Mineski CS:GO gets into Razer Rising Stars Asia League: Why all the buzz?
Last Sunday, March 27, 2016, Philippine side Mineski won against Mercenaries, 16-11 on Mirage in order to win one of the qualifier slots for the Southeast Asian edition of the Razer Rising Stars Season 1 League, with Stephen “GETZIIMOV” Doron, the main sniper for the team, registering an amazing performance with 29 kills and an overall in-game rating of 1.54.
The final scoreboard of the match.
What is the Razer Rising Stars Asia League?
The Razer Rising Stars Asia League consists of four invited teams and six qualifying teams from three qualifiers, for a total of ten teams. In addition to the $10,000 (P470,000) prize pool to be divided among the top three teams in the tournament, a cash incentive of $200 (P9,400) shall be given out to teams who complete all of their league matches.
In this case, Mineski’s bracket featured 64 teams from all over Southeast Asia. Notable names included Korea’s monster.kr, Indonesia’s Mahameru and Thailand’s Signature Gaming, among others.
After three qualifiers, Mineski is the only Filipino team to be able to make it to the main event to face teams such as The MongolZ, who went to IEM Katowice and won IEM Taipei; VG.CyberZen, who placed joint 3rd/4th place in the Asia Minor, nxL, who got 2nd place at the last edition of the Rising Stars and Inchk1ng, who placed 3rd/4th in the same tournament.
Why is it so important?
Mineski’s entry into the league signifies a new chapter in the history of Philippine CS:GO due to the fact that no other Filipino team was able to win anything of significance in the game since 2012 when DC Smackdown won the CS:GO category at the Asian Cyber Games.
In addition, Mineski’s entry into the league currently offers them a chance to create a new legacy. If they end their campaign on a strong note, they will be able to show that Philippine teams can also succeed in CS:GO; after all, Filipinos have gained accolades in other first-person shooter titles such as CS 1.6, PointBlank and CrossFire, among others.
Thoughts
READ: Mineski CS:GO: Why Do They Stand Above the Rest
As I have mentioned in a previous article, Mineski is currently Philippines’ CS:GO best team and has the required talent depth to become one of SEA’s, if not Asia’s top-flight teams.
Objectively speaking, Mineski has a good chance of winning all of their matches against the qualified teams in this league. However, in order to win matches against the invited teams, they need to scout extensively for their worst maps or create hard counter-strats on their best maps.
They have already shown that potential they can get more than 10 rounds against nxL in the Asian division of the ESEA Pro League, so it is very possible for them to win maps against these teams, especially if they play their A-game throughout the course of the league.
On another note, Mineski will benefit from the experience of playing against these teams and if the lessons gained from these matches are applied properly, they can earn a place amongst Southeast Asia’s powerhouses in CS:GO…and beyond.
Images taken from Mineski CS:GO's Facebook page.
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