The curtain falls, the dust settles, and the streets of Columbus are finally safe again from old men on dangerous E-Bikes. Our third successful LAN in less than two years has officially ended, and our footprint, and handprints, will remain inside the Game Arena, until they whip out the windex and wash the slime off those booths.

The Game Arena felt the roars, the screams, and the banging on the glass throughout the weekend, as the two-day event ultimately concluded with an Apes win, which was to their credit, an almost spotless result. The way they played in those finals, they could have competed with pretty much any single team in the world. And they played the game we love, at legitimately the highest level, trading kills like some kind of symbiotic entity, with a reaction time that barely looked human.

Sedated came into Sunday evening looking almost untouchable. They had dropped only one map throughout the entire LAN, against Janitors on Carentan, and then crushed Apes in a quick 2-0 in the winner’s bracket final. The biggest shock in those WB finals was Breakout, where, yes, Sedated started on the easier German side, but still ran away with a ridiculous 13-4 win against a very competent Apes team on that map. That result sent a shock through the Game Arena, and Apes looked visibly flustered afterwards.

So by the time Sunday night came around, there had already been enough storylines to fill the weekend.

Outside of the final, the rest of the bracket had plenty of its own stories.

One of the bigger surprises outside the top four was Beast. They brought Bricked to three maps in a very tight series despite not having Xlzz at LAN, and replacing him changed the team completely. Dallas stepped in and played well, but you cannot necessarily compare the two. Dallas knows the maps and can obviously play, but it is a completely different dynamic without Xlzz there. Still, Beast showed up. Magic in particular silenced a lot of the critics and had a very strong weekend. Vic was also their Canadian shooting star, dropping consistent 20s with the shotgun, and securing and closing out series for them across the board.

Modern was another surprise. They beat UP in the loser’s bracket, in what I would argue was an upset, and they did it in very exciting fashion, even though the three-map series ended with a clear stomp on Dawnville. The funny part is that Modern ended up in the play-ins after a rough start to their Group A Day, dropping their first game to Cal-AC. There was a lot of internal turmoil going on, enough that you could guess where the team was going from there. In the sewers. But somehow, they were able to mend the pieces enough to recover and leave with a fifth/sixth-place finish alongside Beast.

UP finished seventh/eighth, which has to be considered disappointing considering the talent on that roster. They still showed elite potential at times, but they never managed to put everything together consistently enough to make the deeper run they were probably expecting.

Cal-AC also finished seventh/eighth, but their story is a little different. They were essentially a pug team put together about a month and a half before LAN, and they still managed to show that they had real fragging power. More importantly, they showed that they could close out maps. They were only just squeezed out of the play-ins in the end, but for a team put together that late, almost stealing third seed in their group, there was plenty there to be happy about, as a team and as individuals.

Janitors were the only team to take a map off Sedated leading up to the finals, while Beast pushed Bricked to three maps in one of the tighter series of the weekend despite not having Xlzz at LAN. Modern also pulled off what we would argue was an upset against UP in the loser’s bracket, winning a very exciting three-map series, but that unfortunately ended with a pretty hard stomp on Dawnville.

Janitors ultimately lost the plot somewhere along the way, and by the time they met Bricked in the loser’s bracket, they did not look like the same team anymore. As far as I know, Bricked beat them 2-0. It was not necessarily a stomp, but Janitors just did not look right. And with that team, it is almost never a question of skill. It’s usually a question regarding their mental state and overall aggression. When they are on, they can compete with anybody. When things start going wrong, though, it can unravel quickly.

Bricked then made things competitive with Apes before ultimately going out themselves with another 2-0. Either way, the two-time defending champions finished third, and while they did not look as dominant as they did at the first two LANs, they just remain a difficult team to put away.

But everything eventually led back to Apes and Sedated.

Apes had already been punched in the mouth once dropping down into the loser’s bracket, where they disposed of Bricked, the two-time defending champions, and after a tense 30-minute break, the finals were finally upon us.

This event brought a new winner’s bracket advantage. With a seven-map pool, the team coming from the winner’s bracket gets both the first and second ban instead of alternating bans between teams. That means they can eliminate two of their weaker maps and then decide which map will be played first, giving them a chance to set the tone for the series.

