University counter strike is a big part of the esports scene within the UK. With talented players such as Jack “Gizmy” Von Spreckleson making their way through the University Circuit demonstrating the importance of the uni scene. Recently there have been lots of change ups in the university scene with NUEL leaving and UKIC Collegiate establishing themselves as a replacement. Having experts to cover the scene and get in early on the next top prospects is more important than ever.
Sh1n and OneWing, both Bournemouth University alumni are here at EPIC.LAN 44 as part of the commentary team establishing themselves as connoisseurs of uni CS. Crafting their portfolio commentating the likes of UCL, KCL and their own Bournemouth Barracudas.
Sitting down with UKCSGO they talk about the health of the uni circuit and their journey to EPIC.LAN 44 as casters.
Firstly, who am I with and why are you here?
OneWing: I’m OneWing, I’m a CS caster.
Sh1n: I’m sh1n A.K.A Alessandro and I’m also a CS caster.
Both of you are familiar with the university scene, both of you played in the NSE, NUEL and UKIC. What are your thoughts on the state of the uni scene at the moment?
OneWing: I would say it’s not in the best state its ever been, we do get some teams that definitely have potential but I think there’s a bit of a lack of motivation in some cases. When you consider things like Half Natty are playing and they’ve got players like leaf and Gizmy, or they did until this season. A lot of teams feel like they’re playing for second place. So it’s not in its healthiest state right now I think a more level playing field this season we’ll see some improvement.
Sh1n: Yeah I’ll follow up on that I agree. When Half Natty was in its dominant phase, what else can you do but fight for second place. Try to get into that final which is kind of cool but you are going to most likely lose. I think last season towards the end and especially this season with them now gone we’re seeing new teams like Warwick, we saw Swansea last season and we got KCL. So there is some sort of new talent coming through so there’s potential.
Not that long ago NUEL dropped out of doing CS events but also not that long ago UKIC stepped up and started doing collegiate. Do you think UKIC is an adequate replacement or even a better replacement and do you think we’re going to miss NUEL?
OneWing: It’s always sad when we see a TO drop out of CS a wider pool of tournaments gives more opportunities but what UKIC is doing in particular is really good. The path from Collegiate to Div two which teams have capitalised on, obviously Half Natty we spoke about, Surrey were there for a couple seasons, so there is definitely some progression from collegiate to the wider UK scene.
Sh1n: I couldn’t agree more, the way they’ve run UKIC on Faceit has been pretty brilliant. Servers are rarely a problem games getting underway at adequate times. As [OneWing] said the progression from the collegiate towards Div two and then from there you can work your way up even more I think its just a really good ladder.
OneWing: The fact that you can reschedule games means its a lot easier to fit the game time into a hectic uni schedule. We’ve just graduated we know how hard we had to work for it.
Just to round off the uni discussion, which are the teams to look out for at the moment which are the best?
Sh1n: This guy is the biggest fan boy, go on.
OneWing: I think KCL TaoTie
Sh1n: There it is!
OneWing: KCL TaoTie have so much potential, they play such a fun style of CS something that’s completely different from the wider UK scene because it is a group of Chinese students that just play for the love of the game. They are so in sync they are so fun to watch. I’ve pinned them as pre-season favourites I’d say there up there at moment but we are seeing a lot of other great teams, UCL have come on leaps and bounds from the start of last season so they are one to definitely watch.
Sh1n: I want to vouch with UCL because one of the students from Queen Marys, he hosted a uni LAN event in London and UCL and TaoTie were the finalists. UCL also lost last winter UKIC final against bath, so UCL are consistently making finals and they’re currently unbeaten in UKIC so I’ve got my eyes on them. you’ve also got both Warwick teams who are first and second right now, you’ve got Swansea who have fallen off the cliff and then you’ve got other teams like York and Sheffield.
OneWing: A lot of the teams we glossed over at the start of the season at the start of this current season have surprised us like Ponopto the team from Imperial we had no real expectations for them and they are in contention for playoffs.
Sh1n: there are so many teams that are in contention for playoffs it’s very exciting.
On a more personal note, you guys have gotten into casting recently just after you graduated, whats it like to be here at EPIC?
Sh1n: Shout to Zeb, he’s the whole reason we got into this, this guy one day was like please just stream our [Bournemouth University] games and I said “Nah I don’t really feel confident talking to a camera to people.” He was like: “No you gotta do it” so I said: “sure why not.” First stream complete mess massive learning curve, as the weeks gone by, we got better, more people reaching out, I reached out to this man [OneWing] “come join me in the casting booth” he said yes and its been an absolute blast. The fact that we made it to EPIC in less than five/six months. How are we here?
OneWing: We started this as a meme 6 months ago and now were already here at the epicenter of UK counter strike, it feels unreal, it feels like we should not be here.
Sh1n: We’re going to keep trying to make the most of it because obviously why wouldn’t we? We love Counter-Strike, we love what we do. We’re very passionate so we’re going to keep going at it and this is our chance right here!
OneWing: Everyone has been so supportive of us already SeveralSheep, Affinity, Tyler everyone’s just been really supportive in the short time we’ve known them its an amazing community and we hope to be back. It’s our first EPIC and we hope to be back.
Sh1n: Thanks to the unis as well them allowing us to stream their games is a big part of why we managed to get here so props to them.
The post Sh1n and OneWing: “It’s always sad when we see a TO drop out of CS.” appeared first on UKCSGO.
