Incredible Connection is currently readying their next One Night Cup. The next Cup will be a Counter Strike Source event, and it will have a limit of 16 teams. The format will be single elimination.

IC is currently looking for some admin help, so feel free to email quick@incredible.co.za, if you’d like apply to assist.

The One Night Cup prizing will come in the form of 5x 5GB Prepaid Accounts for first place, while second place will have 5x 3GB accounts, from Afrihost.

More information here.

Incredible Connection will kick 2010 off with a new One Night Cup series. The league will boast an Afrihost partnership which sees prizing in the form of 5GB prepaid ADSL accounts for first place, and 3GB ADSL prepaid accounts for second place, per player, per team.

The competition takes place on the 31st of January and it will involve Call of Duty 4 teams. The registration opens on the 25th of January for these teams, and there are only 19 slots available. The league structure will see 16 official teams where 3 will be substitutes in case players drop out.

Following the CoD4 Cup will be a Quake Live Duel Tournament. The QL tournament will allow for 32 players to be accepted into a best of 3 single elimination format tournament. The first place winners will receive 5GB ADSL accounts, while second place holders will receive 3GB accounts. This competition will take place on the 14th of February.

Incredible is hoping to then host another competition after this, it will involve an undecided/unannounced game. qu1ksh0t, the host, is planning to do something with Counter Strike Source, however these teams are really bad at signing up for events. So, CSS players, if you’re keen email qu1k@incredible.co.za to pre-book your spot.

You can also email qu1k@incredible.co.za for additional information on the tournament.

Over the past few days we’ve been chatting to the guys from BloodMoney, a new online tournament with the big M involved.

The ‘big M’, you might ask? Money, money money.

That’s right, BloodMoney are hosting online gaming competitions where competitors can win cash back for their efforts in destroying faces.

The tournament will be team-based (for certain games), and then individually-based for other games.

To allow for prize money, the hosts are simply asking that each player enters by handing in a fee of only R10.

It’s a winner-take-all style tournament, and this essentially means that the winner will claim all of the cash. All of the cash being, entrance fees minus 10 percent (labour, hosting, bla bla).

At the moment sponsors are minimum, however Square Eyed Computers will host games and supply servers.

BloodMoney are expecting to host games throughout the entire day. It’s loads of fun for the holidays when you’re bored.

Prizing will not be limited to money, as gamers can win spot prizes for extraordinary achievements such as outrageous kill-to-death ratios.

The contact address for the main-man behind the name can be found here, while the web address can be find right over – here.

Questions are arising, I can see it already. We’ll try answer these to the best of our ability.

1. Skill levels

There will be various skill levels and various skill level servers. This means that good players will win, mediocre players will win and n00bs will win. BloodMoney will judge your skill level to ensure that no one good sneaks into bad-player games.

Prizing for the skill level games change as Elite players will win more of the cash then the n00bs – this is because they are Elite.

2. Cheating

Banned on spot, ’nuff said. Oh, and thanks for your cash, cheating douche.

3. Games played

CSS
DotA
CoD 4

These tournaments will be once a week, or so.

Check out the site for more.

In a few weeks time will see the ‘biggest’ gaming even in Durban. Frag LAN will be aiming at a full 500-man LAN with 90% of the network being Gigabit.

The organisers are requesting that you buy your ticket as soon as possible.

Bookings will only be accepted once the seat has been paid for, and there will be no reservation without payment.

The Details:

Date: 11-13 December 2009
Time: 10:00 (11th) – 10:00 (13th)
Place: Edgewood College Dininghall, UKZN, Pinetown
Cost: R200
Web page to book: http://www.frag.co.za/

There will be various tournaments played, and the games include:

Call of Duty 4: 5 vs 5 Search & Destroy (Promod Live – AGASA Maps & FRAG Ruleset)
DotA: 5 vs 5
Crysis Wars: Team Deathmatch 2 vs 2
Counter-Strike Source: 5 vs 5 KOTH (minimum of 8 teams needed to enter ; pay2play tournament)

Frag staff are trying their best to confirm the prizes. It was said that the prize pool will be around R30,000.

