Pros' Impressions of CPH Games: MSL, Asmo and rdl-

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

Among the pros asked were MSL, from team 3D!MAX, who finished second last year at Copenhagen Games losing to Ninjas in Pyjamas in their prime. This year his team is back with almost the same line-up as the one that took the silver in 2013, despite some roster changes throughout the year.

The other two pros were of German-Turkish and Swedish soil, Azmican 'asmo' Berberoglu and Alexander 'rdl-' Redl. Asmo, spearheading the German scene with team Alternate at CPH Games, hadn't played an international event for a while. Rdl- on the other hand is the sole Swede in what is otherwise the only noteworthy English team present in Copenhagen, playing on the stage most of his matches with fm-eSports.

As a Copenhagen Games veteran Mathias 'MSL' Lauridsen said the following about this year's CPH Games competition:

We have been in Copenhagen for 1 week because we did a bootcamp at gla1ves place so we didn't really travel :D

I think the level is high, there are some really great teams and some medium-top teams as well. So the competition is strong and we really need to be at our highest level to end where we want to end. I hope we can surprise and play extremely good these 2 days, I want to be in the final once again!

I feel that the setup at the event is fine, everything is normal and I think the stage is prettier than last year, so yeah, everything is good. But I don't like the structure with the bracket. The playoff is single elimination which makes it all about the seeds, so it's hard to surprise or make it much further than top 8, because you are meeting a team like NiP and then you´re probably out. Last year it was double elimination and that was awesome. We would have ended 9-12 instead of number 2 if there wasn´t double elimination.

Azmican 'asmo' Berberoglu previewed his match with Titan, and explained the goal that Alternate had set going into the tournament.

It is a really good atmosphere here in Copenhagen, but it's waaaaaay to warm in here. The hall is really warm and it's even warmer on stage. Setting things up was pretty easy though, and the computers are really good, but the server issues are a really big problem.

I don't really know what the problem is, it seems like it's a technical problem and the admins are like answering ASAP. They're always saying "in 10 mins it will work" and so on, but you know how it is... "2 hours later".

For now, every match for us is important. We would love to get top 8 and more, but it depends on who we have to face before we get there. Considering it's Titan, we would like to have them 1 or 2 rounds later but we will try our best anyways. We just hope that we can play as strong as we are and if that isn't enough to get a top rank, then it's not. Right now we are really motivated and we want to reach as far as we can go and deal some damage - every good played match is a success and will motivate us even more.

Alexander 'rdl-' Redl, who was just about to go into his match against Dignitas, said the following about his impressions of the CPH Games tournament:

The atmosphere makes it feel like a mini-DreamHack over here, it's really nice. The setups are fine as well, everything with the hardware has run quite smoothly, the only thing that has been bad yet again is the schedule and all the delays.

I mean the delays are just awful, it just makes it so frustrating to play. Big buzz kill for the people watching as well I can imagine, feels like the "you learn from your mistakes" is not applicable on this LAN. But at least they are always asking for feedback about everything, so hopefully they can do it better next event (even though this has happened 3-4 times already).

What I do like is the GSL format and single elim bracket, it just makes it a clean tournament with all good games on the streams. For us, if we win the first playoff game, I will be quite pleased and I think that will give us the boost to possibly go even further. I don't really care about the placing, I just want to grow as a team and make sure we play well.

photo credits: Mathias Lauridsen, Azmican Berberoglu, Alexander Redl