Org-less League of Legends team No Ego stormed the Insomnia64 BYOC tournament, winning three straight games over Enclave Gaming in the grand final.
The team – consisting of Snuggli in the top lane, Skude in the jungle, Royal Wins Mid in the mid lane, Rabstar as ADC, Viggo as support and Ayleex as sub top laner – saught revenge on Enclave after they lost to them 2-0 earlier in the tournament.
No Ego fought their way back through the losers bracket to face Enclave again in the grand final, who started with a 1-0 scoreline over No Ego due to qualifying from the winners bracket. You can view the full tournament bracket here.
Enclave started off the dominant side in game one. They had four drakes, a 10k gold lead and 13 kill lead by the 30-minute mark, before taking the baron.
But then No Ego came alive. In particular, it was ADC Rabstar who turned up the heat as Tristana. His impressive triple kill and ace – and later quadra kill into the baron – would later make Enclave support player Raizins say in his post-match interview that he never wants to face a Tristana like that ever again.
By the 40-minute mark, the gold lead to Enclave had been cut to 4k and it was No Ego’s turn to take the baron – and elder drake.
A frantic base race ensued, with Enclave charging forwards towards No Ego’s nexus. It looked like all of No Ego would recall, but only two did, with Rabstar, Royal and Viggo continuing to race in the top lane to Enclave’s base. And they won the race.
In game two, Rabstar was allowed to pick Tristana again. And this game was a much shorter affair, over at 25 minutes after No Ego secured three drakes, the baron, a 25-14 scoreline and an 8k gold lead. It looked like they were about to fall in their final push, but some great play by Skude as Rek’Sai helped them take game two.
Game three was more of an even affair, and became more tense and close as we entered the late game.
There were two plays near the end that arguably swung the game in No Ego’s favour. First, one of the UK scene’s riskiest baron plays in a while, that saw their players somehow escape with their lives:
Then, the moment of the match. Royal pulled off an insane 3v1 as Ryze to help the rest of his teammates take Enclave’s nexus – and the game.
No Ego win the BYOC i64 LoL final 3-1 vs @EnclaveGamingUK after an unbelievable play by @royalwinsmid! https://t.co/NXTd4TQ8wR @BelongArenas #i64 #insomnia64
— Esports News UK (@Esports_News_UK) April 21, 2019
After the game, Enclave support player Raizins said: “Honestly, these guys played at least five or six times better than I was expecting. We just underestimated them in the first game, we messed around a lot and didn’t close out the game, and I think that affected our mental [strength] a little bit in the second game, because we made mistakes we shouldn’t have made.
“They made a lot of proactive plays and Rabstar’s Tristana was really God-damn annoying, I hope I never have to play against that again. I genuinely thought we had it in the bag. Today they played better and we didn’t bounce back. I still think we did a decent job and hopefully we can do a lot better.”
Deflated-looking jungler Wysek and mid-laner Warszi did not leave their seats to hold up the runners-up cheque:
Left to right: Top laner Governor, ADC Kehvo and support player Raizins
No Ego support player Viggo commented: “We are No Ego… but we know we are always gonna win! If we’re down on ten kills, it’s fine – we know we have it in the bag.
“The first half of the first game was such a struggle. I was getting used to all my key bindings and it was not working, and I ended up playing the whole series in windowed mode because that was the only solution to the problem!
“We went in with the mental attitude being at 0-0, so we just played one game at a time and focused.”
Sub top laner Ayleex cheekily added: “It was freelo.”
“Rabstar’s Tristana was really God-damn annoying, I hope I never have to play against that again. Today they played better and we didn’t bounce back. I still think we did a decent job and hopefully we can do a lot better.”
Raizins, Enclave Gaming
There weren’t many UK orgs at Insomnia this year, with Enclave and Darkspawn being them main two orgs from the UKLC, and mix teams like No Ego and Phil Gaming also making an appearance.
There were some criticisms of Insomnia from the community, around the prize pool, last minute format changes to the Intermediate tournament and internet outages in the BYOC hall.
With the UKLC being introduced earlier this year, giving teams a pathway to more consistent revenues, for some teams Insomnia is no longer worth attending, considering the outlays in travel and accommodation when considering potential returns in tournament prizing.
The finals were cast by Chronicler and GreyHart.
At the end of the stream, GAME also revealed that the Belong Arena Clash League of Legends competition will return for this summer. We’ll hope to have a separate roundup of the Belong Arena Clash LoL final from this weekend soon, which was won by the Portsmouth Pirates:
Congratulations to our @BELONGPorts Pirates for claiming the League of Legends Arena Clash Champions title! Despite our technical difficulties, the Portsmouth Pirates defeated their London Lionhearts opponents in one of the most intense LoL games Arena Clash has ever seen! ? pic.twitter.com/DpWycldAXE
— Belong Gaming Arenas (@BelongArenas) April 21, 2019
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.
