Welcome to the pinnacle of UK CS! The new season of UKIC Division 1 is here, and 10 teams are ready to brawl in a thrilling round-robin stage, with the top 6 fighting for the coveted playoff spots!
In classic UK CS fashion, every team made roster changes coming into this season; one team even changed their IGL 24 hours beforehand. This only fuels the narrative that Season 5 is very much open for the taking, everyone is vulnerable. ALASKA (ex-Verdant) will hope this chaos rewards them with a third consecutive UKIC title, or will they get caught up in the pandemonium and see a new victor?
The Favourites
Any conversation about favourites and UK CS has to contain ALASKA, the back-to-back UKIC champions. The uncontested final boss won every single LAN finals they played last year, only missing out on qualifying for UKIC Spring 2024. Simply put, in 2024 ALASKA had a chokehold on the scene.
This almost came crashing down in the previous UKIC finals as Belfast Storm gave them a real run for their money. With three maps and four rounds of overtime across them, it was the most contentious UK final there has been in a while with the goliaths almost falling. The operative word there is almost, ALASKA maintained composure and maintained their dominion in a nail-biting showdown
ALASKA also showed that they can bleed in the group stage. After finishing fourth in group play and losing to 8Sins, Belfast Storm, and Annex—who only won one game in the entire season— ALASKA had to brawl their way through the quarter-finals.
Since last season ALASKA have figured out their roster changes as they said goodbye to Oliver “leaf” Jackson and brought in Jamie “Tree60” Callan a previous UKIC MVP. With these roster changes in mind and no organisational support, will ALASKA return to their former glory or will they get tested once more?
Will 8Sins be the team that dethrones ALASKA?
Alongside ALASKA, 8sins is the main favourite to lift the UKIC trophy. After a disappointing end to 2024, losing in the semi-finals of UKIC after placing second in the regular season and only going 7-7 in ESEA Main, roster changes were bound to happen.
8Sins move away from Petar “coldpera” Pavlovic and Alex “f0cus” James to make room for John ‘Dutchy‘ Holland and Andrew ‘Wolfie‘ Allan. These are some rather left-field roster changes. Dutchy will be transitioning from coach to player and taking over the captaincy from Matthew “moz” Gelder and Wolfie is coming back from retirement! Both players bring an immense amount of experience including both separately having won ESEA Open in the past. These roster changes should bolster the roster above the rest with expectations to make the finals at a minimum.
The dark horses
The UK loves a good old fashion upset. Last season the main surprise was not only Belfast Storm making the finals but TRAXXXMANIA -a mix – topping the group stage stage.
This rag-tag group of players who used different players every game somehow just kept excelling in the group stage. Ultimately, their luck ran out in playoffs as Verdant showed them who was boss and smashed them 2-0 in the semi-finals. Now coming into Season 5, the only remaining players are Önder “onder” Tekin and Benjamin-Lee “BENJYMIN” Britton as they bring in f0cus, Jack “Sorex” Renton-Cooper and Danish youngster Sebastian “z_nan” Voss.
The main narrative of TRAXXXMANIA is similar to last season. Crazy unfiltered Counter-Strike that can rock some heads and create some serious upsets.
Unfortunately, because they are replacing their core, they will have to use Norbert “msN” Török for the first four games in the nine-game season as he completes the core from last season.
Can TRAXXXMANIA cause more upsets in Season 5?
Reason Gaming comes in as another team that can rustle some feathers. The legacy organisation re-enters UK CS once again, with some familiar faces in Charlie “cJe” Everitt and Fred “FincHY” Finch. The two previously played under Reason Gaming last year. The two veterans however did not have much success after doing rather poorly in two EPIC.LANs and being hard stuck in ESEA Intermediate. This is the season for redemption, to show that they can still fight in the top flights of UK CS.
Under normal circumstances, Reason Gaming will look to continue their early ESEA Main success but similar to TRAXXXMANIA they will have to use Ben “RezzeD” Bignall for the first four games instead of Flicky as they have to maintain their core from last season.
The mix roster under the name ‘No Pauses’ comprised of ex-Reason Gaming came from Division 2 after they went 8-1 in groups and ultimately finished second in playoffs. They round out this new roster with ex-TLR AWPer James “Flicky” Errington and Ukrainian duo Mykhailo “m1she4ka” Sakach and Vitaliy “v1ze” Filatov.
Looking to prove a point
Some people may perceive Belfast Storm as favourites, destined to improve off their Grand Finals run from last season. But was Season 4 just a miracle run that cannot be replicated?
Belfast Storm went on a tear post-EPIC.LAN 43 as they beat Verdant in the regular season and ended up defeating Dripmen and 8Sins in playoffs to make it to Sheffield. Unfortunately, that was as far as they got, but they gave Verdant a real run for their money. However, aside from the UKIC run, Belfast Storm had a pretty bad season. Not making ESEA Main playoffs and only getting top 12 at EPIC.LAN 43. This would have meant a disappointing season for Belfast Storm without the UKIC run.
Therefore, coming into Season 5 with the addition of Tristan “stop it” Ellis instead of Karl-Hendrik “tsutskam” Palu can they prove people wrong and recreate the magic?
Can Belfast Storm prove it wasn’t a miracle run?
As mentioned at the very beginning, one team decided to change a player 24 hours before the UKIC season, not just a random rifler, but the IGL that created the project, Lorenzo “LTH” Venanzi.
From a team that would be considered a dark horse after winning UKIC Division 2 last season without dropping a single map in playoffs, Flowstate now look to prove a point to their madness; swapping out Alex “Byfield” Byfield and Maximilián “w8max” Macášek for ex-TLR duo Fizan “Fizzy” Anjum Antal “Cher1on” Lubbers.
