Championship Gaming Series Season 2: L.A/N.Y showdown, San Fran vs. Dallas report

Tonight’s episode of the Championship Gaming Series (CGS) featured a pair of highly competitive matches: the eternal rivalry of Los Angeles Complexity vs. 3D.NY and San Francisco OPTX vs. Dallas Venom.

L.A. Complexity vs. 3D.NY

Complexity went into the match against 3D.NY badly needing a win after suffering defeat at the hand’s of OPTX the first night of the competition. On the other hand, 3D.NY was looking for another victory after barely squeaking by the Dallas Venom the previous night.

The Forza 2 competition opened up the match. The race was to be waged on the Maple Valley Short track. 3D.NY’s Dark-Storm took the lead almost immediately and maintained it until the end. The other racers went back and forth in their position, with ComeBackDan spinning out near the end of the race. This resulted in Complexity’s players, Chavison and GeeTeeOh, coming in second and forth respectively. The final score was 4-3 in 3D.NY’s favor.

Next up was the Dead or Alive 4 (DOA4) female competition. Belle from the Complexity fought 3D.NY’s Coolsvilla. Both women’s strategies seemed to be to wait patiently for the other to make a mistake. By the sixth round, both players were tied 3-3. Finally, Coolsvilla’s Christie beat Belle’s Kokoro two times in a row, cementing another win for 3D.NY with a final score of 5-3.

Complexity’s team was the first to play as Terrorists in the Counter-Strike competition. Despite multiple kills by L.A’s Rambo, Complexity trailed 3D.NY by 7-2 at the end of the first half. This is not entirely unexpected since the chosen Counter-Strike map Inferno leans toward a Counter-Terrorist (CT) advantage. Complexity came back as the CTs, but were not able to overcome 3D.NY. This handed New York yet another victory with a score of 10-8.

Things did not go much better for Complexity during the FIFA 08 match. 3D.NY’s player WiZaKor scored a goal in the first half and successfully fended off Complexity’s KreeganBG. The final score was 1-0, bringing the overall total to 20-14 heading into the DOA4 male competition.

Cheppelle of 3D.NY faced off against Perfect Legend of Complexity in the Doatec Great Hall stage, an elaborate indoor area notorious for its treacherous staircase. A great showing here by Perfect Legend was Complexity’s last hope of achieving victory. At first he seemed well on his way after defeating Cheppelle in the first two rounds. However, Chappelle came back with victories in the third and fourth rounds. In the end, Perfect Legend pulled out Complexity’s sole victory of the night, 5-4. This still wasn’t enough to save the team. 3D.Ny won the overall match 24-19.

San Francisco OPTX vs. Dallas Venom

The OPTX franchise was one of the other big winners from the first night’s competition. On the flip side, the Venom barely lost to 3D.NY during a tie-breaking Forza 2 race. First up was the DOA4 male competition where one of Venom’s greatest assets, Master, summarily defeated NinjaCW of the OPTX, 5-1.

The following FIFA match was a testament to the pass. Both players, Barmoa of Venom and Stermy^ of OPTX, gradually progressed downfield with solid passing tactics. Stermy^ effectively used this strategy to fake out Barmoa’s goalie in the fist round and land a point. He successfully fended off Barmoa’s offense for the remainder of the game, but despite two close attempts, was not able to score again. The match ended with an OPTX victory, 1-0.

Venom Forza 2 players Chaos and Muffinman were no doubt looking to claim a win after barely being beaten by 3D.NY’s team the night before. They faced OPTX’s new racing team of Miximup and Sackamonjaro on the Maple Valley Short track. The race was furious, to say the least.

The Venom team started in the back and almost immediately knocked out Sackamonjaro. It was now up for the pair to take out Miximup who was in the lead. Muffinman was hot on Miximup’s tail for most of the race, looking for an opportunity to knock him off the track. The Venom teammates together managed to accomplish this on lap 3. From here it looked like Venom was going to score a formidable 5-2 lead (Muffinman and Chaos being in first and third respectively). Then, all of a sudden, Sackamanjaro returned from the dead and knocked Chaos out of the race. In the end Muffinman cross the finish line, but the Optx team took both second and third, bringing the score to a close 4-3.

OPTX still hadn’t won any of the games by the time of the DOA4 female competition. Vanessa, the undefeated OPTX player from last season, faced off against newcomer Phoenix on the Kyoto in Bloom stage. Those expected Vanessa to again emerge victorious were not disappointed. Vanessa played an aggressive game, but Phoenix held her own by adapting to her opponent’s playing style. Nevertheless Vanessa emerged victorious, 5-2, thereby closing on Venom’s lead 11-10.

It was all up to OPTX’s Counter-Strike team to take advantage of the lead Vanessa gave them. Once again, the match took place in the alleyways of Inferno. The Venom played as the terrorists for the first round and perhaps not unexpectantly lost all but two rounds against the CTs. This brought the total Counter-Strike score 7-2 in Optx’s favor. Nevertheless Venom still had a chance if the team could make up lost ground as CTs in the secon half. The OPTX won the first two rounds, but Venom came back strong hoping to at least tie their competition in overall score and force overtime. Venom began to gradually narrow the lead up until OPTX won the eighth round of the second half, effectively winning both Counster-Strike and the franchise match. The final score was an extremely close 20-19 with OPTX barely squeaking by.

At the end of the night, both winning teams 3D.NY and Optx remain undefeated going into tomorrow’s competition, 2-0. Meanwhile Complexity and Venom will have to improve their 0-2 records to remain competitive.