Two British teenagers are among the best Fortnite players in the world.
Kyle ‘Mongraal’ Jackson (left), who joined Team Secret last year aged 13 and later moved to FaZe Clan, and Jaden “Wolfiez” Ashman (right) who plays for Lazarus, finished sixth and second respectively in the Fortnite World Cup duos tournament on the weekend.
Mongraal took home half of $450,000 (shared with his duo partner Mitro), while Wolfiez split a huge $2.25m with his duo partner Rojo.
This meant Wolfiez received almost £1m. Not bad for a 15-year-old!
Elsewhere, other UK players made their mark at the World Cup in New York, winning almost $2m between them. itemm finished eighth in the duo tournament, while benjyfishy finished 14th, Tuckz 26th and Mexe 45th.
Mongraal also did well in the solos tournament, finishing 13th and taking home $150,000 there. benjyfishy finished 25th, smeef 44th and CoreGamingg 49th (each winning $50,000).
The overall winners were US player Bhuga (solos), Nyhrox and Aqua (duos), Airwaks and RL GRIME (Pro-Am) and Cizzorz, TylerH, Suezhoo and zand (Creative).
Bhuga took home $3m, as did Nyhrox and Aqua (split between them), while the overall prize pot stood at some $30m.
While it’s fantastic to see UK talent doing well in esports on the big stage, and winning large amounts of prizes, it also raises questions. These players are still very young and some members of the UK esports community have wondered how this kind of life-changing event will affect them.
heres another question for you dom… do you think giving a 16 year old 3 million will be damaging long term to the kid? weve seen how it can effect child actors in the long term will it be the same for kids playing games.
— Raillzy (@Raillzy) July 29, 2019
Some of the comments on Mongraal’s recent tweet about wanting a girlfriend are a little disturbing.
Even tho I didnt win… can I get a girl with $410,000 earnings? ? plz I really want
— mongraal @ Finding gf ? (@Mongraal) July 29, 2019
Hopefully with the right guidance and support from their parents/guardians, friends, family and teammates, they will be fine. And here’s to many more top UK Fortnite players emerging in the future.
Lastly, Fortnite is often downplayed by some pockets of the esports community as ‘not being a real esport’. Whatever your opinion, you cannot dispute the size of the tournament with its millions of viewers and the fact that Epic Games have put their money where their mouth is.
It’ll be interesting to see how competitive Fortnite evolves going forwards. If it can get young people involved in gaming and esports early, who knows, the Mongraals and Wolfiez of the world could become future champs in other shooter games like CSGO, Rainbow Six and Overwatch later down the line.
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.
