Bam! Pow! Sock! Holy smokes, Batman(i) – a new caped crusader is in town and he’s got the ESL UK League of Legends Premiership in his sights (sorry).
Introducing Batmani Begins – a brand new team which has qualified for the summer 2016 split. So who are they and what are they all about? We spoke to former University of Birmingham and Perilous support player Alex “Synygy” Winton to find out.
“We’re a new team which formed exclusively for the qualifiers as a group of friends initially, but after the first qualifier we realised we had the ability to place in the top eight” Synygy explained.
“Nyx and I have played at a number of LANs, while the others have only played minimal 5s. We picked up Dividér from soloQ to fill the gap we had for a jungler.”
Batmani Begins have also picked up Rayunmort as coach, the former NUEL5 mid-laner (who played a tasty Anivia – see some old Rayunmort highlights here).
The team isn’t really an organisation as such, but Synygy says they would be interested in talking to orgs depending on what they can offer them.
Where does the name came from?
Synygy explained: “Well our ADC is called Batmani, and since it’s so close to Batman, we just used the name of the film.
“I would say we’re the Dark Knight of the tournament – when we sweep everyone!”
The Batmani Begins roster
Top: Lvl 99 Yordle
Jungle: Dividér
Mid: Ńýx
ADC: Batmani
Support: Synygy
Sub: UoB Bluebear
Sub: TCA Danny
Coach: Rayunmort
Analyst: Rhodz
Top 4 ambitions
With Choke dropping out of the ESL UK Premiership and GLB stepping in, there is a better chance for other teams to reach the top four. And Synygy thinks Batmani Begins can do it, by taking down their villainous rivals in the group stages.
“Our aim is to make it to the LAN finals at MCM, we’re definitely the underdog in the group but we can take wins off the other teams, especially if they come into the games overconfident against us,” he said.
“But given this is our first split, we’d also be happy just placing higher than our seed and taking games off the other teams in our group.
“In the Contender Series [qualifiers] we placed as expected each time, though getting matched versus a team of Plat players in the first week definitely helped us out!
“We had some solid early games against TCA and Perilous Void with our old jungler, so we’re going into these matches more confident now with an upgrade in the jungle.”
“I would say we’re the Dark Knight of the tournament – when we sweep everyone!”
Synygy also added that Batmani Begins is proof that other mix teams can qualify for future Premiership seasons.
“We’d like to encourage other mix teams to sign up to the qualifiers, there’s a lot of Diamond+ players in the UK who aren’t involved in the scene because they’re worried that they can’t get anywhere,” he commented.
“I think the fact we qualified is evidence that you don’t need a full D1+ roster to have a good shot competing in the Premiership and at LANs. Teamplay can heavily outweigh mechanical skill – if it is executed properly.”
It’s great to see a mix team making their way into the Premiership. An added bonus means we get to come up with Batman puns and put things like this in our articles, which we’d usually never get the chance to do. Thank you Batmani Begins – and good luck.
The ESL UK Premiership summer split gets underway this week – check out our preview and predictions with caster Joe “Munchables” Fenny here.
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.
