MESA Nomadic Masters Spring 2024 — The Bish Bash Bosh

Well, there is this sneaky, hidden tournament going on deep within the Mongolian Mountains. The greatest tier 2 teams (ok, maybe minus OG and Chinggis Warriors…) are doing battle in the MESA Nomadic Masters. With a fairly decent prize pool with 1st getting $50,000, some Tier 2 teams get some much needed cash while everyone is partying at Dallas.

And they’ve got some pretty decent teams such as Aurora, Bleed, Gaimin Gladiators, Lynn Vision, Mongolz, OG, Atox and Chinggis Warriors. Let’s go through a quick summary of all the teams shall we?

Aurora Gaming
Such a disappointing end to their ESL Challenger Melbourne as they were swept by a rampant MIBR. A passionate manager cheering for his team in the face of Australians wanting Rebels to win (and I wanted Aurora to win too and was a called traitor for it). Aurora still have a great roster with Deko being the star player followed up by r3salt, norwi and Kensi.

Bish — We saw some amazing plays and clutches from Deko. We’ve seen some amazing holds from r3salt and Kensi. Aurora have had a great string of results offset by their recent eliminations to MIBR (again) in Betboom Dacha and to Astralist in the CCT. We know that Aurora can match it up against the big boys but will we get it here?

Bash — Is this their slump or their fall? Betboom and CCT didn’t go well and the CCT Season 2 before that went awful as well. Is Aurora sliding off its peak?

Bosh — This tournament is incredibly hard to predict given that every team other than Chinggis and OG can beat each other in a BO3. We don’t know whether Aurora will finish 6th or 1st. I expect Aurora to finish 2nd at this tournament. I think they’ve got the players in Deko, r3salt and Kensi to make a deep run. They have the pieces they just need it all to fit together and channel their form back in March/April.

Lynn Vision
What a wild ride that Lynn Vision has been on? With their first major appearance in Copenhagen and then they lose Jee to potentially Tyloo and add flying to their roster. I guess the dream can’t last for too long eh before big brother Tyloo comes in to poach players to tan- i mean improve their roster again. They beat Tyloo to be the top in China at Chengdu but didn’t do much with it.

Bish — Well, they’ve finally got over their LAN jitters. They use to be a team that fell under any sign of pressure and now they’re comfortable in it. Even with Jee gone, they still have starry, z4kr and Emilia who can frag up when required. And we haven’t touched upon whether flying will be instant hit yet either?

Bash — Losing Jee is a massive loss given how strong he was on the awp. Lynn Vision are just hoping that he can at least match Jee on it. Lynn Vision cannot afford to have a weak piece in a tournament like this especially when they’re expected to perofmr

Bosh — As stated many times, Lynn Vision is one of the teams that can finish from 1st to 6th. It is just too damn close. I expect Lynn Vision to finish 7th-8th and mainly on the basis that flying will choke at the LAN event instead of becoming an instant hit. It is a huge difference when coming to LAN.

Mongolz
They are the favourites to win this LAN. They made a deep run in the majors, and they made a deep run into ESL Pro League. Nothing has changed within the Mongolz and they have been so rampant that it is like a second coming of Genghis Khan has swept over Mongolia again.

Bish — Their young trio of 910, mzinho and Senzu keep going from strength and strength. They’re able to support their IGL and top fragger in bLitz and techno4k which is incredibly satisfying to watch. Instead of being the support cast to these two, they are now finding their own feet and taking the spot light

Bash — The Mongolz didn’t win a single game in Legends at the Major, they didn’t win a single game at ESL Pro League in the playoffs either. When push comes to shove, they can find themselves being unable to perform (also Tyloo beat them in the Chengdu Qualifiers — yes, that Tyloo.). Mongolz could easily drop the ball here when taking on these 5 other quality teams at this tournament and the first one is the Gaimin Gladiators (ex-Ecstatic)

Bosh — The Mongolz have the quality and I expect that they’ll make the Grand Finals but I also won’t be surprised if they don’t given that 6 teams are all on the same level. I have Mongolz winning the entire thing with the Home Crowd advantage. If they are knocked out incredibly early, it’ll be a horrendous event for them.

Gaimin Gladiators (Yes, I spelt it right this time!!)
Their name kills me because I keep seeing the i’s as l’s instead which makes me calling them Gal-min Gladiators not Guy-Min Gladiators. Ugh, the struggle. Ok, so these guys are Ecstatic so they are basically that Danish team that everyone overlooks for Heroic and Astralis. Ecstatic are a diamond in a rough and a team that should not be underestimated. They made quite a decent showing at the major and have improved as a relatively young squad especially with the underrated Patti at the helm.

Bish — Kraghen, Nodios and Queenix have literally made a name of themselves as a pretty compact and strong rifling core without any star players within it. You have Salazar Slytherin who is an absolute god on the big green who can lob absolute Avada Kedavras at anybody that he catches a glimpse of. This core has not only strong individual play but incredibly strong teamwork as well being able to have strong utility as well play off each other incredibly well

Bash — Well, none of these players are exactly stars that can win you a game. It is always a team effor. If one player cracks under pressure, the entire Gaimin Gladiators come crumbling down. And they cannot afford it when there is 5 other teams who are on their level in this tournament. They haven’t done anything spectacular at all since their major run.

