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North America’s Cloud9 won the UK’s biggest mobile esports tournament held last weekend in Building Six at the O2 Arena in London
The Vainglory Spring Championships kicked off a new tournament structure in 2017, pitting the top six teams from North America and Europe against each other for the first time.
Individual regions competed for their place in the unified finals, renewing the Western rivalry between major organisations including TSM, Cloud9, Fnatic and G2. The season culminated this weekend in Building Six at the O2 Arena in London.
Day one kicked off the regional rivalries by celebrating the top teams in each region. London-based Fnatic beat Dublin’s Cyclone 3-1.
Day two saw cross-regional play for the first time. Even though the European teams played some of their best matches, North America outperformed Europe with only one European team, G2, making it to the semi-finals.
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“We knew there was a good chance we were going to play as a top team – we stayed together to pull out a win during the finals.”
gabevizzle, Cloud9
Prior to last weekend, no European team won a match against North America and G2 broke all records by winning two games against the leading North American teams.
However, G2 missed out on their place in the finals to Gankstars, the tournament underdogs who have had an exceptional season and who went on to play Cloud9.
Heavyweights Cloud9 and TSM dominated the season, consistently playing well and were always considered to be the ones to beat. TSM, who knocked out the home-team Fnatic, were unable to hold onto their number one spot with Cloud9 beating them 3-1 in the semi-finals.
The live finals saw Cloud9 and Gankstars pitted against each other. Cloud9 dominated the final game and won 3-0.
Cloud9 claimed the trophy, the No.1 spot as the Unified Western Live Champions, and a spot at the World Championships later this year.
“The finals against Gankstars was intense as we were playing against our former teammates,” said Gabe “gabevizzle” Villarin of Cloud9.
“We knew there was a good chance we were going to play as a top team and although we struggled at some points during the semifinals against TSM we stayed together to pull out a win during the finals.
“We’re already looking forward to the Summer Championships and competing with everyone again.”
More Vainglory content
- Video interview: Fnatic cArn on Vainglory
- Fnatic beat Cyclone 3-1
- Five minutes with caster Excoundrel
- ‘I want to become the best player I can be’ – UK player Palmatoro
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Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
