cs_summit preview

cs_summit, where eight teams will battle for $150,000, is set to kick off on April 20 with the first round of the Upper Bracket. Here is our preview of the event taking place in Los Angeles, California.

As a medium-sized event, cs_summit will mostly gather teams from around 10th to 20th place in our ranking, barring fourth-placed SK and the new EnVyUs, who lost their points due to parting ways with the majority of their roster.

From April 20-23, eight teams will fight for their share of a $150,000 prize pot in the double-elimination, best-of-three playoffs, starting with the first round of the Upper Bracket:

SK	vs. EnVyUs
OpTic	vs. Cloud9
Gambit	vs. GODSENT
NiP	vs. Liquid

For more information about the Los Angeles event, head over to our viewer's guide, where you'll find the schedule and the talent lineup.

In the following preview, we take a look at all teams' recent results and form as well the most interesting storylines, such as lineup changes.

Ratings used are from the past three months offline
* indicates online rating in the past three months due to no offline attendances

SK (#4)	Age	Rating
Marcelo "coldzera" David	22	1.27
Fernando "fer" Alvarenga	25	1.17
João "felps" Vasconcellos	20	1.11
Epitacio "TACO" de Melo	22	0.90
Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo	25	0.89

Offline results in 2017
9th-11th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
11th-12th	IEM Katowice
2nd	DreamHack Masters Las Vegas
3rd-4th	ELEAGUE Major

Many teams attending cs_summit have been struggling to make their mark on the scene in the past few months, and SK are no exception to that with back-to-back group stage exits.

That had never happened to the Brazilians before, and it's hard to say where exactly their struggles stem from, whether it's only FalleN's dip in form or a combination of bigger issues coming from their playstyle changes since felps' addition.

coldzera & co. are the favorites at cs_summit

The in-game leader's disappointing form since Lincoln "fnx" Lau's departure is a problem nonetheless, as he took a turn from being the second-best player of 2016 to a somewhat non-factor in the span of just a few months.

He, and SK by extension, has a chance to gain back some of the lost confidence at the Summit, where they won't face any elite-level teams and as such are clear favorites. 

NiP (#11)	Age	Rating
William "draken" Sundin	21	1.05
Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg	28	1.00
Richard "Xizt" Landström	26	0.98
Adam "friberg" Friberg	25	0.93
Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund	26	0.81
Björn "THREAT" Pers (coach)

Offline results in 2017
9th-11th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
9th-10th	IEM Katowice
5th-8th	DreamHack Masters Las Vegas

NiP's disappointing results towards the end of 2016 and at the beginning of 2017 saw them bring in a full-time AWPer in draken, after Jacob "pyth" Mourujärvi and f0rest had been splitting the sniping duties between them for an entire year.

That change has not really paid off in terms of results just yet, as NiP exited StarSeries in the groups with losses to G2, HellRaisers, and fnatic. There were positives to take from the Swedes' showing in Kiev, however, as friberg and f0rest were stable players, and draken did fairly well for his first event with the team.

draken won't be under as much pressure due to more forgiving competition

GeT_RiGhT continues on a downwards spiral, though, and there was no indication of his old self at any point during the tournament, which has become a worrying trend in the past few months.

It'll be interesting to see how well the draken-infused NiP will be able to do at the smaller-sized event, where the newest addition won't be under as much pressure and will have had a lot more experience with his new squad.

Cloud9 (#13)	Age	Rating
Timothy "autimatic" Ta	20	1.10
Jake "Stewie2K" Yip	19	1.00
Mike "shroud" Grzesiek	22	0.91
Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert	26	0.85
Braxton "swag" Pierce	20	N/A
Soham "valens" Chowdhury (coach)

Offline results in 2017
9th-10th	IEM Katowice
9th-12th	DreamHack Masters Las Vegas

In the past few weeks, Cloud9 went through turmoil due to Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham being sidelined due to health issues, which caused him to miss several online matches in which their coach, valens, had to step in.

As the AWPer is still recovering, Valve-banned swag has been allowed to stand in for Cloud9 at cs_summit, which will be his first significant offline event since late 2015.

The #freeswag spam is inevitable

The squad will have to deal with missing a full-time sniper. If Cloud9 don't want to change too much for just one event, Skadoodle's duties will likely fall upon swag, who proved himself quite accomplished with the weapon in his career.

As the 20-year-old continues to play actively, even if not in a team, rustiness is out of the question, but a stand-in situation always creates issues in strategies and communication. Cloud9 have never been very tactical, however, so they should be able to handle the switch-up.

Gambit (#14)	Age	Rating
Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev	27	1.16
Abay "HObbit" Khasenov	22	1.02
Rustem "mou" Telepov	25	0.97
Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko	29	0.95
Mihail "Dosia" Stolyarov	28	0.91
Mikhaylo "Kane" Blagin (coach)

Offline results in 2017
12th-14th	SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals
5th-8th	DreamHack Masters Las Vegas
5th-8th	ELEAGUE Major

As outlined in our "Gambit's rise to the top10" article, Zeus's squad had been constantly improving after every event, clinching two small titles and two quarter-final finishes at big events.

However, their showing at StarSeries was sub-par to say the least, winning only against TyLoo narrowly while losing to fnatic, FaZe, and more importantly CLG on Cobblestone.