The event is hoping to award prizes to teams as far down as 5th place.

Other extra’s for the event includes:

• A pool
• Volleyball
• Pool Table
• Xbox setups
• Give aways
• Promotions

More details will be added once they have been confirmed.

Check out the Frag site to book your ticket, etc.

The Battle of the Clans (BOTC) team has decided to lift the ban on the Counter Strike Source team Royalty Games Club Sport (also known as Hybrid). The ban on the player who was adjudged to have cheated remains in place.

Rob ‘iNFy’ Hart, BOTC organiser, says the decision was taken to follow AGASA’s lead as from what he can see, it only bans the player(s) concerned and not necessarily the whole team.

“AGASA’s policy seems to not ban the team, but rather just just ban the player. We spoke to community leaders and most of them said we should ban the player and unban the team. They only used the player concerned in some of their games,” he says.

For the full story please click here.

Pantheon and MPLD have teamed up once again to bring the Counter-Strike: Source community another competition for gamers in and around the Johannesburg an Pretoria areas. The new team, Soviet, won the last Counter-Strike: Source competition at MPLD, and maybe this time teams will come better prepared. The miNt Gaming team plans on attending the competition, with possibly its full lineup. Although zer0chance stays in Cape Town and widomaka has exams, the team might make a brief appearance at the competition. Please click on the -Read more- tab to view the competition details.

For  the details head on over to the miNt Gaming website.

With the current state of the community, many gamers would say the competitive e-Sports community in South Africa is going through a rough patch. A lot of people are focusing on the negatives at the moment, such as Ben “Equinox” Greenwood leaving the SA Gaming community, the number one TeamFortress 2 team, Brazen, are inactive and there are rumors that they could split, many of the good players are moving overseas, and lastly the problem tournament administrators have with the lack of enthusiasm and gratitude gamers show towards their tournaments. 

While most people are focusing on the negatives lets take the time to reflect back on the positives. 

In 2008 we saw the very first installment of the BOTC Call of Duty 4 and Counter-Strike: Source competitions, arguably the most premiere online tournaments to date, it could even rival some international competitions, in terms of prizes, organisation and of course the competition. Although it was a rough start for Robert “iNFy” Hart he weathered the storm and pulled through, showing that with enough perseverance and determination, dreams can become a reality. 

Most of us also saw, or heard of the most notable sponsorship in South African gaming history go to BFB (Big Fat B*stards). Where Incredible Connection sponsored them R60 000 worth of gaming hardware. Again part of the community were negative, and retaliated out of jealousy asking why they had been sponsored as the team hadn’t won anything of note or placed well in any of the premiere online and offline tournaments, and that there were far more deserving teams. BFB too weathered the storm and now boast one of the strongest lineups the Call of Duty 4 community has ever seen. All they need to do now, is learn how to work as a unit, and soon they should be unstoppable.

For  the rest of the story head on over to the miNt Gaming website.

The Intel Battle Of The Clans competition is about to go live once again. The very successful tournament hosted and run by Robert “iNFy” Hart has proven to be one of, if not, the most premiere online competition South Africa has to offer. With Intel sponsoring some huge prizes, the tournament draws in all the big names. Registrations are about to go live with the competition scheduled to start on the 27 of June. The next BOTC will prove to be even more exciting than the last one.

ounter-Strike: Source

This time round we may see some new champions, with most of the top teams having had lineup changes since the last BOTC. In the Counter-Strike: Source BOTC v4 competition, the community saw Eternal Conflict take the title. But since then, the miNt Gaming team (7th) has strengthened their lineup, and should be able to better their previous placing. Pantheon Gaming (5th) has also gone through some major lineup changes. Some say the team isn’t as strong as it used to be and that the players just aren’t dedicated enough anymore. A team to look out for is Soviet, regarded by some as South Africa’s strongest team at the moment, having crushed all the competition at the MPLD LAN in May. This will be their first big online competition, so it will be interesting to see how they fair. The asceNt (2nd) lineup has had minimal changes. They still seem to have one of the strongest lineups around, but providing that a lot of the other teams are catching up skill-wise, asceNt will have to up their game quite a bit if they want to reach the finals again.

