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Last weekend our Counter-Strike: Source squad attended the Opale Arena 2009, a LAN in Oye-Plage, in northern France. About 400 Attendees overall and 20 teams were competing in the CSS compo with a cash prize of 1400 euros and a classic map list : de_tuscan, de_dust2, de_train, de_nuke, de_inferno.

The favourites were the mixteam Meet The Wall, consisting of 4 members of the French national team (Shox & SmithZz from VERYGAMES, Shokkk from redLine and bistouflyy from essentiaL), who take part last week to the ENC final in Cologne against the German team. Their 5^th was Shox’s girlfriend, Amandine, member of the female CSS squad of essentiaL.

Groupstage

After a huge delay (the reason will be explained later), the tournament began on Saturday evening around 22:30. The 18 remaining teams, 2 teams whom actually left the LAN after the multiple network problems, were divided into 4 groups. As High Seed, we inherited a single block, with the following teams: Mixtape, EOS and Sodalis.
Our first game is played against Mixtape on de_dust2, a map that we generally do not really play. The match quickly folded in our favor with 16-04  . Other scores for the group stage were also score quickly made with a 16-01 on de_train versus Sodalis and 16-01 versus EOS on de_inferno.

Results:

• Team Sypher 16:04 Mixtape
• Team Sypher 16:01 Eos
• Team Sypher 16:01 Sodalis

Play-offs

Coming into the final stages, the tree was a double elimination bo1. The quarterfinals and half finals were also played the night from Saturday to Sunday, around 4:00 in the morning. As for maps, they were decided through a system of veto.
In the quarter finals, we confront Now4ll on de_nuke, a map on which we are usually comfortable. The score is dry, the game folded in a minimum time: 16-00.
In the semifinals of the winner bracket, we are opposed to the team NITROSE another team claiming a place in the top3 and playing currently EAS.fr. We expected a real first test. The map is de_nuke, and after a knife round well negotiated, we begin T and are winning the pistol round, and … all other rounds. Score a passage to terrorists: 15-00. The second side starts with a pistol round little lost and by two eco rounds. Armed in the first round, we put the round we wanted to win the match. Final score: 16-03.

After those first games that were rather easy, we went to bed around 6:30 in the morning to get up at … 9:30. After a light breakfast and some Deathmatch, the much anticipated match in the winner bracket final versus Meet The Wall was started, and this on de_inferno. We once again win the knife round and have the privilege of beginning CT. The pistol round is won after the bomb was planted in B. Shox is found in 3vs1, eliminates 2 CT before being killed by the last SYPHER living who defused the bomb. The first round was won eco and it quickly leads 2-0. Our opponents got back quickly, mostly due to mistakes on our part. Wewon nevertheless the first side, on the lowest scores of 8-7.
We turn T and again we win the pistol round and the majority of rounds that follow to conduct 7-1. Having more than 1 round to put for the win, we release the pressure, committing multiple errors and the opponent gains the attacks easier. 15-8, 15-9 … 15-15! The overtime following is a reflection of our end of T-side: bad. We no longer find our game and are destabilized by their meteoric rise. OT: 0-5 and 1-1. Final score: 16-21.

Results:

• Team Sypher 16:00 Now4ll
• Team Sypher 16:03 Nitrose
• Team Sypher 16:21 Meet the wall

Consolation Final

So we are propelled into the lower bracket final. But again big problems arrive, the games have in fact taken long delays after our match, followed by the players. We must therefore wait until 5 games are played! The wait lasted several hours, and everything being closed around the  LAN for beverages and food, we had to eat leftovers biscuits from the night before at dinner … 5 hours after our match winner bracket finals, we finally play the lower bracket final, hungry and tired…
We replay the NITROSE who just won their 2 games of the lower bracket, the map is de_dust2. First sign of fatigue, we lose our first round of the tournament knife and begin T. Starting of with the first rounds, the opposing players were motivated due to their last games, from our side communication problems were causing a bad start. The side has won in a close9-6 . Going into CT, it went a little better, and rounds are made easier: 7-3 and this making the final score 16-09.

Results:

• Team Sypher 16:09 Nitrose

Grand Final

After a ten minute break and we played the first map of the grand final once again versus Meet The Wall on de_nuke, which is our map. The French begin CT (they choose the side on our map, played in 1st). We lost the pistol round, and in the same state of fatigue we had in the previous match,  rounds were taken against us … Not much to say except that they played better on this map then we did. The match was nothing like the winner’s bracket, unable to find our game it ended with a tough 03-12. Changing to CT side hope wass gone, we are only able to get a round and resulting in a 16-04 final score.

Results:

• Team Sypher 04:16 Meet the wall

Final standings

• Meet The Wall – 700EURO
• Team Sypher – 420 EURO
• Nitrose – 280 EURO

Our Conclusion

Following this brief summary of our journey throughout the tournament, I’ll finish this review by a small explanatory note on the problems the LAN had.

We arrived on Friday evening and only receive our screens on Saturday morning-early afternoon, the switch connecting us to the main network was only in the late afternoon. Following this, the network was crashing, the tables were disconnected one after the other and admins unable to find a solution … It was a player who took things in hand, with the help of another person, also a player, after re-connecting everything, changing cables and switches, they managed to restore the network. Afterwards, with the servers still not configured correctly,they had to call RegnaM which, by telephone, told the admins how to set their servers. After the servers were resolved properly, SmithZz took the tournament in his hands and made the seeds, groups and led the tournament with his teammates as well as ours.
Basically, the LAN-admins were absent and most incompetent, if this wasen’t already enough several power cuts took place, leading to some power-switches and screens burned …
A LAN that was worth a visit for the cashprize and … that’s all