We love a good LAN in the UK. Whether it’s EPIC.LAN or the Insomnias of old, there is something special about the environment that LAN halls create. A new LAN has now entered the fray of UK CS, and whilst it has the potential to be fantastic its just a little bit different. Unlike the halls of Kettering, Endpoint’s HQ will not host a BYOC LAN, but instead the LAN Finals of UKIC Season 0. Four teams will battle it out over two days in a “Summit style” LAN to see who will be crowned the UKIC Champions.

The LAN takes place from the 9th to the 10th of December and UKCSGO will be there providing all the news and content you could hope for.

The Teams

Verdant

The first out of the four teams that will compete at the UKIC LAN in Sheffield is Verdant. Alongside K10, Verdant had a 8-1 record in UKIC Division 1 meaning that they were joint top of the group and instantly qualified for the LAN.

The Verdant roster has been looking for a UK win for a while now. Most recently losing to Raptors EC (now Viperio) at ESL Premiership, the first outing for the organisation. Especially with coach Daniel “papp” Hart having to stand in for this tournament, it means that the chance for victory has drastically increased for Verdant. The roster proved their dominance in the Online Stage boasting an 8-1 scoreline, only losing once to Ex-Raptors EC and will be coming into this tournament as your #1 seed.

Commitment to wildlife and environmental preservation is key to Verdant and everything they do. This is mimicked by their logo which is inspired by the famous Red Deer that inhabit Bushy Park and Richmond Park the two local Royal Parks to Verdant. So with that in mind, they will launch an initiative surrounding planting trees this weekend. You can read more about it in the tweet below.

Did someone say trees?!

That’s right! This weekend we’re in Sheffield competing for the inaugural @UKICircuit Title and we want to plant some trees.

If you’d like to join us in our initiative click below!#HappyPlanting #ThriveByNature

— Verdant (@Verdant_gg) December 8, 2023

K10

As we mentioned before, K10 are the second team to go 8-1 in the Divison 1 online stage. The recently signed team, which has been playing under the banner Ex-Coalesce, is coming fresh off a bootcamp and will be firing at all cylinders. With recent roster changes replacing Oliver “leaf“ Jackson and Preben ‘Trax‘ Martinsen with Zy “yz0” Esponilla and Jacob “Rezst” Hemming. leaf was synonymous with Ryan “dox“ Young, this is now the first outing to LAN that we will be watching this duo split up. leaf recently joined GamerLegion Academy, so with him out of the roster they had a big spot to fill. It seems that they have found two very strong replacements.

yz0 has been under 7AM for the last year and has shown he is a rifler you need to respect, most recently placing second at EPIC.LAN 39. Rezst their Dutch import has won the last two ESL Benelux LAN finals, and dropped a 1.20+ HLTV rating in both events. They might have lost a key part of their roster, but it has been filled aptly.

Viperio

Similar to K10, the Viperio squad have just signed with their new organisation. Previously under Raptors EC they changed the way a lot of people view the UK scene. Throughout the last four years or so, Endpoint has swooped in and won every ESL Premiership, only losing to Into The Breach in the season before. However, on LAN, when all the odds were against them, Raptors EC broke through and won the last-ever ESL Premiership in September.

That said, right now the roster is in the process of rebuilding. Last week, before the roster signed with Viperio they announced that Arkadiusz “ifan” Dabkowski would be removed from the roster, and Josh “JAUSTERE” Philpott will be trailing with the team. It is good to note that JAUSTERE also played the whole of the UKIC Divison 1 online stage with Viperio where they went 6-3.

However, even though one change was planned, the other wasn’t quite. Slaven “AwaykeN” Lyubenov will not be playing with the roster on LAN as has signed for another roster. Because this happened after the roster lock, papp will have to stand in for his team, making Viperio a lot less scary.

This is their first showing with the new organisation, but with all their issues with roster instability and recent form, this LAN may not have the Viperio roster we know and love playing their best CS.

DuckDuckGOOSE

Last but not least, we have DuckDuckGOOSE. Boasting the scoreline 6-3 like Viperio, but falling behind on head-to-head, DuckDuckGOOSE clutched up at the end with wins over Team Invictum and Souls-Land.

When you look at the UKIC Divison 1 online stage you anticipate Verdant, K10 and Viperio to qualify, having all participated in the ESL Premiership Finals – the conversation was about who would secure that fourth and final spot.

DuckDuckGOOSE are the only team in the four qualified to LAN that had to qualify into UKIC Divison 1 online stage. Only coming together in October, competing in ESEA Main, they were aiming to qualify for the online stage, and now they will be making their way to Sheffield. They’re also the only unsigned team at the event; Anthony “Behindx” Luscombe left Verdant after blowing the whistle on the ESL Premiership stream-sniping controversy earlier this year.

Most notably this roster sees Michael “PrimeOPI” John Fury return to the top level of UKCS. He played in Dubai with Thomas “Thomas” Utting and James “bevve” Slinn at the SiGMA Esports Cup Dubai 2022.

Playoffs bracket

The playoffs bracket is double elimination, the first game between Verdant and DuckDuckGOOSE starting at 11 am GMT on Saturday.

Talent

Going along with the Beyond the Summit vibes, each member of talent will be doing a mixture of hosting, commentating and interviewing. With the talent list small, it will shape up to be a very busy weekend for them. First on the list is “UK Pro” Joshua “Dweg” Nathan. After filling a stadium in Finland with his voice for the Elisa Espoo Finals, he will be returning home. Next on the list is a familiar face in the UK scene, Ryan “Retr00” Bernard who has recently been apart of the CCT Online Finals #5 and the Thunderpick World Championships, a $500,000 S-Tier event. And lastly there is Fred “ZolaSMH” Schwefel an upcoming caster in the UK who has been apart of previous EPIC.LANs and also the ESL Premiership broadcast team in Spring of this yearr. 

These three are some of the most knowledgeable people in the UK scene, it is safe to say that broadcast is in safe hands. If you want to watch during the weekend, you can catch all the action on Twitch or Youtube.

UKIC Crowd Funding

Esports such as Dota 2 have relied on things such as crowdfunding for their prizepools, even though the UKIC has a £4,000 prizepool UKIC is announcing they will be accepting donations which will go to the prizepool and when they reach milestones they will be rewarded with giveaways and live content challenges undertaken on stream.