Title photo: Edwin Wikman
It was a tough start for Peter “stanislaw” Jarguz’s squad in the best-of-five series as Dust2, ARCRED’s map pick, slipped out of Metizport’s hands early on and ended 5-13. Down 0-1 in maps, the series switched over to Nuke, our map pick, but the opponents had a strong start on the defending side and managed to end the first half with an 8-4 scoreline. In the pistol round in the second half, Nicolas “Plopski” Gonzalez Zamora and Isak “isak” Fahlén found themselves in a 2v4 retake situation on A-site, but somehow managed to clutch it out and inch the team’s foot into the door. ARCRED were only given one round after that, as a combined effort from all five players in Metizport helped them completely decimate the incoming attacks from the opponents, finishing the map with a 13-9 scoreline.
Now with the score equalized, the third map was Ancient, ARCRED’s pick. Despite having a higher winrate on the map, the CIS team were given a hard time in the first half as attackers, much thanks to David “forsyy” Bílý who dropped a whopping 2.14 rating on the defending side, helping Metizport scramble together five rounds before switching sides. Now as attackers, Plopski stepped into the spotlight with a 2.51 rating as the tables turned completely, and Metizport took eight rounds with ease and closed out Ancient 13-9.
Head Coach Vincent “vinS” Jozefiak couldn’t have been anything other than ecstatic as the squad was now on map point and the next map was Inferno, Metizport’s final pick in the veto. In the first half both teams were neck and neck and trading rounds up until the halfway point, where the scoreline was now 6-6. Losing the ever so important pistol round, the score had all of a sudden turned into 6-8 and Metizport had a full eco, but somehow managed to win the round after an incredible 3k backstab by stanislaw equipped only with a five-seven pistol. After that full-eco win, stanislaw rallied his men, said enough is enough, and perfected the defense. ARCRED were given only one more round at the 11-8 mark, and Metizport closed down the fourth and final map 13-9, finalizing the full three-map comeback to win the entire tournament.
This is an important tournament win for us, as it’s the first gold medal for the Counter-Strike team since November 2024 when they hoisted the trophy in Svenska Cupen, taking down NiP 3-0 and securing over $23,000. Since then, the crew has had several second place finishes, but always fell on the finishing line. We are therefore celebrating a little extra today, and hope this will be the start of our upswing in the second half of 2026. The only way from here is up!