Fizzy brings a sense of calmness and consistency into the roster that is something lost in UK CS, and Cher1on brings raw fragging abilities that others may not be able to attend with.
One thing that separates Flowstate from a lot of other teams in the UK is that they play full-time CS. You could see this pay off early into the year as they are currently sitting 5-1 in ESEA Main, but it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows inside the team. The night before UKIC Division 1 starts LTH announces on X that he is LFT after being kicked from the team he created.
Due to internal issues and disagreements with the approach to the game, Flowstate will be looking to continue its good form in 2025 with IGL Ehren “Ehgren” Osborne in the IGL role. Even though LTH has a lot of experience and some impressive EPIC.LAN runs, Ehgren put himself on the map as he captained ‘The Boys’ to a semi-final run in UKIC Season 3 after finishing second in the groups. Therefore, it is clear that he has the capabilities to succeed but will have a tough task on his hands getting Flowstate in shape for UKIC and EPIC.LAN 44.
Regardless, because of this roster change, Flowstate will have to play with Byfield for their first four games because Fizzy does not qualify as a core player from last season. Even though Fizzy played all of the playoffs because they won all of their games 2-0 he only played six maps. Therefore, Byfield and w8max who played eight maps constitute the core of Flowstate from Season 4.
Will this roster change benefit Flowstate and can they come out of EPIC.LAN 44 and UKIC Divison 1 positively, or will it all backfire?
Can TLR live up to their name value?
Dripmen are filled with big names that you would expect to find success regionally. Moreover, they have finally found a new home with The Last Resort (TLR) after playing with no organisation since August 18th 2023.
Headlined by Fraser “Frazehh” Sollom, who has competed at the top level in UK CS for years, fell short last season of UKIC unable to get past the quarter-finals. TLR is brimming with experienced and skilled players now extenuated by Kirk “Tadpole” Stephens coming back from retirement. Some of the newer names might not know who he is but in the past Tadpole has played for the biggest organisations in the UK at the biggest events, even winning the UKIC Beyond Winter Invitational 2022 with Dripmen.
Dripmen/TLR had a strong result in EPIC.LAN 43 placing fourth losing to 8Sins. It looked like they would have a strong end to 2024, but in UKIC playoffs fell short to Belfast Storm in the quarter-finals. However, moving into 2025, TLR is currently sitting at a very impressive 6-1 scoreline in ESEA Main and looking a lot stronger. Heading into UKIC Season 5 the league is very open for the taking, and TLR have to prove themselves worthy once more, harnessing their potential.
Middle of the pack
Royals in 2025 have moved away from UK CS and formed an international roster. Therefore, for UKIC they will be using Oskar “oskvr” Myszka and Edgaras “entz” Luksas in replacement for Keymar “shateri” Shateri and newcomer Eduard “Ed1m” Ichim. If Royals were able to field their standard five they would be fighting for the finals and would have expectations to do well after regional disappointments in recent history.
However, with this in mind, even if the full Royals roster looks really strong, they are ultimately just mixing UKIC and will struggle against teams with their full rosters.
Due to the experience and firepower of the standins, there is a high chance that they will at a minimum retain their UKIC spot or strive for a quarter-finals finish, but shouldn’t get further than that.
oskvr returns to Royals as a standin for UKIC Season 5
Viperio Academy put themselves on the map at EPIC.LAN 43 after finishing 6th in the group stages and beating Flowstate in the playoffs lower bracket. They ended up finishing in the top eight over the likes of UKIC finalists Dreams To Legends and finalists Belfast Storm.
Since EPIC.LAN Viperio Academy has continued their good streak as they clinched the final promotion spot beating ‘Half Natty’ to play in Division 1 this season. Unfortunately, even though they did find success regionally they lost their ESEA Main spot and will be competing in ESEA Intermediate for Season 52.
In the off-season, Viperio were forced to make a roster change as ncx announced he would be moving to Dubai in February. To fill this voice they bring in experienced rifler Tristan “Lake” Jones who has made deep runs in UKIC previously with Chetz.
There are no expectations for this team and just retaining the spot would be a success to build into the next season. Unfortunately, they have already received their first loss to Glitchtech 3-13 on Nuke.
MMS and ifan join forces on Glitchtech
Our final team brings back some familiar faces to UK CS. Lead by Rhys “Rhys” Stumbles enlists the help of AWPer Isaac “isaac” Pattison who recently placed third at EPIC.LAn 42 and Marco “MMS” Salomoneusing who played in the BLAST.TV Paris Major RMRs. Glitchech will be using the core of ‘Part Timers’ from last season with Lewis “Ziimzey” Coleman and Arkadiusz “ifan” Dabkowski.
The addition of MMS would also mean a reunion with ifan from Raptors EC where they most notably beat Endpoint to win ESL Premiership Autumn 2023.
This is a roster that can cause some serious damage this season and take advantage of so many teams that need to use stand-ins early on. With a lot of experience and firepower, they come into Season 5 with no expectations and a good chance to make playoffs. The one thing that will hold them back is that these players who once put a lot of time into the game have moved on, not putting as much focus on Counter-Strike anymore. The individual level of Glitchtech will take them far, the question is how far without sustainable practice?
They have already started their journey positively with a dominant win over Vierpio Academy 13-3 on Nuke.
Disclaimer: The author of this article is currently coaching Belfast Storm who are competing in UKIC Division 1 Season 5. Moreover, UKCSGO.com shares ownership with Reason Gaming, another team competing in UKIC Division 1 Season 5. This does not impact the opinions and facts stated here.
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