What's worth mentioning - mASCULINE_MANS are the first clan in wealthy EuroCup history that has won EC twice in a row! These guys are a monuments of CB EC. They are on winning streak of 13 games at the moment with very big chance to continue. I've caught one of the key players from the Champions:





Second EuroCup, second win. Your team is the first in ET history to defend the Champions title. How do you feel about that?

I'm really proud of my team. We don't have many "allstars and known" players except Squall, and we still managed to reach double EC victory with a good teamplay. Last season was a shock for most of the people, I think. We were new faces in high scene and no one believed we can make it to the top5, but we did. Nerds got rolled one after another. So, we were expected to win this season also. Outcome is a bit dissapointment because we thought we can win without map losses.

Can you rate your teammates? How did they perform?

Players kept their places and worked for the team, except chmpp. As you saw, we replaced him before the final. Taking Vanhaomena was very genious decision from our leader ENSAM. I think the outcome would have been different with chmpp...

What did you expect at the beginning? Did top3 meet your expectations ?

We didn't expect anything but golden pocal. It was clear from the beginning our toughest opponent is ECW. We managed to beat them in every practice war, so we were very confident of our victory.

The first EuroCup Final has been ruined by some nerds. How did that affect on your team at all?

We were really angry about the delay it caused, but it didn't affect on our playing any way.

What will you remember from EC XX?

RCONhacktool v1.0 EuroCup Qualifiers were different this time. What do you think about extended version ?

You should direct invite more teams next time. Qualifiers took too much time and it was obvious from the beginning, which teams will survive.

How do you rate admins job?

Admins did very nice job overall. If I had some questions, I got answers right away. They were fair during the tournament and did the right decisions, as far I remember.

What is the future of Masculine Mans?

We will finish ESL with this lineup, but the future is wide open. I'll take a break because I need to study for the matriculation examination. Not sure whether they just replace me or do something else. Only time will tell.

You're going to play in EC Allstars Game. Do you think its a good idea to summarize the cup?

Really nice idea. Having some fun with gaming mates :). Hopefully it will be more entertaining than our EC games.

WHAT HAS ACTUALLY HAPPENED DURING EC XX SEASON?

EuroCup Promotion Video

At the beginning, thanks to Homer's idea, several players from top teams met with supervisors to discuss a mappool for ET EC XX season. Missile_b3 and snatch3 were presented. Because it was told that supply, goldrush, radar, bremen and delivery will be in the mappool, players were voting whether they want adlernest or missile_b3 as the last map. Voting score was 6:5 for adlernest, hence it completed the mappool.

2 epic minutes on the meeting

What came next? Qualifiers system was different. 4 clans were directly invited to EuroCup, 16 clans were invited to EC Qualifiers. Directly invited teams created poule 1. Qualifier teams made 8 pairs. 8 winners created 4 pairs. Winners from "winners" - clans who won 1st game created poule 2. Losers from "winners" created poule 3. Then we had8 "losers" - clans who lost 1st match. They created 4 pairs. Winners from "losers" created poule 4, while losers from "losers" were automatically put into one of the OpenCup Premier League groups. Each EuroCup group consisted of 1 clan from each poule. All invites were announced on CB Radio Show lead by Ins0mnia and Nex.

CB Radio Show

In the first round of Qualifier, the most eye-catching game was between asd. and sublime Gaming. Many of people read this game as the rivalry between BaggieZ and Hype.

After 3-map thriller, asd. appeared to be a better team and secured 4:2 victory. Another 2 interesting games took part in 2nd round of Qualifiers. Returning Belgian stars from Team EDiT were clashing against Cortana for an EuroCup spot. The longest game in XX edition was finished with 5:3 score. Also TAG had an interesting battle against glitz. It appeared that odds being in favour of them were set correctly. Better tactically prepared TAG won 4:2.

Yet then it appeared that randomers wanted to leave EuroCup and play OpenCup instead. Because they would have been in poule 4, it meant that 1 more spot in groupstage was available. So, every clan who lost their 2 games in EuroCup Qualifiers had another chance to get into the groupstage. Cortana, TurboApinat, system6 and _underscore played small EuroCup Qualifier Tournament. 1-mapper games between interested clans started at 20.30 cet on the last day of September. Crowd's favourites - Cortana - didn't have a rough start. They lost their first game with system6. Those guys were clearly the underdogs but they proved they were worth inviting to qualifiers. It appeared that the last game of Croatians against TurboApinat will decide, what will happen next. Victory of Finnish team would give them the last free spot for EC groupstage. Hovewer, losing this match would cause an equal situation between 3 clans. Supply map, played in that game, was absolutely thrilling and emotions could reach a peak. Fins set a good time on attack. 2 minutes left on the clock at round 2- they seemed to be in control of everyting. But then Croatians started their show. Clock was thicking and they were quickly pushing their offensive lines further. All in all, they won the game!

