For the past six months we have been part of Arctic Accelerator, hosted by KUPA for startups in Northern Norway. This week the program ended with a “demo-day” and SKADE collected another W!
So, in addition to a lot of knowledge gained, connections made and a steep learning curve we can now crown ourselves the most promising startup company in Northern Norway.
Arctic Accelerator is a accelerator project for tech-startups in their early stage. With a six month program, where they provide guidance, coaching and advice. They help speed up ideas and help the companies take their opperations to the next level.
On the “demo-day” we got to test our project and ideas in a pitch contest, going up against 9 other promising startups. With our CEO Morten Skaland and trusted wingman William Edvardsen, nothing was left to coincidence. The guys came in well prepared and with the result ending up as previously stated, there’s no doubt our ideas can stand their ground.
In what has already been an amazing month for our CSGO squad, things just got even better!
With a clean sweep in the playoffs where we didn’t drop a single map we secured another trophy for the wall! And with a top heavy prize pool we also secure $80.000!!
The start of the tournament was a bit shaky as the guys came into it playing KOVA after a long time without breaks. However, they got a bit of rest and shaped back up just in time. From that point on the guys never looked back, shook off the first loss and never dropped another series.
Getting out of swiss stages with a solid 3 – 1 record, we came into the playoffs with a lot of confidence. In the playoffs the guys made short work of MOUZ NXT, Vitality (!!!) and Tricked esports, before making short work of Copenhagen Flames in the grand final.
2022 is shaping up to be a incredible year for SKADE and the CSGO squad is leading the charge! Make sure you stay tuned with all this crazyness in our social medias.
We conclude the last of the 4 Elisa invitational events from 2021 with a 2-0 dominant final win over HEET. That makes it 3 out of 4 final appearances in Elisa invitational, with 2 championships to boot!
Skade were blessed with a direct high seed invite for the tournament, starting directly deep in the playoff stages. From there we went on to 2-0 Eternal fire (#33 in the world) in confident manner. 2-0 Copenhagen Flames (#17 in the world) in an absolute slugfest of a series.
In the grand final we beat HEET (#21 in the world) 2-0, by dominating our own map pick in overpass, then throwing a wrench in to HEETs gameplan in dust2 with some big clutch rounds, especially by dream3r in the grand finals. This performance feels especially strong based on the recent form of HEET having won their RMR qualifier bracket less than a week ago.
With this win the boys from Skade CS line-up have really opened up the season with a bang, both winning the Bulgarian A1 Gaming league and now with the Elisa Invitational Winter 2021 win, the hunt is on for more and the dream of a major appearance is closer than ever! #LetsHunt
After a wild tournament that really showcased the incredible skill if the Bulgarian CSGO community, we are now officially the strongest lineup in Bulgaria!
It has been proven time and again that no Bulgarian CSGO squad can ever be underestimated and this tournament really showcased it.
We have said for years now that there’s incredible fragging power in the scene. So when going into this tournament we knew that every single match would be a brutal battle.
In the group stages we opened things up with a clean 2 – 0 win, but Endangered took us by surprise and we had to play a 3rd decisive match after a 0 – 2 loss. In the 3rd game Stoichkov Peek was waiting, and lead by former SKADE captain SPELLAN we had to go all 3 maps to close it out 2 – 1. With that win we secured our spot in the playoffs and shot at the title.
In the double elimination playoffs, we really did not get the start we had hoped for and ran into a 0 – 2 defeat against FATE esports in the first match. However, with double elimination we were still in the run with the lower bracket series. With a solid lower bracket run of 2 – 0, 2 – 1 and 2 – 0, we fought our way back and got to the grand final.
As we entered the grand final we once again came up against FATE esports and they had 1 map advantage. Just to make things even more exciting we started the series by dropping the first map. However, the guys turned their focus around and in a grueling battle fought their way back, turning 0 – 2 into a 3 – 2 victory!!
With that secured we can now officially name our boys the best CSGO squad in Bulgaria! As a added bonus from winning the guys secured a shot at the BLAST qualifiers later this year.
After an incredible weekend our amazing Call of Duty Mobile squad can claim their title as Brazil’s number one team and gear up for worlds!
For the past month the guys have been bootcamping to make sure they were as ready as could be for the final stage of the qualifiers. During the camp they have shown impressive form and as the main event came close there seemed to be no stopping them.
