Hello again guys.
I got alot of great response on the first blog that I wrote in there, so now I thought it is time to give you another one. A lot of things have happened in the past months both in the team and on the cs scene in general. In this blog I will try to wrap up the last months in our team and give you our thoughts on our upcoming tournaments PGS and Dreamhack Bucharest. I will also try to give you my thoughts on the future for the team after we have attended the two events I just mentioned. If you are not interested in 1.6 and our team you should properly skip this blog :)

Latest Online tournaments
In the last blog I described how we had hit the bottom of our game but finally felt that things turned around for us at Copenhagen Games 2012. I think the results in our online tournaments in May and June definitely proved that we were on the right track. The first tournament was the fnatic play league in May. We were drawn into a group with Winfakt.fi, M5, SK, fnatic and myRevenge. We started out by losing to SK and fnatic 16-12. We actually played quite good in both matches and the matches were close so we still felt that we had a chance to go through although it would properly require that we should win the last 3 matches. 3rd match vs. myRevenge was pretty easy and then we got the most important game vs. M5. I think we ended up being down 15-7 and just one round away elimination of the tournament. Somehow we managed to fight back into the match and get 8 straight rounds to end the game at a draw. That match was the first big result with the two new guys zanoj and LOMME and they both proved that they were up for the task. The last match we won quite easy versus WinFakt.fi. Then it all came down to the round difference between us and M5 for the 3rd place in the group and luckily for us we had a much better difference so we proceeded to the playoffs where we would face the 2nd place in the other group which was Lemondogs/WinFakt.se. The match vs. WinFakt.se went extremely well for us, we managed to win 16-12 and 16-6 against a team that beat us at Copenhagen games twice. It was nice to get revenge against them. Next up was the one of big favorites, SK. We started out on train and managed to edge them at 16-14 after a very close map where we played some of the best cs for a very long time. Second map was even better and we won clearly 16-8. Once again we have knocked out one of the big favorites as we did with ESC at Copenhagen games. Just to make it clear how big underdogs we were, the betting tendency in this match was 94% in favor of SK, so, of course, it was a big win for us. It was pretty weird that we were suddenly in the final of a big tournament with almost all the topteams participating. Although it was online, I still think it was a great achievement. The final was against fnatic. The match was not one of our best. I don’t know if it was because it was our first big final for a long time or because we just had a bad day, but things didn’t really work out for us. We ended up losing 16-11 and 16-10 but I think we all thought that we could have done better on the maps and that we had some chances in the match that we missed.

At the same time as we played fnatic play league we were also participating in Balkan league and Asus spring cup. I think overall both tournaments went pretty well for us. We had so many matches in this period with 3 online leagues running at the same time and even in Asus spring cup we played over 15 matches, so there wasn’t much time for practicing with the 2 news guys. The Balkan league tournament went pretty smooth for us until the final. In the final we ended up losing to our Danish friends from Wikipediots. I think they were just better on that day. In the Asus spring tournament we played pretty well. The teams were much better than in the Balkan league tournament. After a long tournament we ended up in the semi final versus Wikipediots. Once again they defeated us, this time 2-1. We won the first map as big as 16-3 but then things started to went bad for us. We made a lot of mistakes and there was’nt the right timing in our tactics. The match definitely proved that we needed to use more time on practice and getting our tactics right. In the 3rd place decider we won 2-1 against Virtus.Pro after an overtime win on the 3rd map. I think that was an acceptable result for our new team. In the summer we played the Inuria Summer championship. We played it during our summer vacation so there was not any practice for the tournament and we also used a couple of stand-ins in some of the matches. Nevertheless we ended up in the final and once again we lost against our fellow Danes from Wikipediots. There are not much to say about that match. We hadn’t practiced anything during the summer and they were just better again. At the same time as the Inuria tournament we played Asus summer cup. Once again it was a long tournament with more than 10 matches. We ended up beating some pretty decent teams like KerchNet, USSR and place2play on our way to the final. In final we had already secured a spot for the Asus final battle of the year, but there was still the title and a little more money to play for. We ended up facing KerchNet, a team that we had beaten pretty solid in the group stage previous in the tournament. The final was played as BO3. We won Tuscan pretty big but then we got owned on nuke so it all came to forge. We hadn’t practiced forge at that time, but we managed to get the game to overtime where we unfortunately lost. Overall the last online tournaments ended up with four 2nd places and one 3rd place. I think it is acceptable but we were a little bit disappointed that we didn’t at least won one of the tournaments.