Standings of tournament #1:

1. Cortana 2-1 4:2
1. TurboApinat 2-1 4:2
1. system6 2-1 4:2
4. _underscore 0-3 0:6

Legend: matches won/lost rounds won:lost

Because 3 clans had exactly the same scores between each other, we had to start 2nd tournament with 3 clans this time. During first match against Fins, system6 lost their best player, phille. Their performance wasn't that good anymore. They lost 2 games in a row and again, TurboApinat versus Cortana was a decider game! And again, Croatians secured the win and the last spot in EuroCup XX groupstage, after playing 7 games!

Standings of tournament #1:

1. Cortana 2-0 4:0
2. TurboApinat 1-1 2:2
3. system6 0-2 0:4

GROUPSTAGE

Group A

mASCULINE_MANS didn't have any problems with winning this group. First place without a single round lost. Hovewer, sublime Gaming has unexpectedly finished groupstage on 2nd place, granting them a spot in plaoffs. The only team from poule lower than 2nd ( 4th in fact!) that made their way to knock out phase. In the clash against blurred vision they were on underdog position. Hovewer, Polish team played without their captain, edain, lost the game 0:4 and finished groupstage on 3rd place. Last place for glitz which couldn't get together after a loss against TAG in Qualifiers.

Group B

That was the only group where directly invited team didn't end on 1st place in the group. Moreover, bossid had to play a decider map against european elite to win the game. EC winners ! ! ! have easily passed through the groupstage, winning all games 4:0. At the end - invitium without a single round won. During the match between european elite and invitium, riseye was kicked by "MULTIHACK #70762". Later, it appeared to be a false kick - bug.

Group C

C like Celsus you can say. Those guys put up a nice game and vast amount of decent attacks against TAG. A good school how you should build your offence lines put up by both clans but with game won by Polish team. Third place, after decider against xt6 Gaming ET for Team EDiT which didn't show sportsmanship and forfeited last game after knowing that they got hardly any chance to progress to the next stage of the cup.

Group D

Half of the matches in group D needed a decider map to find out who will go sleep in a good humour. Winner of this group, Team YoYoTech FiF needed a third map to show a supremacy over 2nd team Sleeperz and 3rd asd.. Cortana, the team which played the most qualifiers stole a map to asd. but it was all they could do in this season. Hovewer, despite knowing that they are out of the competition already, they finished the cup with honour and pleased spectators once more.

PLAYOFFS

In Upper Bracket 1 we had mASCULINE_MANS beating bossid 4:0, which looked almost like Finland versus Estonia, with the exception of Ati_ on Estonian side. Team YoYoTech FiF offered a decider third time. And again, it was successful, this time against TAG. Team Celsus has totally dominated Sleeperz in the first map, showing that their tactics weren't occasionally successful. Yet, on supply rat's awesome action reversed the situation and lead to a decider. Here, Polish team was sucessful and could prepare for the game against EC winners ! ! ! who unexpectedly needed 3 maps against sublime Gaming to prove they deserve a spot in the next round.

In the first round of Loser Bracket TAG has eliminated bossid with the Superstar Night. That's probably his worst season since long time (ever?!). That meant the first clan with direct invitation was out. In another game, Sleeperz beat the black horse, sublime Gaming 4:0.

Meanwhile we had two 3-mappers in Upper Bracket Round 2. The kings of deciders - Team YoYoTech FiF were clashing against the defending Champions - mASCULINE_MANS. When the result was 2:2 and the game was 50/50, you could have expected a red-hot game in a third map. And it was such! First loss of decider by Team YoYoTech FiF, first loss of a map and having serious troubles mASCULINE_MANS. Final outcome 4:2 for Fins. In the second game 50/50 match between EC winners ! ! ! and Team Celsus. A bit chaotic and close game ended up with 4:2 score for european team.

In Loser Bracket 2 we had two pairs of teams which already met in the groupstage. Team YoYoTech FiF were competing against Sleeperz while Team Celsus were fighting against TAG. Revenge by both teams shown that the fight is really close in this season. Sleeperz and TAG passed through to meet each other in the next round. One team had to cheer up their 4th place while another had a guaranteed spot in the EuroCup XX podium. It was TAG which took a place in Loser Bracket Final.

mASCULINE_MANS and EC winners ! ! ! met each other in the Upper Bracket Final. First map -sw_goldrush_te- went smooth for Fins. When they set a time of 3.54 on adlernest, most of viewers expected 4:0 score. However european team didn't give up - Meez delivered documents to the transmitter in 2.24 and we had a decider! It appeared to be radar. As someone said once: "playing Fins on radar is like fighting against English team in Champions League". Tremendous attack by Fins totally crashed defence lines of their opponent. 3.01 time couldn't have been beaten. 4:2 and Fins continued their winning streak.