Bosh — I think Gaimon will finish 4th at this event. It’ll be an absolute dogfight for 1st to 6th but I think a lot of people are really overlooking this diamond in a sand. Gaimon Gladiators are a fairly decent team and to see a desk all say Bleed v Mongolz is incredibly surprising to me. I reckon Gaimon will be in the Mix and I think they’ll see off Bleed.

Bleed
So Kassad has finally got his main pieces courtesy of Apeks transfer listing their entire roster. Kassad reunited Jkaem since the old 100T days and picks up Nawwk replacing Cerq and VLDN. Bleed have had some good results despite their earlier struggles both inside and outside the server with the major and various events. However, since then Bleed have been building something spectacular and have been making deep runs in tournaments. They have improved immensely in a short space of time.

Bish — They are starting to develop for Tier 1 with nawwk and Jkaem in the roster. Kassad is finally getting a roster that he can build a juggernaut with. With Hampus as the IGL, he has been reunited with nawwk since his time at both GamerLegion and NIP. Faven and Cypher have been immense and if they turn up here, they could be in for a deep run.

Bash — Bleed are still a Tier 2 team but rising. This is going to be an incredibly tough tournament on them as they have a lot of expectations on them. The desk thinks they’ll be grand finalists, I don’t think they’ll make it there. All it takes is for Jkaem/Cypher to have a bad series and Bleed can find themselves going out incredibly early.

Bosh — Fortunately Bleed have a pretty easy bracket to get to the Upper Bracket Finals with their only difficult opponent being Atox. And Atox is just a massive dark horse at the event. However, I believe Atox will knock Bleed to the lower bracket. Bleed will likely lose to Gaimin Gladiators in a 2–1 upset to finish 5–6th.

Chinggis Warriors
They managed to qualify for this tournament and well, there isn’t much to say about them. They are effectively a younger Atox except they haven’t realised their potential yet other than Zilkenberg. They’re not a strong team in their own scene either so I think they’ll receive a hard dose of reality here. Their main stay player is Zilkenberg but I think he’ll be eating a serve of humble pie.

Bish — They are an under the radar team and could upset a few teams if they aren’t studied. Zilkenberg is a great asset to this roster. Xerolte and Neuz are decent riflers with upset potential.

Bash — I don’t think they have ability and experience needed here. They don’t have the quality and consistency to match 3/4’s of this tournament.

Bosh — They’ll beat OG but they’ll be eliminated by Aurora straight after.

OG
OG are a very strange team with a very strange way to approach CS2. It did seem to work at the Major qualifier where strong investment into F1ku was yielding results. However, they were unable to qualify for the Major. They’ve managed to add HeavyGod to the roster after pillaging Endpoint (again) and built their team using scraps of others (k1to, Nexius and modo). I’m unsure on where this team will end up but I’m heavily leaning to Tier 2. It is such a sad state to see a highly respected org like OG to be in such a mess ever since degster left it. It is disappointing.

Bish — F1ku has shown what he was capable of at the Major qualifiers but it never turned into any sort of meaningful results. HeavyGod has made waves at Endpoint and at OG already. Nexius played well for Mouz when they came to IEM Sydney especially on incredibly short notice. I think they can potentially do well enough to beat Chinggis but that’s it.

Bash — This entire team needs to just lift. Tier 2 is not good enough for OG. If OG want to show that they’re not just another random tier 2 esports org, they’ll start here by beating Chinggis and send another of the top 6 teams packing. However, I just don’t see it in this roster. I do question why they even heavily invested in F1ku when they had regali and degster in their roster at one point.

Bosh — They’ll be eliminated by Chinggis. Nothing but a whimper. I do not like teams that are already struggling and adding in a new player just doesn’t help that dynamic. OG are already hamstrung on player and team quality. Roster changes won’t help it.

Atox
The ultimate Dark Horse team. This team surprised everyone at the majors with taking down Tyloo and almost putting Flyquest to the brink. They picked up Annihilation. They’ve picked up Zesta and MIQ as young aimers with the leadership of Kabal and veteran status of Dobu and they’ve gelled incredibly well. However, they’ll be living forever in the Mongolz’s shadows — especially after last MESA Pro Series where they finished 2nd (to guess who!? MONGOLZ!!).

Bish — Atox are a largely unsighted team at this tournament which puts them in the perfect spot as a Dark Horse team. This team is scary at their best and can put even the best of teams onto the brink. They’ve beaten Tyloo at the RMRs. Almost took down Flyquest. I wonder what they can do to some of these Tier 2 European Teams.

Bash — Atox as a dark horse team can be a bit spotty as well. If one of the pairs of MIQ/Zesta or Kabal/Dobu aren’t firing, they quickly fall off. Annihilation will also need to make huge plays on the AWP if they wish to make some extreme upsets. If Atox are unable to get things going — they might find themselves eliminated quite early.

Bosh — Atox are going to send Bleed to the lower bracket in the biggest upset of the Tournament. They’ll finish third after Aurora storm right through them to get to the Grand Final.

I hope you enjoy my preview of the MEAS Nomadic Spring Masters 2024. I think we’re in for an absolute wild ride with all these match-ups. Expect the Unexpected and I mean it. This will be an incredibly wild ride!