This post was originally written on Jun 19th. I decided not to post it at the time because I honestly didn't feel a need to once I'd gotten it down on paper, but upon reflection there's no reason not to.

I opened Twitter today and saw a tweet from Keoz, a Belgian CS player competing in T2 EU CS with his currently orgless team Wild Lotus. They're without an organisation and are looking for sponsorship for the upcoming EPICLAN. When I looked at the replies, I was ashamed to see multiple players from the UK Counter-Strike scene replying variations of "don't come". Pathetic.

The UK scene has long had a reputation for being toxic, for being lazy and for being generally a bit shit at Counter-Strike. It's a difficult scene to break through and opportunities are rare, staying estranged from the wider CS scene does not help our case.

In a time where we're constantly talking about there being fewer opportunities and less and less investment into the UK CS scene, seeing T2 teams attending EPIC as anything other than a positive is foolish. These teams will be bringing more eyes to the tournament, they'll be taking EPICLAN from a UK domestic tournament to a tournament with international possibilities. Sponsors will now not just be marketing to the UK scene but tapping into the stronger EU market with its larger playerbase and established organisations. Insomnia used to be able to pull international teams with their prize pool back in the UK Masters days, at i63 we had Russians, Swedes and Poles in attendance. This was never a sustainable prize pool to keep providing though, but now teams aren't just playing for that. They're playing for the VRS points.

UK players and teams are going to get a chance to play against opposition that they wouldn't have any hope of even securing a scrim against, let alone face in a tournament. Even some of our best are going to be tested. Players that have the mindset to go far will see this for what it is: a massive opportunity to learn. Mistakes that you might get away with against lesser opposition will be punished. Rough edges will have to be smoothed.

There are valid concerns. Space is limited, if international teams start descending on Kettering, is the event going to lose its community feel? Are these international teams going to push the local teams out? At the end of the day the KCC is only so big and with Counter-Strike being as popular as it is at EPICLAN there are only so many seats available. That said, EPICLAN have always always managed to scale sustainably in the past. I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be able to adapt if required.

Another concern is the amount of games, if there are better teams turning up are the worse teams going to end up going out early and have nothing to do? With both an intermediate tournament and the formats chosen, this won't happen. The tournament admins do a great job at putting together a format that strikes a good balance between number of games and competitive validity. Washed as I am, I got double grouped last LAN and still feel like I played plenty of CS. If you're scared of losing in groups that's a you problem.

The guys telling these teams to not come have weak mindset. Complaining about better opposition rather than taking the steps necessary to beat them is a loser's game. Do better. And for those who later claimed it was a joke, with 0 context and written as text it really doesn't look like it.

If we want this scene to move forward, we need to embrace the prospect of international teams coming to our events. We need to welcome those new to EPICLAN and show them why we love this event so much. Being isolationist is not going to help a scene that's holding on by its fingernails. Practice hard and show the world what you can do.