In all four of the previous BOTC Counter-Strike: Source competitions, there has always been a wild-card managing to place in the top 3. In the very first BOTC we saw Team Random taking 3rd position. In the second, TAB took 3rd. In the third installment of the BOTC competition Team Enmity claimed 2nd spot ahead of Pantheon. Last BOTC saw c7e claiming 3rd. With the past results and current teams on form we could see the standings change this year. The probability of seeing an eC/Soviet final is highly likely, and judging by previous results anyone of out of the miNt, asceNt, and Pantheon teams could place in the top3. 

For  the rest of the story on the TeamFortress and Call of Duty 4 competitions, head on over to the miNt Gaming website. 

Titans fall

Over the past few weeks the Counter-Strike: Source community has seen many of the top teams disbanding, only to form newer stronger teams, which in the course of a few weeks seem to die without any explanation. The first team to disband was heAd, only to form one of the most strongest teams around, soviet consists of 3 heAd players and 2 former asceNt players, and about 3 weeks ago the community saw the same happen to the two time BOTC champions, Eternal Conflict, due to conflicting interests within the team.

eC’s,Zeo and Kustom_ teamed up with 3 c7e members, went on to form a new team called N³ (No Name Necessary) replacing c7e in AGASA, and Craan created a concept team called sect, which never really took off. Both teams died within about 2 weeks with no reason. Eternal Conflict has since then sorted out their issues, but is still looking for a solid fifth player. Rumor has it that oj – former c7e player – could be joining their ranks, but nothing has been set in stone as of yet. 

Enmity is another team that showed promise, but then took a turn for the worse when they decided to drop two players and rename to sect, where they were left without a captain/player due to Craan moving back to eC, now instead of someone taking charge and completing the team, 5 players -3 from sect / 2 from Enmity – are now clanless.

CauTion has also fallen due to internal conflicts, which is quite sad as they have been recognized as one of the better Counter-Strike: Source teams around. The team however did not perform as well as they had liked to in the AGASA 1st division league. There was a decent amount of individual talent but they couldnt really pull together as a team, which in the end led to the break up. 

 

For  the rest of the story head on over to the miNt Gaming website.

Two weeks have gone by since the start of the second Leg and one thing is very clear – the competition is extremely close. miNt Gaming started off strong by taking down GodMode 16-13 on Nuke, and then silencing all critics by drawing with the Battle of the Clans double champions –Eternal Conflict on Dust2. Eternal Conflict – had another tough match on their hands when they faced off against Zero Limit on Nuke, winning narrowly 16-12.

Pantheon Gaming has come through with an impressive line-up for the second quarter of the year, boasting names such as Vamooze and Shazzchck. However this new line-up failed to perform as expected against Soviet on Sunday night when they lost 16-10 on Nuke, Pantheon’s best map. Pantheon was awarded the win over Critical Control after CC was unable to field a team. 

The new Soviet team proved that they were no walk-over on Sunday night when they drew with Ascent – Finalists of the Battle of the Clans v4 tournament. The match took place on Dust2, with Ascent taking a dominating lead in the first half with a score of 12-3. Ascent then went on to win the pistol round during the second half, gaining them the three rounds needed to secure a draw. With 12 rounds still to be played, things looked grim for Soviet as the score was already 15-3 to Ascent. Soviet kept their cool and managed to stage a comeback, winning 12 straight rounds and drawing the match.

c7e, the team which placed third in the last Battle of the Clans v4 tournament, faced Zero Limit on Dust2. c7e were expected to win the match, however Zero Limit’s vast experience shone through, handing them the win with a score of 16-10. The match between c7e and CC it seems has not been played, which means both teams will be given a loss.

Stage 3 starts this week, with some very exciting matches to look forward to. Here are some of the must see matches:

• miNt Gaming vs Pantheon on de_inferno_pro

• miNt Gaming vs CC on de_season

• Ascent vs Eternal Conflict on de_Season.

