70KG was once a mentor to TF but he isn't living up to the expectation's of his former mentor ...

As for Execration, I don't think many wanted them to represent for what the Philippines had best to offer especially since both Aries and M0DERN are extremely sloppy players on a much easier competitive format. CHARLIT0 and CJAMERO look good but the rest of their team members are nowhere near of a threat as those two are and their two best players aren't anywhere near as good as what the other top regions has to offer ...

As to who will make it the farthest out of the CFCL division, seeding and map selection will likely matter much more than ever. I don't think the differential in the power of a team will mean as much this time around since the strengths and weaknesses between the most competitive teams are asymmetrical. Last year, BD couldn't make it out of group stage because of the fact that SV prevented them from accumulating enough rounds to qualify for the wildcard spot even though they were arguably a serious contender for CFS championship. STDX was fortunate enough to get 4th place since SV made an error which opened an opportunity for them but when they eventually had to face other truly formidable teams at the time such as EVA and PM, they reached their true maximum extent of their strength ...

TheHungedMan

Pacific Wara is back and will be taking place of TNC Pro Team!

Abel95

TheHungedMan wrote: »

Pacific Wara is back and will be taking place of TNC Pro Team!

What happened to TNC Pro?

michealdrkkt

[QUOTE=[MOD]Abel;n6870186]

What happened to TNC Pro? [/QUOTE]

TNC = Wara

Abel95

michealdrkkt wrote: »

TNC = Wara

Oh, I see...

Crotchy

Good idea for all teams

ChosenPaxton

I would register with my old team but sadly I came back recently so I must get some from my old skills back first

]Toxic

Oh wow, this post toke you hours I guess. Good job!

sheDao_

Team: Carbon
Line-up: xfam0usx (Leader), kaiz (Sniper), michaeldrk, req, supamen
Comments: Coming hot off the heels of CFGI which was their peak ever since CFSI 2015 Brazil, they've been on a downward trend for a couple of months now. Not so coincidentally, all of their local threats have disappeared which comfortably makes the team the only game in town in North America.
Strongest Map: Mexico
Weakest Map: Port

gl

TheHungedMan

A quick update, Youssef has taken rolenZ place on Anubis Gaming for an unspecified reason ...

The seeding for group stage has been announced today! The format will be double elimination with the first match's map being Black Widow, the second match map being Mexico, the winner's map being Sub Base, the loser's map being Port, and the final map being Ankara ...

A: Anubis Gaming, Qing Jiu, KOWAI, Flipsid3 Tactics

Group A contains by FAR the weakest teams compared to all other groups. Qing Jiu is practically set for sailing out of the group stages since their first match is up against Anubis on Black Widow at which they've improved a LOT on with Linkin back into the mix and with the winner's map being Sub Base which is their best map the chances of them losing the match are also remote as well but even if they do lose the winner's match up there's the group finals on Ankara at which a foreign team has never defeated a chinese team on. Qing Jiu's seeding and map order does not get anymore ideal than it already is but to top the cherry on the cake their competition is beyond weak ...

B: JKOSAV, ruLegends, Carbon, Boss.CFVN

This is one of the more brutal groups seeing as how competitive some of the races are. ruLegends has been at the competitive scene for a long time and so have Carbon as well. Boss represents the most hope Vietnam has to offer on the world championships this year but one of the three teams WILL HAVE TO GO HOME without a doubt because there is no wildcard spot this year! carbon will probably have to experience a hard rematch against Boss on Mexico but the favourite of this group to make it out looks to be ruLegends since they are seeded first against JKOSAV ...

C: EVA Team, Execration, All Gamers, Black Dragons

The match up between All Gamers and Black Dragons could actually be interesting. Black Dragons doesn't have a great track record with Mexico and the recent roster change might not actually be good for All Gamers since they lost two of their biggest players since CFGI which was EVEN and Linkin. EVA Team is whatever since their pretty weak by now and there's not a whole lot of hope to be had from Execration when one of their player (Aries) has a history of being sloppy and one of their younger player (M0DERN) is probably going to be sloppy given his massive inexperience and a probable lack of talent ...

PENTA, Super Valiant Gaming, INTZ, Pacific Wara

Group D is probably the most competitive group by far and has the highest potential for the greatest amount of heartache or grief. Super Valiant has the worst possible seeding but Penta won't be going out in one piece either since their next potential match up will be a wildcard when they'll be facing a relatively unknown team on Sub Base. If Super valiant can prevail on either the first match or potentially on the loser's map then they're golden since they're headed to Ankara in the group finals regardless and as old wisdom would have it, chinese teams are already unbeatable on Ankara but Super Valiant on the other hand raises it to a whole new level since other chinese teams can't manage to beat them at all on that map ...

Samus999

I'm still bummed that INTZ didn't make it to the finals, greatest cf tounament ever nonetheless!