Hello, Friends!
Welcome to the latest Geeky Brummie esports roundup! This week, Team Spirit come out of nowhere to win TI10, Warwick Esports champions diversity, and the Universities of Birmingham, Aston, and Coventry clash in a series of friendly LANs. If you have an esports story that you would like us to feature, email mat@geekybrummie.com.
Team Spirit Wins $40m Dota 2 Championship
They became overnight millionaires in a legendary grand final.
Team Spirit has won The International 10, taking home $18.2 million of the record-breaking prize pool of more than $40 million. Held in Bucharest, Romania, the tournament was a whirlwind of hype and top performances. Twelve of the best teams in the world battled it out for a slice of $40 million, the largest prize pool in esports history.
Team Spirit’s Lower Bracket Battle
Team Spirit was knocked into the lower bracket of the tournament by Team Secret in their first match, but it was only up from there. Team Spirit first eliminated the defending champions OG before taking down fellow Russians Virtus.Pro. The hype built further in their surprise victory over Invictus Gaming, who had been favored as one of the strongest teams in the tournament after going 6-2-0 during the group stages. IG was TI winner in 2012 and OG was back-to-back winners in 2018 and 2019, making this relatively unknown team an overnight sensation.
Ping-Pong Final
It was the explosive grand final against Chinese team PSG. LGD, however, would leave all of us watching speechless. Team Spirit started off well with a 2-0 lead over PSG.LGD. They then conceded two games against the latter, including a crushing 24-minute defeat in game 4 bringing the score to an even 2-2. With all to play for, both teams pulled out all the stops in the final game, but Team Spirit nailed the win with an outstanding draft and team coordination leading to some critical team fights.
PSG.LGD finished second place with a cool $5.2m leaving Team Spirit to sweep the Aegis (the adorned trophy) and a cool $14m.
An Emotional Roller Coaster of a Tournament
I’d be lying if I said that the tenth anniversary of Valve’s signature esports tournament wasn’t an emotional one for everyone. It was canceled alongside the entire pro circuit in 2020 due to the pandemic. Troubles continued into this year when the tournament was postponed once again from its usual summer slot to autumn due to Sweden making a U-turn on their classification for esports (despite hosting a CS:GO tournament shortly after, but there you go).
Even when the tournament finally arrived, it was obvious that it was a very different tournament to the usual. An empty stadium with noises of (an admittadly excellent) simulated crowd, mixed from old TIs accompanied each game. However, despite the fact that Team Spirit lifted that aegis to an empty stadium, this was still every much a TI world championship as ever. The hype was there, the personalies and casters were on top form and the teams fought for every minute of every match.
I’m biased, of course, because Dota 2 is my favourite game of all time, but it really was the very best of what esports can offer. Check out the whole tournament over on the official Twitch here.
Warwick Esports Champions Diversity
Warwick Esports continue their work towards positive change with several initiatives and events designed to create safe space, educate and champion diversity in esports.
Introducing “The Pack”
Warwick Esports has launched its new community, The Pack, open exclusively to women and non-binary individuals. The community is based out of a discord server like most other communities but will have a more relaxed approach to the other servers run by the society.
Apart from acting as a safe environment for members to chat with others who share their passions and as a platform for the community to run events, like game nights, fun competitions, and team-building exercises. It will also act as a staging ground for members to get connections with female & non-binary experts in the industry.
The community will help field Warwick’s teams for the NUEL’s (National University Esports League’s) women’s & nonbinary leagues. However, it isn’t just a server for students at Warwick or students in general, but open to all women and non-binary individuals who want to join.
Creating these safe spaces is essential to unlocking new talent in esports, this is a fantastic initiative that I cannot wait to see prosper. If you are interested in joining the community then click here
Combo Breakers: Celebrating BAME in Esports
In celebration of Black History Month, Warwick Esports are running an event to celebrate BAME history and representation in esports. “Combo Breakers” will feature an educational talk by Melanin Gamers, as well as a Tekken 7 tournament, with prizes provided by HyperX. It will be hosted out of the University of Warwick’s new esports centre on Wednesday 20th October and is free and fully open to the public.
Melanin Gamers are an international community built around promoting diversity and inclusion within esports and gaming. They regularly hold panel discussions, workshops, and presentations on industry-relevant topics with the aim of empowering and educating.
For those wishing to attend the event, the esports centre is in the junction building at the centre of the University of Warwick’s campus. The talks will start at 2 pm, with the tournament at 3:30-4 pm, with the whole event wrapping up by 6-7 pm. More information can be found on the event page.
If you can’t make the event, it will also be live-streamed at https://twitch.tv/warwickesports.
Universities Duke it Out in the West Midlands Freshers Tournament
Several west midlands university esports teams participated in a friendly tournament to welcome freshers.
Aston University, Birmingham City University, University of Birmingham, and Coventry University went head to head in a series of friendlies across Overwatch, Valorant, League of Legends and CS:GO over two weekends in the West Midlands Freshers Tournament. The finals wrapped up this weekend at Belong Gaming Arena at Birmingham Fort.
See some of the results below:
Coventry fell to the University of Birmingham in the Valorant grand final with a 2 – 0 defeat following very close overtime on the second map.
Following a brilliant series of matches, Coventry found themselves once again missing out just against the University of Birmingham in the grand final of the Overwatch leg of the tournament.
The University of Birmingham once again came out on top beating Aston in a best of three CS:GO final. Overall, it seemed like the teams had some amazing fun. Friendlies like this are not only important to practice in the run up to University League competitions, but also to strengthen the local esports community in the region. Maybe we should make it an official tournament?
That’s it from me folks, I’ll catch you on the flip side!
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