The team built by John Panther DeSantis himself, only made possible by basically cutting himself, which some say is a cop-out, other’s say commendable, but there’s no question this group does not have the same performance if John is sitting in one of those five seats. LAN-proven gamers Shell and Lex set the tone. They’ve competed and won big LANs in their respective games, and that experience, well, plainly said, you can never have too much of it. Lex in particular was incredible throughout the weekend and has a very real argument for finals MVP and also the best overall performance for Apes at the LAN.

Back to the finals. Sedated chose to ban Matmata, their permaban, and also Dawnville. Sedated chose Railyard as their first map, a map they clearly felt confident on, and it showed immediately. They started the match winning rounds off of team play, solid setups, and the kind of structured COD2 they had shown throughout the entire weekend. But after a timely timeout from Apes, things started to look a little different. Apes adjusted, stopped simply trading rounds back and forth, and started putting together a run.

And after Zack’s early 4K on Railyard, the Apes essentially had all the confidence they needed to play together, hit their shots and outplay their opponents. Once that run started, the momentum built, and climaxed to where Brian hard-pressed his role of clutch-kid, winning a crucial 1v1 by shooting his opponent through the front-ruins sandbag sandbag. Knowledge is power, and that round turned the tides by putting pressure on Sedated., and closed out the map 13-8.

Next map was Toujane, which Apes picked. Both teams traded rounds and posted a respectable 7-5 half in favor of Apes on their Allied side. But they were now switching to German, and Apes with rifles is just bad news for anyone playing them. Looking into the booths, it did feel like the lights were shining bright. Even with a few fan favorites, and people that are genuinely loved on that Sedated roster, the crowd and the karma seemed to be against them at every angle. And Apes did what Apes do and dominated on German, giving up only 2 rounds, and closing it out 13-7.

With Apes up 2-0 now, it came down to Breakout to keep Sedated alive in the series. And with a previous complete wash in the Winner’s Bracket final of 13-4 against Apes, this was their shot to start clawing back some ground in the series. But there was not much clawing back ground done. It was a quick one, and a complete stomp. Apes came in and used that 2-0 advantage to play incredibly loose and play an almost perfect set of Breakout. The way they traded and followed up kills was clinical.

And there you have it. A surprisingly clean 3-0 from Apes. But that does not take anything away from the work Sedated put into this event. You cannot say anything against their dedication. They were the ones doing the stomping in the Upper Bracket Finals and throughout groups. You could see the work that had been done. Their setups were incredible, their protocols were clean, and for long stretches they looked like an unbeatable machine. After the winner’s bracket final, it would have been easy to think this was almost already in the bag with the way they were playing.

Sedated have kept the same core of three for the last three LANs, so almost two years at this point, and they had added and put together arguably one of the most skilled rosters they have ever fielded. Lewis and Nilla had been huge for them throughout Day 1 and Day 2, but unfortunately they did not necessarily show up in the same way in the finals.

The discussion about what the winner’s bracket advantage remains an interesting conversation. Maybe the best advantage is map control, maybe it is a single-map advantage, maybe something else. After asking around, the consensus seemed to be that this format was a clear-cut and solid advantage for the Winner’s Bracket finalist, Sedated. On the other hand, against certain teams with weak map pools, it could make a BO5 series almost unwinnable. But Apes were well-rounded with an almost complete map pool, and even though they lacked practice on Railyard, they skillfully adjusted and pierced Sedated’s solid German setup to deal what was essentially the first and biggest blow of the series.

So LAN 3 ends with Apes on top, Sedated once again painfully close, Bricked finally knocked off the throne, and a field underneath them that feels more competitive than ever.

For Apes, it is hard to imagine a better ending. They came into the event as a team people expected to be in full contention, got punched in the mouth by Sedated in the winner’s bracket final, and dropped down. They regrouped, came back, and when they got their second chance, they punched right back, and ultimately got the K.O.

Thanks to everyone who participated, helped organizing, and just showed up whether to frag or hang out. See you next year.