• Ascent vs Pantheon on de_Train.

• Soviet vs c7e on de_Train.

• CC vs Soviet on de_Inferno_Pro.

• Eternal Conflict vs CC on de_Train.

• Pantheon vs c7e on de_Season.

Exciting times for all spectators!

[Source: BOTC]

AGASA has finally released their divisions for Counter-Strike: Source, where teams have been split up into premiere and 1st division. The top four teams from each pool of Leg 1, have automatically been drafted into the premiere league, and those teams which stayed active but did not make the top 4 in their pool have been placed in the 1st division, much like the Call of Duty 4 league.

There are no real surprises really in the premiere division, with the exception of GodMode who only won 2 out of their 7 games in Pool A. miNt Gaming will be looking to impress with their newly formed lineup, and so will the likes of Eternal Conflict (eC) who have recently just picked up tiNySkapie from Pantheon. The new team Soviet has proven their worth by winning MPLD April and will be a big favourite going into Stage 2. Not a lot separates these 9 teams as they have all proven to be great teams during practise games. Please click here to see a list of the teams in the premiere division. 

for the full story please click here.

Registrations have been opened for the AGASA League: leg 2, teams have from now until the 20th of April to register themselves for the league. Teams that stayed active throughout the first leg have already been placed into the premier and first division leagues (depending on your game of choice), and new teams wishing to register for the new leg will have to compete in the first or second divisions.

The first leg saw many Call of Duty 4 teams and Counter-Strike: Source teams dropping out of the league, due to inactive players or bad performances. The Counter-Strike: Source league was hotly contested with asceNt and Pantheon topping their respective groups, a big shock was the powerhouse, heAd, choosing to disband after somewhat of a poor showing in BOTCv4. A lot of new teams have formed and will hopefully register for leg 2 of the league. To register your team please click here

To view which teams have registered for leg 2 of the league click on the game and select which division you require.

Counter-Strike: Source

• Premiere League

Call of Duty 4

• Premiere League
• 1st Division
• 2nd Division

BattleField 2

• Premiere League

Call of Duty: WAW

• Premiere League

Both the Counter-Strike: Source and Call of Duty 4 teams have been struggling to find suitable players to fill the fifth position available in both teams. The teams have now found more than capable players, that will bring much needed experience. Both teams believe they now have stronger lineups, more than capable of being a competitive team, as they have shown in recent friendlies. 

The Counter-Strike: Source team has recruited long time Counter-Strike 1.6 player zer0ch4nce, who has competed in many tournaments which include ESWC and KODE5 qualifiers with teams such as PixelMassacre and zeroEffect. The team has also welcomed M1gHTy who has been an active member of the Counter-Strike: Source community for quite some time now, with his ability to read the game as well as be able to concentrate on his own. The two new additions have ultimately strengthened the lineup.

The new Counter-Strike: Source lineup is as follows:

• AJ M1gHTy Morkel
• JP vadeR De Villiers
• James zer0ch4nce Wijnberg
• Kline w1domaka Moralee
• Daniel merc Balusik

With the loss of IceMunki and Tom in a relatively short period of time, the Call of Duty 4 team has found replacements that have not only proven their worth in previous teams but have also brought a certain flair to the team that was not there perviously, making the team a far more formidable opponent. Krimzon deciding to make the change from Counter-Strike: Source to the Call of Duty 4 team has helped stabilized the team, and with the addition of MoeFoe who has been playing Call of Duty 4 since it came out, the two new players have helped the team become even more competitive.

The new Call of Duty 4 lineup is as follows:

• Sakkie RandomHero Bason
• Timothy Krimzon Woolley
• Morné Hawk Richard
• Nikolaus MoeFoe Moe
• Marius Stripe van der Merwe

More information can be found at the miNt Gaming website.

After an average performance in the BOTC competition, the miNt Counter-Strike: Source team has decided to make a few changes to their lineup. They seemed to struggle with their 6 man lineup, as they always had to change players according to the map chosen, which really set them back, as they did not know what map they would be playing or what lineup they would have to use. 

