It was a big weekend for esports, with the finals of the League of Legends World Championship, Overwatch World Cup and other tournaments at BlizzCon taking place. Dom Sacco provides a recap.
It’s been a mixed weekend for UK esports, with pain in Worlds, pride in Overwatch and victory in WoW.
But regardless of the final scores, it’s fair to say our teams showed grit, resilience and promise for the future in some of the world’s biggest esports tournaments.
Fnatic fall at final Worlds hurdle
First up, the Worlds final on Saturday morning UK time. Despite London-based organisation Fnatic putting in impressive performances all throughout the 2018 LoL World Championship, they fell at the final hurdle.
Invictus Gaming put in a convincing 3-0 victory in the final, sending Fnatic home and becoming the first Chinese team to win Worlds.
Each game was over in around 30 minutes and Invictus racked up more than 20 kills in each.
It would have been Fnatic’s second Worlds win if they had won, but it was not meant to be this year.
ADC player Martin “Rekkles” Larsson (pictured) said before the final: “If we win, that would mean something, but if we lose in the finals, people would forget about it in a year anyway. I don’t think anyone is satisfied… maybe the fans are, but for ourselves at least, we’re all playing to win.”
It will obviously be bitter for him and the team; for Fnatic to have done so well all tournament but to collapse in the final will be particularly painful for them.
We leave 2018 with sadness;
We look to 2019 inspired.Fans, family, partners, staff, players;
Thank you for taking us to the bitter end.
We hope to be remembered alongside @invgaming;
We took down the old guard and took us to anew.
See you in Europe.https://t.co/HxhcyprDy5 pic.twitter.com/W58PsMHZDx
— FNATIC (@FNATIC) November 3, 2018
Team UK defeat Team USA in Overwatch World Cup
The UK (aka 7Lions) showed the world what they’re capable of at the Overwatch World Cup finals this past weekend.
They beat Team USA 3-1 in the quarter-final in what’s being hailed as one of the biggest upsets in Overwatch World Cup history.
And although UK lost to eventual winners South Korea in the semi-final, and narrowly missed out on third place after falling to Canada 3-2 in the third/fourth place tie, it was a sweet, delicious feeling to shut up those cocky yanks who talked the big talk and were ultimately left with egg on their faces. The banter between the two sides escalated following the match.
Lol awkward
GGs Regardless @USAOWWC! pic.twitter.com/s0cdzvEliu
— Team UK Overwatch (@7LionsOW) November 2, 2018
I’m dead ??? #OWWC2018 pic.twitter.com/1AEtWdMTGX
— Stylosa (@unitlostgaming) November 4, 2018
With only two Overwatch League players in their roster, the UK put in a solid performance that the nation can be proud of.
And they progressed further than last year, where team UK were knocked out in the quarter finals by Sweden. Onto the grand finals next year then boys!
The future’s bright, the future’s Method Orange
Congratulations to @Methodgg Orange, your Warcraft Arena World Champions! ??? pic.twitter.com/RHPQd8ICQu
— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) November 4, 2018
Like Fnatic, Method are technically a UK-based organisation, though their players are from around the world.
Their NA World of Warcraft Arena team, Method Orange, won the World of Warcraft Arena World Championship at BlizzCon, beating the Gosu Crew 4-0 in the final.
This follows other recent victories for Method, including their raid team securing a world-first kill of G’huun on Mythic difficulty back in September.
Elsewhere at Blizzcon, Joona “Serral” Sotala made history becoming the first non-Korean player to the StarCraft II World Championship Series; Gen.G took the crown in the Heroes of the Storm Global Championship; China emerged victorious at the Hearthstone Global Games and Free Marsy took home the trophy in the Mythic Dungeon Invitational All-Stars.
Image source: Lol Esports Flickr
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.
