This Month in eSports: July!

Watching at home was a fun experience as well. They had a “command center” that allowed you to tune into any team you wanted, watching their POV’s and listening to the communication within the team. It was very interactive, which I feel like a lot of people liked, including me. They surpassed 200k in viewership at one point during the grand finals, and had tons of high profile content creators co-streaming the event. 

In the end, the winners of the last LAN event, DarkZero, came out on top after 9 WILD maps! It’s very hard to explain everything but just know that it was very intense because after 8 maps, 9 teams were qualified to win the entire thing. The way it works is after you’ve earned 50 points from the previous games, you qualify to win the event, but you have to win the match once you qualify in order to win the entire thing. So basically, half of the teams participating in the final could’ve won the entire thing in that 9th match. It was SO intense! Here’s a video of the highlights from championship Sunday: 

Best moments of the ALGS Championship (Finals) - YouTube

Call of Duty: CDL Major 4 in New York 

The storylines for the teams in the CDL are now all set and stone for the biggest and last event of the year, CoD: Champs. This event in New York solidified the final 8 teams that will make it, and it was one for the ages. 

Going into Stage 4 to set us up for Major 4, The New York Subliners, hosts of the Major 4 event, were in 2nd to last place in the league. Crimsix, the leader of NYSL, is considered the G.O.A.T. of CoD with over forty 1st place tournament wins and 3 championships. He has never missed Champs, and was now in the lowest position in his career to put himself there. They literally had to win almost every one of their league matches + either win or get to the final of their event + variables (other teams losing/winning) in order to qualify for champs. 

For NYSL fans, it felt like watching the Steelers make a wild card run for the playoffs. #Stressful.

With 5 other teams also teetering on the edge of qualification, NYSL was in control of their own destiny. They ended up going 4-1 in the league matches, setting themselves up for a winners bracket run at their home event. The stars were aligning for NYSL. 

With so much pressure on the line for the Subliners, the intensity of their matches increased and was definitely felt within the home crowd at the 4th Major of the season. There has never been a CoD event in New York so I was eager to see how the fans would turn up. They didn’t disappoint! NYSL had some of the coolest walkouts with the players I’ve seen in a long time. Crimsix found someone who looked very similar to him in the crowd, named him Crimseven, then had him walk out onto the stage in place of him before waltzing out onto the stage to confront his doppelganger. It was honestly refreshing to see some creativity displayed by NYSL. It felt like I was getting ready to watch a WWE match!

NYSL Crimseven Walkout

The Subliners ended up carrying their momentum through the winners bracket, cementing qualification for the biggest tournament of the year. It was a huge sigh of relief for the team, as they have been struggling all year with winning matches amid chaotic roster changes throughout the season.

They ended up losing in the grand final to LA Thieves in a very back and forth best of 9 series. For LA Thieves, this is their first Major tournament win since Black Ops 4 in 2019 for the whole 100 Thieves organization. This is also their first CDL major they’ve won since they’ve joined the franchised league.

Former Optic player and now Co-Owner/CEO of 100 Thieves, Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag, celebrated his team’s victory at the comfort of his house as he looked and felt so sweet to finally win a major in the eSport where he first started. It was truly some inspiring stuff!

Nadeshot reacts to winning Major 4 2022

Rocket League: Moist eSports Win RLCS Spring Major!

I didn’t get a chance to watch much of the major, but I did get to watch the grand final. I was surprised to see Moist eSports in the final coming from the losers bracket, but if any team were to win it all from that position, it's them. They were able to make it to the final of the Winter Major last year, but came up short after a very hard fought game against G2 eSports. “JoJo”, “rise”, and “vatira” of Moist eSports were coming into this event hungry for a chance at another title shot, so it was massively entertaining to see them back there. 

I found myself rooting for them because I usually default to cheering for the NA team in these kinds of matches, especially when the other team is from a different continent. But I was REALLY rooting for them, man. There’s just something about watching these young athletes win in eSports with a whole crowd cheering them on that inspires me. Honestly, it was super cool to watch!

Moist ended up beating Falcon eSports, a team from the Middle East, who cruised through the likes of Faze Clan, Spacestation Gaming, and Version1. They became the first Middle Eastern team to compete in a grand final for Rocket League and secured their spot for the biggest tournament of the year at Worlds. Congrats to Falcon eSports for the qualification! 