Gambit lost their Cobblestone streak at StarSeries

Prior to the Kiev event, the CIS-based lineup focused on their map pool to have more strengths than just Cobblestone and Overpass, but they seem to have lost their "mojo" on the former in the process. 

cs_summit will give them another chance to show us the progress they have made on their map pool and make up for lost ground. It won't be an easy task, as they'll face several teams around their level, but it will certainly be easier than than the one posed by any of the three big events where they have played this year.

OpTic (#15)	Age	Rating
Will "RUSH" Wierzba	22	1.00
Óscar "mixwell" Cañellas	21	0.94
Keith "NAF" Markovic	19	0.90
Jason "jasonR" Ruchelski	22	0.86	*
Tarik "tarik" Celik	21	0.75
James "hazed" Cobb (coach)

Offline results in 2017
11th-12th	IEM Katowice
9th-12th	DreamHack Masters Las Vegas
12th-14th	ELEAGUE Major

Ever since Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz left OpTic in early February after their poor placing at the ELEAGUE Major, the team have been without a stable fifth.

Spencer "Hiko" Martin's and Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu's stint with OpTic came to a quick end with two more group stage exits at DreamHack Masters Las Vegas and IEM Katowice.

Since then, the GreenWall has been using jasonR as a stand-in, and former CLG player hazed is now trying out as coach. That effectively makes cs_summit OpTic's debut and puts them in a similar position as their North American rivals Cloud9.

Liquid (#18)	Age	Rating
Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski	19	1.20
Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken	17	1.15
Josh "jdm64" Marzano	26	0.92
Peter "stanislaw" Jarguz	23	0.88
Nick "nitr0" Cannella	21	0.81
Wilton "zews" Prado (coach)

Offline results in 2017
9th-11th	ELEAGUE Major

Much like Cloud9 and OpTic, Liquid are heading into cs_summit with a new player, though in their case it's a permanent solution as opposed to a temporary replacement. Twistzz came into the team following Jacob "Pimp" Winneche's departure earlier this month, and, according to the announcement, will fill the lurker role.

On paper, the roster now packs a fair amount of individual skill, although jdm64 hasn't looked like himself for a while now and nitr0 had a particularly poor performance at the Major.

cs_summit will be Twistzz's debut with Liquid

On the other hand, three months have passed since their last offline event and the entry-fragger has been looking strong online, with a 1.13 rating across Liquid's 20 matches in ESL Pro League, while EliGE is one of the very best players in the league.

Missing most of the best teams in the world, cs_summit will serve as a great testing ground for Liquid's new lineup, which has another event the following weekend, DreamHack Open Austin.

GODSENT (#23)	Age	Rating
Jonas "Lekr0" Olofsson	23	1.16
Simon "twist" Eliasson	22	1.12
Andreas "znajder" Lindberg	23	1.03
Markus "pronax" Wallsten	25	0.86
Joakim "disco doplan" Gidetun	21	0.83
Alexander "rdl" Redl (coach)

Offline results in 2017
9th-11th	ELEAGUE Major

Yet another team who will debut in Los Angeles are GODSENT, who lost two players, Jesper "JW" Wecksell and Robin "flusha" Rönnquist, in the aftermath of the old fnatic squad getting back together again in February.

twist returned to his former team in that deal alongside disco doplan, who wasn't quite able to adjust to the new environment in fnatic, where he didn't have the same freedom as he had in Epsilon.

GODSENT are under pressure to perform well

While the Swedes had over two months to practice for cs_summit, their online results aren't very encouraging as they finished 5th-8th in two qualifiers in a row (for StarSeries and DreamHack Open Austin) with losses to EnVyUs and Vega Squadron.

They also started ECS Season 3 with two losses, which doesn't bode well for them in terms of upcoming LAN events, especially as they don't participate in ESL Pro League. That puts pressure on GODSENT to perform at cs_summit; it's unlikely the Swedish squad will get more invites in the near future if they place poorly.

EnVyUs (#37)	Age	Rating
Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom	22	1.15
Alexandre "xms" Forté	19	1.13
Cédric "RpK" Guipouy	27	1.11
Vincent "Happy" Schopenhauer	25	0.91
Christophe "SIXER" Xia	25	0.71
Damien "maLeK" Marcel (coach)

EnVyUs are possibly the biggest question mark leading up to cs_summit, as it's an entirely new team comprising bits and pieces of the French scene, including two players of the former EnVyUs roster, two of the previous G2 lineup, and an up-and-coming xms.

Online, EnVyUs have had mixed results in the ESL Pro League, in which they have a 7-11 record and have taken maps off G2, Virtus.pro, and FaZe. They barely missed out on a spot at StarSeries with an overtime loss on the third map of the deciding series with HellRaisers.

The new EnVyUs are looking to prove their worth in LA

EnVy have taken a particular liking to Train and Cache online, where they have got a lot of their wins over the past two and a half months, which will help them in a tough first match-up versus SK. 

It's still hard to see the Frenchmen pass that test, especially as they can't seem to be able to crack Cobblestone, which means they'll almost definitely have to fight through the lower bracket.

Similarly to GODSENT, EnVyUs need a good result in Los Angeles to regain some of the points they lost in the shuffle and start getting invited to events again. Otherwise, it could take months before they get another chance.

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