EC winners ! ! ! was forced to change their roster due to NuggaN's computer troubles. But they came up with the king of the colt - teKoa. Finally, very good performance, their best in this season made TAG lose their game without a map won.

The Grand Final was supposed to be played on 14 december. Hovewer, IP and password of a server was shared and we received several attempts of connecting and joining any team. After getting another Clanbase admin Rayzed, it seemed to be ok now. Hovewer, players started to be surprisingly kicked via rcon.

Explanation what has happened

Personally, I don't think anyone could be prepared for that. That could have happened on any game.

Lots of nerves and negative emotions could have been seen in reaction of sNoOp who declared his ET career is over. Hovewer, everything was set up again and players could clash in the Grand Final! mASCULINE_MANS with one lineup change - Vanhaomena instead of chmpp and EC winners ! ! ! waiting to release their lineup till the end. Fins shown radar is their home. Furthermore they were able to hold EC winners ! ! ! very long on supply defence. Their attack was more successful and they took 2nd trophy back to their place.

War report from EC XX Grand Final

AWARDS

It has time to select Dream Team and Underrated Team of EuroCup XX. By the voting of 25 people ( 2 from each clan from playoffs, 1 from each clan which ended EuroCup XX adventure on groupstage , except european elite whose members wasn't reachable for few days or refused to do it and 2 cup supervisors) here's Dream Team of EuroCup XX:

Squall - 21
sNoOp - 17
perfo - 15
Night - 11
Sample - 9
mAus - 8
teKoa - 8

Hence the Most Valuable Player award goes to Squall !

And The Underrated Team:

Griim - 10
Xanah - 8
freeze - 7
numeric - 5
Worm - 5
Jere - 5
kapaa -5

All votes casted

Legend: 1. Dream Team; 2. Underrated Team

Dream Team - ranking

Underrated Team - ranking

Additional awards:

Best trickjumper - hayaa
Punkbugster award - riseye
Wooden spoon award - glitz & invitium
Thriller award - Team YoYoTech FiF
Road to hell award - Cortana

Furthermore, I have created CB EC Experts League. Here is a spearhead:

1. shpek - 42
2. Jere - 39
3. chelm - 35

4. Homer - 33
5. Worm - 30
5. FUZZ - 30
5. DOUBLE NIGGER 30

CB EC Experts League ranking

CB EC Experts League - ranking by average points

Rankings do not include people with 0 points.

We also had Cbooky running. Here are the results:

1. shpek - € 18.055 result
2. Morin / UKKOMETSO - € 17.167 result
3. Homer - € 14.371 result
4. dio / fail - € 12.361 result
5. Presbyter - € 12.124 result

EC ALLSTARS GAME

At the end of the cup, both supervisors created own teams based on players who participated in XX season of Clanbase EuroCup. EuroCup Allstars Match will take place on Tuesday, 29th of December. With a huge amount of coverage by ETTV and radio shoutcasters, spectators will be surely pleased with the amount of stars who will participate in that event. Without further ado, I present you the roster for Tuesday's Allstars Game:

Team Homer	Team Killerboy
Information
Recent Matches	Recent Matches
Match Information
DATE: Tuesday, 29th December
TIME: 21:30 CET
ADMIN: Homer (r)

Show Team Homer’s and Team Killerboy's cup history +
Clicking this link will show the complete cup history of these two clans.

mAus	Worm
Lightning	Sample
teKoa	Squall
zerender	olBaa
w3st	ENSAM
kARn4J	wiaderko

Show the expected lineup -
Clicking this link will show expected lineup for both clans

Previous Wars

bv - Have not played any matches in this cup yet.

Team Killerboy - Have not played any matches in this cup yet.

THANK YOU'S

At last but not least, I would like to say "thank you" for a couple of guys who helped me around during this season. First of all, thank you Killerboy, my co-supervisor for your time spent for EC, especially at the beginning. Thank you admins - mundus, helication, Gold0rak, h3ll for refing matches. Thank you Bluman for your all banners. Thank you whole GamesTV Crew for your co-operation during whole season- without you XX season would be poor. Thank you Skeit for giving me and my co-supervisor rights for an ETTV server for CB usage purposes. Thank you taggers members for your newsposts at your page. Thank you beggin for a couple of newsposts on crossfire. Thank you ag0n for banner I used at every cf newspost. Thank you rockit guys for your posts and previews about EC. Thank you all shoutcasters for your radio commentary - it certainly was a nice part of coverage. Thank you players- for signing up and playing this season. Thank you spectators for watching, listening and reading EuroCup Show. My time in Clanbase has just come to an end. Goodbye lads!