There’s so much talent in this eSport and it was very exciting to see an NA team take home the Spring Major, so a huge shout out to the players/fans/and the orgs that made it such a cool event to watch. At times I felt the vibe of a real soccer match, as the crowd was being so interactive. 

VALORANT: VCT Masters Copenhagen 2022

The Valorant Champions Tour has arrived in Copenhagen with the top 12 teams in the world at the moment competing for a $650k prize pool. The two teams representing North America in this split are XSET and Optic. XSET ended up beating Optic in the qualifiers to earn an upper bracket spot for the upcoming major. Optic, the reigning champions of the last event, now had to qualify for the playoffs by getting top 2 in group play. 

Optic opened up losing to David Beckham’s partially owned eSports organization, Guild eSports 2-0. They were now playing in the face of elimination, needing to win their next 2 series to qualify for the playoffs or else they were going back home to Texas. 

As it is becoming more increasingly known, when Optic loses, they don’t lose again.

They stormed through the next two teams of LOUD and KRU, earning themselves qualification for the playoffs.

Their next match was the match to decide who the better NA team is at the tournament, going up against XSET in the upper bracket of the playoffs. Optic SMOKED them, as they like to do when they lose to a team that’s beaten them before, holding an impressive undefeated record on the season in revenge games. Optic sent XSET to the losers bracket where they ended up losing to a Latin American team, Leviathan, eliminating them from the tournament. XSET left the tournament earning $25k and a 7th-8th place finish at Copenhagen. 

Optic, now on a roll, has to go up against a familiar opponent from the Korean region, DRX, for an upper bracket semi-final matchup. It was a gruler of a match, with Optic prevailing again at the end. GG’s all around because that was a fun match to watch. 

With the tournament coming to end this week, Optic will be facing a really tough Paper Rex team, hailing from Singapore, in the upper bracket finals on Friday at 11am EST. I’ll definitely be tuning in because it’s going to be one hell of a matchup and Optic are my second favorite organization in eSports, behind the Knights of course!

It’s going to be one hell of a match! If you’d like to tune in, check out the VALORANT channel on Twitch or YouTube to catch all the live action during the championship weekend.

I will also be live streaming a watch party of the event to root on for Optic, so if you’d like to join me there, feel free to do so. I always enjoy chatting during the games! Hopefully I see you there! 

Pittsburgh Knights Update

Gears 5 Summer Major 2022

For the final Gears 5 eSports tournament ever, the Pittsburgh Knights were looking hungry to cement themselves champions of the game, after a couple of very successful seasons. Gears 6 will not be out for a while, so this major felt like the Super Bowl of Gears 5. 

It was broadcasted on the main Xbox channel via Twitch, garnering in average of around 1.8k viewers.

I found myself rooting for them just as hard as the Steelers or the Pens in the playoffs, yelling out “NICE!!!!” every time Raver was making PLAYS on rotations. 

The Knights ended up making the grand final, going up against their NA rivals in Rise Nation. Avexcys, from Rise, proved in the end that his team was just better with so much grand finals experience. 

The Knights gave them one hell of series as they lost 3-5 in a best of 9 map set. They left with $30k and should be very proud of themselves, after a very successful campaign in the eSport. 

I am sad to see my favorite eSports team not be able to compete until the next title, but in fairness the Knights really cemented themselves as a top contender in eSports. No matter what eSport they venture into, they really seem to be trying to compete at the top level, and that’s all I can ask for outta my team! 

Pittsburgh Knights VALORANT: Team Update

Since their elimination in the VCT Split Qualification, our boys have been turning up, with an impressive 11-3 record! They made the grand final of their own tournament, known as the monthly Knights Gauntlet, losing to Oxygen eSports in the end.

A couple of weeks later they competed in another tournament, hosted by Nerd Street, SMOKING all of the competition for a 1st place finish against Akrew in the final. 

They are now ranked 10th in North America according to the power rankings as they seem to be improving heading into next year.

Although the Knights 2022 VALORANT campaign to qualify for the majors came to an end in May, they are still putting their foot forward and proving to teams that they deserve a spot in the league next year when Riot Games allegedly will franchise the eSport by each region.