As the qualifier started it quickly became clear for anyone watching that the guys were as hungry as they seemed. After 3 solid matches the guys won the upper bracket and with that they had already secured their spot in Worlds. The grand final brought them the only loss they had in the qualifier as they fell to the Mexican powerhouse that is Zygnus esports.
This means that we are going to the Call of Duty Mobile world championship 2021!! Where we will not only fight for the title as the best team in the world, but our share of $2.000.000!!
On top of the incredible performance the guys made tons of content and preparations for the time to come. So make sure you tune in to our social medias to stay up to date.
We joined the war and came out victorious after a really solid run throughout the tournament!
The guys came our of their player break ready to fight and IronWar Grand Prix was the first piece of action they got. In a fairly stacked tournament the guys got a perfect startup after some relaxation.
In a solid perfomance they closed out the group stages with a 3 – 1 score after taking down teams such as INDE Irae, B8 and BEZ ZP.
When the playoffs came around the guys were already tuned in and there was little doubt what goal they had set. With a solid perfomance of 7 – 1 in maps and a crushing 3 – 0 final against AGO. The guys were victorious and could celebrate yet another tournament win!
Season 2 has already been announced and we are ready to defend the title when the time comes!
REPUBLEAGUE Season 1 just concluded and we grabbed the best of 5 grand final in a 3 – 0 fashion!
REPUBLEAGUE Season 1 turned out to be a rollercoaster of constant action. After winning the first European qualifier with some really close games, the guys were feeling confident for the swiss stage. However we had a unexpected start and started our run with a loss and we had to go all five rounds to secure our advancement from swiss.
In the playoffs the guys had a completely different mindset tho! With a clean run of victories and only dropping a single map in 10 maps the guys showed everyone what they are made of! Taking down Young Ninjas, Endpoint and SAW (TWICE!) it was no small feat.
This marks the biggest single tournament win to date for SKADE as a team in terms of prize money, and also a turning point for the team as they have been a bit off their groove lately. Time to charge up, relax and reset as there’s plenty more action to come!
“We had a rough period the last couple of weeks but it just felt like we were in shape when we played this tournament.Really happy overall with the team performance and we are hoping to get back to form in the upcoming weeks” – Viktor “Duplicate” Mitev
“After a though period with the team, this win is a huge confidence boost for us. We are gonna show everyone that we aren’t the next team that has a honeymoon period and then goes silent. Also thanks to anyone who supports us, it means a lot and it can really affect our days possitively!” – Blagoi “oxygeN” Dimitrov
“I am just beyond proud to see the boys take this one home! They have been in a rough place lately and trying to find your flow after the amazing run we had can be really hard. Today they had their killer focus back and they came into the server to win and nothing else mattered. I still feel their journey has barely started so people need to wake up and tune in for these guys!” – CEO, Kim-Erik “Zarotan” Aanes
Having a goal of doing a monthly writeup is a great push for me to take some time to reflect on how amazing this journey is! We have so many things going on at all times and it is easy to forget how much we have done in this short time. I finally decided to sit myself down, breathe and really reflect on what the past month has been like. HOLY SHIT! Everyone in SKADE truly do amazing things!
So what was April like for SKADE? Check this out!
Fan Engagement:
What a month we had! We started the month with a lot of hype coming over from March and it everyone was pumped and ready to put some effort into social media. The fact that we continued to kick ass in CS:GO, PUBG AND CoD Mobile sure did it’s part.
We continue to explore the mobile gaming industry in Brazil and our biggest move on that front was in social media where we landed our first influencer. With the signing of Rafael “JAPA” Nakata Tamashiro we increase our reach by adding thousands of followers to the pack.
What was the result of this you ask? Our reach for April is up by 207.54% compared to March!!
Esports:
In what most would say was a bonkers month we had more than 100 official matches and the strain on our players was crazy (thank you TO’s for stacking everything), but amazing things came from it!!
Our CS:GO team has been on fire for some time already, but April was something else! 36 officials on HLTV, including a 18 match win streak! Not to mention the fact that we became Champions of Elisa Invitational! 😉 Oh, remember when we cheered for reaching rank #34 in the World in March? We finished April sitting comfortably at #23 IN THE WORLD!!
In PUBG the boys continued their impressive form from March and with that they secured their spot in the grand final of this years first A-Tier tournament! This tournament was seriously stacked, and all the teams put up a fight for the first shot at PGC Points. We ended up taking a solid 8th place and with that the guys secured their first points towards the PUBG Global championship!!
