With David Hollingsworth away this evening, Dom Sacco steps in to provide a very brief rundown of this week’s scores.
In the first match tonight, ESL Premiership newcomers Team Xenex and Enclave Gaming faced off.
Enclave started brightly, with top-laner Prelude getting the first blood of this split – and a cheeky second kill.
First blood of the ESL Premiership spring split goes to Prelude of @EnclaveGamingUK with a sneaky double kill! https://t.co/woZ6ZOzNO3
— Esports News UK (@Esports_News_UK) January 18, 2017
However, Xenex showed their prowess and came back into the game to win the match. Enclave’s performance decayed throughout this series and Xenex took the 2-0.
Some expert level kiting by the guys here! @ESLUK https://t.co/wtyOJfcBYp
— Team XENEX (@teamxenex) January 18, 2017
Meanwhile, GLB went 1-0 up against Bulldog Esports with this comp:
Our comp vs @BulldogeSports going into game 1. #GLBWin pic.twitter.com/rj2n2dkO4r
— GLB eSports (@GLB_Esports) January 18, 2017
However, Bulldog turned it around to even the series around 1-1.
In the final two matches of the evening, xL’s team of experienced UK players went up against newcomers Cyclone. Despite a good fight from the Irish org, xL had too much experience and won the first game with a strong performance from the ‘Jauxerism’ (sorry) bot-lane partners ADC Joekerism (10/2/9) and support player Aux, as well as jungler NocturnalPlex in particular.
.@exceL extend their lead against @CycloneGG, with experienced UK ADC @Joekerism picking up his 6th kill & high CS https://t.co/BkqHbReHIP
— Esports News UK (@Esports_News_UK) January 18, 2017
However! While exceL continued their lead at the start of game two, with resilience and togetherness Cyclone fought back incredibly hard in game two to even the series 1-1.
After securing the baron late on in the game, Cyclone went on to ace exceL and take the game.
Comeback time for @CycloneGG??? #ESLPrem https://t.co/QrQ6nDty83 pic.twitter.com/VB6gYtyPnE
— ESL United Kingdom (@ESLUK) January 18, 2017
An Ace and a Baron for @CycloneGG seal the deal and they take Game number 2! GGWP ??? #ESLPrem pic.twitter.com/ge4aa5YdSr
— ESL United Kingdom (@ESLUK) January 18, 2017
Elsewhere, existing UK champions MnM Gaming returned with a mix of new and old faces (Hadow, Deadly, Teimpo, Candyfloss and Charlietea), and swept aside Team Paria in the series, winning 2-0.
That puts MnM and Xenex at the top of the table, with GLB, Bulldog, xL and Cyclone sitting behind them, and Paria and Enclave at the bottom of the table so far.
Don’t forget to check out the ESL LoL Premiership at 7pm next Wednesday evening on the ESL LoL Twitch channel
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.
