Team Pandemic - News - Pandemic Antwerp eSports Festival Champions

Despite numerous ‘expert’ predictions and expectations, Pandemic.CoD4 has came out on top this weekend at the Antwer eSports Festival to win the event as well as the 10,000€ cash and 4,000€ hardware first place prize! Coming into the event, the highest Pandemic was predicted to place was top 3 from a post polling top European casters and players, making AEF the first event Pandemic.CoD4 has come in as underdogs, a fact that didn’t bother them in the least. Receiving a comfortable 8th overall seed, Pandemic went on a mission to prove their doubters wrong and it’s safe to say mission accomplished.

During the first day of the tournament, Pandemic breezed past through group stage matches with little trouble to advance straight into the double elimination playoff bracket. In their first playoff match, Pandemic found themselves face to face with a tough German opponent, SK-Gaming on mp_strike. The match started out looking to be a good one with both teams trading rounds. After adapting to SK’s offense, Pandemic took control and began picking up round after round with excellent play to close the first half with a comfortable 8-4 lead. In the second half, SK grabbed the first two rounds with tremendous momentum, however, the first that was Pandemic would not be held down as the Americans were able to string 5 consecutive rounds to win the match by an impressive 13-6 margin.

Tosspot from QuadV interviewing nabore (pandemic) and diablo from MeetYourMakers before their match.

Advancing to the second round of the upper bracket in playoffs, Pandemic met up with Meet Your Makers, a team Pandemic had befriended early in their time in Antwerp and arguably one of the most explosive teams in Europe. Starting out on offense, Pandemic wasted no time getting down to business, taking an early lead and running with it from there. Supported by strong anti-rush grenades that many European teams aren’t quite used to, Pandemic amassed a considerable lead on the widely considered harder side of the map to close the half with an impressive 9-3 lead. As the team began the second half on defense, it looked as if MYM was going to fall apart as Pandemic once again went to work, taking the match by an amazing 13-4 margin and leaving the European spectators in the venue in shock.

Pandemic’s third match in the upper bracket would come against KomaCrew from the Netherlands the following day, a team who won the Acer Challenge and had also been playing extremely well throughout the tournament. The match was decided to be played on mp_strike where Pandemic’s seemingly strong defense looked extremely vulnerable to a unique slow push from KomaCrew. With KomaCrew up 7-3, Pandemic had to switch the momentum back in their favor and did precisely that, winning the final two rounds of the first half with excellent play as it seemed Pandemic finally got KomaCrew’s number. Moving onto offense, Pandemic took control with excellent set nades to keep KomaCrew out of the bombsite. Coupled with two 1v3 clutches from David “skinz” Patnode and Joe “nabore” Amorosa, Pandemic edged forward round by round to win their closest match of the entire event thus far by a 13-10 score.

Dignitas congratulating Pandemic after their victory over them on mp_backlot.

The upper bracket finals saw a match made in heaven as Dignitas, a heavily favored European contender, defeated EG to advance to play Pandemic. Dignitas had been playing extremely well throughout the entire tournament, and their match against Pandemic was widely hyped to potentially be a narrow victory in favor of British. Taking up arms on mp_backlot for the first time in the tournament, Pandemic took their first round with convincing fashion, but then lost 4 consecutive rounds to a Dignitas team playing surprisingly fairly aggressively. Once again, Pandemic rallied back to strip Dignitas of their momentum round by round, closing the first half with a 8-4 score. Moving onto the second half it was quite apparent Dignitas had already surrendered mentally as dignitas.blackmane threw out the ‘gg’ two rounds before the match ended. Pandemic won the upper bracket finals match by an extraordinary 13-6 margin, once again leaving all those in attendance in shock.

After an hour delay from the lower bracket matches Pandemic found themselves against a familiar face, KomaCrew, who managed to eliminate both EG and Dignitas from the tournament. The grand finals was played in a two map format with both teams choosing a single map from the map pool. The upper bracket winners (Pandemic) would only need to win one map to win the match, while the lower bracket winners (KomaCrew) would need to win both maps. The match started on mp_crossfire, KomaCrew’s pick as they had played extremely strong on the map earlier in the tournament and knew Pandemic had been avoiding it since most Americans prefer to play Vacant over Crossfire. Despite a few good rounds, Pandemic was just no match for KomaCrew who played very differently than the US teams Pandemic had played in the past. With nothing really to do, Pandemic accepted their defeat, dropping the first map 6-13 and headed to mp_crash where they would look to set things right.

Pandemic receiving their check for taking first at AEF!

Starting out on defense, Pandemic took the first two rounds of Crash in convincing fashion, only to have KomaCrew answer back and take two rounds of their own. For the third time in the event, Pandemic blocked out KomaCrew’s momentum, took the 5th round, and began to capitalize on their own momentum taking round after round from outstanding individual, team and clutch play from the entire team. With a comfortable 9-3 lead heading onto offense, Pandemic looked poised to win the map and the entire event at the same time. Despite their excellent anti-rush grenades at A and a wicked B bombsite split, KomaCrew managed to trade rounds to bring the score to 12-6 in favor of Pandemic. With their backs against the wall, KomaCrew was able to get some magic happening, winning three consecutive rounds before Pandemic’s strong A bombsite push finally won them their 13th round, the match (13-9), as well as the entire Antwerp eSports Festival event!

This victory marks the first championship the team has seen for months now as EG had previously continued to overshadow Pandemic in their North American competitions, leaving Pandemic with a handful of second place finishes. The team will spend the next day or so in Antwerp before heading back to Brussels to catch a plane to Copenhagen where they will then travel to Roskilde for The-eXperience LAN tournament with many of the top competitors from AEF also slated to attend as well. Be sure to check out all of TeamPandemic’s coverage of the Antwerp eSports Festival below and keep it locked here at TeamPandemic.net throughout the week for videos, photos, blogs, and more before the-eXperience!

Pandemic Antwerp eSports Festival Coverage:
The man behind AEF; Steven Leunens
Antwerp eSports Festival Preview
Ted’s Travels: Pre-AEF Travel Day
Antwerp eSports Festival Day 1 Recap
Antwerp eSports Festival Day 2 Recap
Pandemic AEF Scores & Recaps
Antwerp eSports Festival Photo Gallery
AEF Championship Sunday Photo Gallery