Call of Duty Mobile is still new to us and it is growing on us all. The COD Mobile world championship was announced and with it came a set of rules. This means we had to change a player due to age restrictions and a window opened to get our hands on another player we had been looking at. We brought in 2 new players and now we have an active roster of 6 players while we wait for MTS to turn 18. 😉 This did not stop the guys and their grind. They won another tournament as they became the champions of Golden League and now all their focus has turned towards the World championship!
SKADE
With the incredible growth we have had in SKADE it was finally time to expand our staff and April was a great month for us in terms of this. We landed 4 new dedicated staff members that will be putting their own flavor to how we operate on a day to day basis. Morten Skaland, Cornelius Hjort, Erlend Stålsett Nes and William Edvardsen are now a part of the pack! And guess what? We are still looking for more 😉
“Everything has been moving at an incredible speed lately and it can be hard to stop, breathe and enjoy all of this. I am fortunate enough to have surrounded me with people, staff and players that allow me to do this. Esports moves at a crazy speed and everyone involved need to be on top of their game. My job in this is to remind people of the amazing things we accomplish and remind people to breathe, enjoy and flow with this.” – CEO, Kim-Erik Aanes
We are once again triumphant in a tournament as we have been crowned the champions of European Development Championship 3!
In a long fought battle where we had to fight a serious of tough opponents the guys made it all the way! Bagging them a nice win of 17.500$ and a bootcamp in Malta at a 5 star resort. Just what these hunters need after a wild spree of matches!
We started our journey with a group stage, where our group had some serious teams in ENCE, GameAgents and Double Poney. The guys came in well prepared tho, and made quick work of Double Poney in a Bo1, before taking down ENCE 2 – 0 in the winners match.
With that it was time for playoffs and we ran into some serious opponents right away as 1WIN was waiting for us. All 3 maps had to be played, and in OT of the third map we finally closed out the series 2 – 1. Next up was team SINNERS, another tough opponent. We dropped the first map in OT, but the guys picked up momentum and closed it out in the next two maps and took the series 2 – 1!.
In the grand final we once again came up against our friends ENCE, from the group stages. This time the Finnish side really showed up to fight and the entire 3 map series was a slugfest! We had a solid start with taking their map pick, but they got right back at us and took our map. Our boys would not have any of it and on the third and final map they closed it out with a quick 16 – 6 win on Mirage!
Give it up for the hunters as they once more bring down their prey and bag another trophy!! #LetsHunt
Did you know we have 2 of the top 10 plays in April 2021? :O
After a long fought week we are now the champions of the Elisa Invitational CS:GO tournament!
Everything was set for a weekend of wild action as soon as the teams were announced. With the likes of ENCE, HAVU, Nordavind and more the show was secured.
We had a bumpy start to the tournament with a opening loss to Nordavind. This was just a bump in the road tho, as we wiped HAVU out of the way and then secured our semi-final spot with a OT win against APEKS.
In the semi-finals we ran into the amazing talents of Young Ninjas and they gave us a bit of a scare by winning the first map. However the boys turned things around and closed the win out in the following 2 maps. And with that they secured their spot in the grand final and a shot at redemption aginst Nordavind.
As soon as the grand final started, it became clear that they guys were hungry! They ran into Overpass with zero fear and secured the map with a comfortable 16 – 7 score. We then moved on to Inferno where Nordavind came in with a much more scary gameplan. It was a true slugfest battle going back and forth, but in a 3rd overtime our guys closed it out!
A 2 – 0 was secured and the guys have been crowned the champions of Elisa Invitational Spring 2021!!
Duplicate with an amazing clutch moment!
“Once again the guys show what they are made of and what people can expect from them in the time to come. I have started running out of superlatives for how much i respect and admire these guys, but now i know people are starting to notice their hard work and efforts on a global scale as well.” – CEO, Kim-Erik “Zarotan” Aanes
“The team’s atmosphere and performance is extremely good and constantly improving day by day. This is not even the peak of what we can show the world. Anyone of the team can step up at any moment, if someone isn’t having a good game you can be sure that someone else will be destroying the enemy. Out of 26 bo3’s we have won 25, losing one to a strong mousesports side and we are starting to gain a lot more confidence as a team.” – Blagoi “Oxygen” Dimitrov
