The impact of last year's decisions impact this year's draft picks

Some «purple madness» from the Berliner after last year's hard fought victory at the European Championships. Photo: The CGS League Site

Name:
Jonas Alsaker Vikan

Position:
General Manager

About the author
Jonas Alsaker Vikan is the General Manager of Berlin Allianz. He led the team to a European championship and a third to fourth placing at the first CGS World Final. The twenty six year old Norwegian is also a journalist.

It’s that time of year again.

Gamers show up, mostly on their own buck, to chase down the pipe dream of professional gaming. In this context I wield absolute power. I make the dream come true, and I will, but I can also take it away and crush it entirely, and I will have to. The power vested in the four GM’s can be intoxicating, but I trust everyone is aware of the impact they can make on someone’s life this weekend. At the same time, even with all this power, there is no way of knowing – no way of being sure about the choices we make. Obviously I will not go into detail about what is going through my head regarding the 2008 Draft.

Instead I thought I would share how I approached the 2007 edition last September - a draft that almost attracted as much (unfair) criticism to my person as Mark Dolven’s Season 1 Carolina Core.

The first thing to consider is the time aspect. How much time do you have to mold your draftees into full-fledged professionals that can put those points up on the board come crunch time? Last season our draft was in September with the EU finals to be played the next day. However, both EU teams were secured a spot at the World Final in December. There was still the higher seed to play for but I deemed it more important to have an effective team ready to play for that 500 000 prize at World’s.

That motivated the picks of Livia «Liefje» Teernstra (#2nd at the Combine)and Rostyslav «Manyna» Nedoviz (4th at the Combine).

Teernstra was the second out of three girls at the Combine – that did much though as she started playing Dead or Alive a month prior to the draft and the third place finisher started the day of. The only established player was «Miss – she was drafted to Magnetik earlier than I expected to make my pick. This eliminated the option of choice but nonetheless I was leaning towards Teernstra as I felt her gaming background made her a stronger candidate – given time.

«Manyna» was unimpressive to watch at the Combine – in-game. He was clearly inferior to his brother «Chud1k» who also went on to win the competition in convincing fashion. «Manyna» was disappointed in himself as he only finished fourth. With regards to picking him up I have to cite gut feeling and some rationality – his personality came across, to me, as that of a person desperately bent on winning – with a rare calmness and cynicism to boot. That is a killer combination to have in a person, and with the time aspect working for us I was 100 % sure his relentless practice with his brother would rub off in Berlin’s advantage.




Nedoviz went on to become the only undefeated performer Berliner in official CGS League games last year. He even flourished in a short term perspective by beating his brother at the EU final – to win us the game, the higher seed and the MVP title.

On paper it looks as if picking him was very clever but it was all on him to make it so. His personality, his fortitude and his extreme competitiveness allowed for it – with the additional graces of lady luck. It is just not something you can plan for or expect as a General Manager – and I’d be a liar to suggest otherwise.

My «short term winners» were «Yggdrasil» and «FinPro» for PGR3 and «The Tactical» for DoA Male. These three players were the best in their game at the Combine, by a clear margin. The reasoning was that they would pick up enough points to cover the deficits created by the more unsafe picks laid out above. This did not go according to the master plan either.

The racers got soundly beat in the EU Final, and even though they scrambled to the narrowest possible margin in the scoring system it messed up the math. It was extremely important to have «The Tactical» taking care of business the way he was supposed to.

He is a player of potential epic proportions – once he realizes his gift more – in many ways he is a walking image of German sporting mentality. Allow this to illustrate for those of you not familiar with it:

The German national football (soccer) team is infamous for winning when close games come down to penalty shootouts. Such an 11 meter kick of the ball is the ultimate test of a player’s professional fortitude, grit and clutch ability after running for 120 minutes straight. The frequency of which the Germans could win these dreaded standoffs made famous English striker Gary Lineker described the game of football like this:

“Football is game that’s played in two halves of 45 minutes for 90 minutes total – and then the Germans win.”

This encapsulates the mentality «The Tactical» represents – it is an ability to summon the seemingly most basic of talents when everything depends on it. He showed it again during our World Final against the Carolina Core when he beat the number 1 ranked player in the world convincingly by 5-3 to put Berlin Allianz in a great position to win the game.

Several of the 2007 picks have been described as matter of gut instinct, and something else. Picking the CS: Source team «NoA» was based on that instinct exclusively, and nothing else.

There is a video up on YouTube which title reads: “bsl shockin the esport world.” It’s a recording of the final pick of the draft where «NoA» was ultimately chosen over «Fnatic», the number 1 ranked team in the world at the time. Firstly it took some time to get over smashing the five Dutch guys’ dream of CGS gaming into a million pieces, secondly it took a huge effort and big display of good faith to grant the Swedish team the time they needed to get their stuff together.

I did not expect them to perform right away, in fact I did not know if they would even after two months of practice for the World Final. However, there was something about them that rubbed me the right way – perhaps it was the intense desire displayed in their eyes - desire to be let loose in the Championship Gaming Series.




Now, that’s a desire shared by ever person attending a Combine and it is not one that automatically makes you eligible for a professional team. When you see someone that has certain skill and the desire to perform, to exceed expectations it is a powerful mix. This is the closest I have come to be able to spell out why I made that pick.

With history as a judge they proved themselves right, and all the naysayers commentating on that Youtube clip, wrong. The interesting thing – after that whole uphill battle to get there – is if they are hungry to further or bloated with that success.

7 months after the Season 1 draft we are back to square one. Almost anyway – the extremely competitive nature of the Championship Gaming Series and the fact that only one of the European teams will be eligible to compete at this year’s World Final will greatly impact the choices I make at this draft.

The only thing that seems certain is that some parts of the team needs restructuring and «new blood» is imminent.


That should spell excitment for the fans following the draft later today.