UKTerrorist

Clan Focus - Acumen

Posted by Lord Nick at 00:30 4/2/2006.

Clan focus attempts to provide an insightful and interesting portrayal of some of the UK’s top counterstrike teams. This feature will be appearing about twice every month. At the moment this feature is in its trial phase, therefore any suggestions on how to improve it would be welcome. You can find me in #ukterrorist on Quakenet.

Acumen www.AcM-Gaming.net #Acm on Quakenet

Introduction

Acumen formed in the summer of 2004, this makes them a fairly new school team. The team formed from the embers of team-Vod, the infamous team in which Cireland payed the players Magiacapra and duck to play for them. The to be founders Moto and Kurt1s left the team and in an attempt to escape the controversy formed Acumen.

Members

SolutionX - The in-game leader, previously of vVv and Imagine. His game experience has helped the team time and time again. His greatest strength is his in-game brain combined with the silenced m4a1.

Moto – Co-founder of the clan. A strong, consistent player since Acumen’s founding. Moto acts as the supporting bedrock for the team allowing other players to build upon that. He is also able to do big kills when it counts!

Kurt1s – Co-founder of the team. Some say he is AcM’s strongest aim based player. What makes him so deadly is the combination of excellent aim with strong knowledge of the game. He has proven himself time and time again, especially at the recent CSGN lan finals and Infinity Gaming 1.

Nitrony – Has noticeably been circulating some of the top teams after his first main appearance playing alongside Wez from XSTARS in -=CHEERS=- . Nitrony has exceptional long range killing skills with the AWP but is also adept with the ak/m4. Being a new member to AcM, Nitrony will hopefully have settled down properly before the upcoming Infinity Gaming 2 event. Expectations will be high for this player.

sLy – This is sLy’s first serious clan. A late starter to CS, he is mostly based around strong aim play. He has managed to pick the game awareness up very quickly which is giving him an advantage over many players.

Interview

To gain some more in depth knowledge, the Acumen member sLy was tortured for information(that basically equates to a chat on IRC with me).

N. What are some of your clan’s main strengths?

S. I'd say we base our game-play around team-play. I think our best map was probably de_inferno as we usually play very well on the map and have got very good results versus some decent teams on it. I think it’s well documented that our worst map by far is de_nuke, though we are slowly sorting it out for IG2!

N. What are some of the main achievements your clan is most proud of?

S. On lan, our main achievements are 2nd at Insomnia26, 2nd at Infinity Gaming 1 and 3rd at CSGN LAN. Our best online achievements are probably finishing 3rd in 1st season of the SGLinvite league, reaching the final of the ESL Summer Cup and reaching the finals of the Night Cup series.

N. What are the main long and short term goals for you and your clan?

S. Firstly, I think with IG2 coming up fast and pretty much all the best clans from the UK are attending, I’m sure that wherever we finish we will have a better idea of where we are really placed in the UK rankings. We are in the process of going over a contract sent to us by “Steelseries”, so with regards to sponsorship we are sorted. We plan to attend most, if not all the major lans in the UK this year and attempt to get Acumen more recognised in the European counter-strike scene.

N. Based on your strong recent strong lan results at IG1 and CSGN will you be expecting to finish forth place (on par with your seeding) or better at the upcoming IG2 event?

S. I think realistically speaking, when looking at the amount of skilled teams attending I think it’s fair to say a number of teams can take the title as IG2 championship. I think we are going to take it each game at a time and see where we end up that way, instead of setting high expectations and then being disappointed in not meeting them.

N. Which matches, in your opinion will be most challenging for you at IG2?

S. Well, first we have to play Team Regret, who I don't know much about. They signed up to the LAN and are paying so they are obviously confident in themselves. Then we have Harmless who we only just beat 16-14 at IG1 after the best comeback the world has ever seen, 2-13 down, to then win 14-1. That match will be interesting! Then we have Engine on Mute, which I personally see as our biggest threat in the group stages. Engine on Mute also base their game play strongly around team play so it will I’m sure be a great clash. We are looking to get some revenge, not saying why, but I can assure you we are!

N. How will your team's poker skills affect the outcome of the tournament at IG2?

S. Going on the team's poker skills, we should bloody well win the LAN with our hands tied behind our backs!

N. Anything else you’d like to add?

S. Thanks for the interview Nick and I will see u at IG2! I will also like to quickly thank Dustworld for the servers they help us out with and also like to thank and welcome Icemat/Steelpad into the AcM family, and here’s for a happy Acumen future!!

N. Cheers

Other information

Recent online results :

CSGN Division 1

vs. ethernet	5 - 16
vs. Selected5	16 - 9
vs. vanguard	16 - 3
vs. wink	13 - 16
vs. CarbiNe	16 - 13
vs. endEffect	16 - 0
vs. revolver	14 - 16
vs. Veni Vidi Vi	16 - 10
vs. Trigger Happy Killers	11 – 19
Match Ratio	5:4	1:0.8
Round Ratio	153:102	1:0.6

ESL (all divisions)

vs. Velocity	16-0
vs. Choke	16-9
vs. InControl	16-5
vs. TheSpartans	16-5
vs. Velocity	11-16
vs. virtuoso	9-16
vs. Modified-Gaming	16-0
vs. highfive	13-16
vs. XSTARS	9-16
Match Ratio	5:4	1:0.8
Round Ratio	122:83	1:0.7

Interesting Demos to watch:

Acumen vs. XSTARS (Online) de_Nuke

http://www.esl-europe.net/uk/cs/5on5/mr15/season1/nightcup5/download/812994/

Acumen vs. revolver (Online) de_Inferno

http://www.esl-europe.net/uk/cs/5on5/mr15/season1/nightcup/download/796831/

Approximate UK clan ranking: 5^th to 10^th

Overall clan rating 7.5/10