After much deliberation, the team has decided to move Shane ‘Ent@nGleD‘ Wooley and Roberto ‘Cha0tiX‘ Rocha into substitution positions, as they have decided to focus more on their studies. To replace them, is well known AJ ‘M1gHTy‘ Morkel, he has been a long time Counter-Strike player, who has proven to be an asset to any team. 

To read more on the topic head on over to their website.

At the moment computer gaming in South Africa is facing a big problem, namely the MSSA. For those who are not familiar with this horrible organisation, they are the ones who can ‘award’ both National and Provincial colours for computer gaming.

The problem which we are facing is that the MSSA wants full power, and in order to obtain this they will do anything.

In regards to the MSSA wanting power, gamers have now started to take a stand against this organisation and its growth.

The first boycott started when the Call of Duty 4 teams decided to not enter the leagues. It was then followed by the OC & OGA meeting where players asked the OC and the OGA to remove all affiliation with the MSSA. We can now say that it has been taken to the next level, where gamers have created an online petition – available here – in order to ‘self regulate’.

Here’s a short piece from the petition:

This document serves as a positioning statement for the PC and console gaming community of South Africa on its desire to self regulate.

The document discusses the current federation, Mind Sports South Africa (MSSA), which currently has the power to run federated leagues and award school, provincial and national colours as well as put forward gamers’ names to the Protea Board of Control for Protea Colours.

The document outlines the reasons behind the gaming community’s desire to no longer fall under the MSSA and its plans for self regulation.

Everyone that wants to sign the petition may do so freely, and remember there is no pressure from us to sign it. :)

Leave your thoughts and comments about the Petition as well as the MSSA in the comments section below.

- Another link to the petition incase you missed it on top

Recently we revealed news about Organised Chaos and the MSSA (it hurts to say this) working together. While we were wondering why OC would do this, they have decided to answer our questions.

Organised Chaos have said that the OGA is a section 21 company, and they have said that all future players for competitions will now have to be club members of the OGA. OC will now officially just be the infrastructure to host OGA events.

The OGA will allow players to take part in other competitions. The OGA will also be seeking sponsorship for their competitions so that they can award the winners a couple of prizes.

The organiser of Organised Chaos said that the OGA membership fees will not go to the MSSA, but the OGA does pay a small association fee to the MSSA. This means that both the OGA and MSSA will get money for doing nothing, as players will soon be forced to sign up under them.

Wait.

This means that players will now have to pay more to play games? Firstly you will pay your membership fee, and then the tournament fees? Awesome.

Organised Chaos have said that they would just like to be part of the ‘bigger picture’ when it comes to gaming, and they would like to have the chance to recommend players for national colours.

It was said that players can belong to both an MSSA team and/or the OGA, and they would not have to swap over to play in the OC competitions.

Due to major feedback from the OC and MSSA disaster partnership, OC will hold a meeting for gamers next week Wednesday to discuss the situation.

The meeting will be based around the structure of the OGA and its involvement with MSSA.

Dietmar Rheeder-Kleist, OC organiser said:

To all Competitive gamers and interested parties,

Given the current boycotting situation of the MSSA league and its associated clubs, OGA/OC in Cape Town would like to ave an open discussion with its constituents.

We will be holding this meeting at Frontosa’s offices in Montague Gardens, Cape Town. All gamers, role players and interested parties are welcome, and we’d like to request that team captains and persons who have previously obtained recognition please attend.

The meeting will be held at Frontosa Offices on Wednesday 3rd at 18:00 (6 PM) March 2009 in Montague Gardens Cape Town. They are located on the corner of Omuramba and Computer Road.

Proposed Agenda for this meeting is:

* Definition of OC / OGA relationship
* Goals of OGA
* Definititon of OGA / MSSA relationship
* Discussion about MSSA boycott

The boycott occurred when the MSSA tried to become too involved in gaming, and the Call of Duty 4 players did not like this, as a result most of the clans from online pretty much decided to not enter the tournaments.