New player, raalz
After the summer break Snappi decided to step down. He was moving out and was about to start on a new education. Besides that he also had a job, so there was no time for practicing and traveling. The replacement for Snappi was quickly found and there were no doubt in our minds about who it should be. We had been watching raalz since Copenhagen games where he played absolutely outstanding and we knew that after the summer break he would have time to play full again, so we offered him the spot and luckily for us he accepted the offer. Raalz has brought in a lot of fun and talent to our team. I’m actually quite impressed by the way he plays at an age of only 17. His aiming is very calm and steady and he has a great attitude towards learning the tactics of our game. Socially he also seems to fit in well. I’m pretty sure that the addition of raalz is one of the best player additions we have ever made to the team. So far its seems like that he has fit in perfectly.

PGS Exponor 2012
Right now we are in Portugal to play the PGS Exponor 2012 tournament. We have looked forward to attend this tournament for some time now and it is the first time in Portugal for all us. As you might have seen the tournament will only feature 8 teams. Personally I think it is sad that so many teams pulled out of it although it will, of course, increase our chances to go far in the tournament. It is no secret that we have been quite lucky with the group draw so we accept no less than advancing into the semi finals. We have tried to practice as hard as we could for this tournament but It seems like it is really hard to find good practice. Basically the only teams we have been able to practice against is fnatic, NaVi and some Bulgarian and Romanian teams practicing for DH Bucharest. On basis of those practices it is hard to say where we stand before this tournament. The addition of raalz to team brings in a lot of talent and eager to win but also a lot of inexperience and with LOMME and zanoj also having their international lan debut; inexperience could definitely be a problem for us. It will be the job for me and BERRY to provide the experience when things get hot in the matches. With that said I think we are in good form both as a team and individual, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t be able to make some damage on teams such as NaVi, fnatic and p2p. To wrap things up I think that we should be satisfied if we end up in top3 but I might have a different view on this when we get home and evaluate on the matches.



DH Bucharest
Only 4 days after we get back from Portugal we will once again head of to the airport. This time we will attend the Dreamhack event in Bucharest. This will be the first time in Bucharest for us, and the tournament looks really interesting with 16 teams and a lot of them from the local region. It is always fun when you play local teams and I’m really looking forward to play against some teams that you don’t normally face at big tournaments. I think most of them are actually very skilled and some of them have made some upsets to the top teams in the past so we have to take care and not underestimate any of the teams we meet. With the experience we hopefully have gathered from the PGS event I sure hope that this Dreamhack event will be our time to shine and hopefully we can go all the way to final. If you look at the teams attending the event I think we have enough talent and skill to be a strong contender for going to the final.

Future, CS:GO?
When we get back from Bucharest we have a decision to make. Will we make the switch to CS:GO as the team we have now, will we split up and all retire or will some of us go for a CS:GO adventure. I can’t really say what will happen but if we make the switch to CS:GO as a team, I don’t think we will stay with the exact same lineup. Personally I just wish that we could continue with 1.6 for a couple of more years and that all the tournaments would come back to the game. I know that this will properly never happen, but I think that is the feeling that all of the players in our team have right now. None of us is really impressed by the new game; the only thing that is nice about the new game is the huge activity by teams and tournaments that the game has brought in. It is nice to see so many tournaments and that’s, of course, appealing to us but as the game is right now I find it hard to see us playing it.

We have qualified for another 1.6 tournament called Asus Final battle of the year; the tournament is in Kiev, Ukraine, later this year but so far there hasn’t been much information about it. I hope that the tournament will be played and that we can attend it; maybe as the last 1.6 tournament.

If you are interested you can always follow us in AnexiseSports on facebook at www.facebook.com/AnexiseSports
or on twitter at www.twitter.com/#!/AnexisEsports
We also hope that we can put out more stuff on our YouTube channel myANEXIS. Both interviews and some highlights from our matches should be coming up at www.youtube.com/user/myANEXIS

Best regards to all of you, Nicolaj ‘Nuggi’ Larsen
www.anexis.de