On the third day of Insomnia 69, two teams fought for the main BYOC League of Legends victory on the Rift and Grey Cabbage took the win.
Grey Cabbage, made up mainly of players from Grey Warwick, a student team who previously won the i68 LoL final, plus University of Kent mid-laner qqr, towered over their enemies with three straight wins against Ruddy Esports, a UK org founded by DonJake.
Although Ruddy came into the final with a one-game advantage from the upper bracket, Grey Cabbage were able to pick up on the champion draft and teamwork to win a back-to-back BYOC.
During game one, Ruddy Esports started hard, with an engaging team composition and two damage deals, whereas Grey Cabbage decided to create nearly indestructible crowd-control and scaling champion picks.
With controlling movements and well-thought-out objectives, Grey Cabbage set traps, picked kills on mid and easily took the first drake. At 15 minutes, Grey Cabbage were favoured to win with a 2.5k gold lead and quickly followed with a victory under half an hour, led by some impressive kills by mid-laner qqr as Veigar.
The second game spared some hope, as Ruddy were able to secure safer picks and took the first drake. The score stayed near to equal, with both mid-laners securing double kills in the early game. As time progressed, both teams were starting to show they meant business with multiple engages around the map.
Thanks to Ruddy’s support, Prosfair, they were able to secure the herald and nearly aced the enemy team as Bard. Sadly, their luck vanished as Grey Cabbage pushed through Ruddy’s attempt to take the drake and only lost their support while doing it.
At 20 minutes, Ruddy’s support gave opportunities to his team with double the vision score than that of his opposing support. With great focus, Grey Cabbage were able to become victorious once more with a 2-1 score. Make no mistake though, this second game was extremely close, and had it gone to Ruddy, momentum would have shifted going into the latter stage of the best-of-five.
Grey Cabbage take a close game three to lead 2-1!
— Esports News UK @ #i69 | @AGONbyAOC & #ESILDN (@Esports_News_UK) August 28, 2022
You can tell these players have strong unity. Can the Grey players remain Insomnia champions? #i69 pic.twitter.com/ODIsCaP7nz
In game three, Grey Cabbage presented their enemies with another fasting Senna and Seraphine duo. Thanks to focused farming, at 10 minutes Grey Cabbage led with nearly 2k gold and at 20 minutes, Grey’s bot continued their lead with 3k gold more than enemy bot lane.
In the end, Grey Cabbage was indestructible and won yet another game, giving them the championship victory.
But it was a first LAN stage performance from Ruddy, who will take learnings and gain experience from this.
Ruddy took home £1,125 for finishing second and Grey Cabbage received £1,875.
Elsewhere in the i69 LoL BYOC Open, Into the Breach’s LoL team finished fourth, and UK Painkillers finished third.
In the separate Intermediate i69 LoL tournament, British Army team Five Spice won the £250 prize, beating Brod & Friends (a team led by UK top-laner Governor) 3-2.
BYOC Open LoL final rosters:
- Grey Cabbage: Top: zeta, Jungle: Pawp, Mid: qqr, ADC: Spark, Support: The heathen
- Ruddy Esports: Top: DeathByLollipops (aka DBL), Jungle: Yung Trizzy, Mid: Chazz (playing under the account name Infinity361), ADC: Rhythm1, Support: Prosfair
Reaction: Pawp, Prosfair and Perkz comment on i69 LoL final
While asked about their champion pick decisions, Ruddy Esport’s support, Prosfair, told Esports News UK: “In game two, we played engaging champions, but in game one and three we played passively to counter Grey Cabbage’s aggressive team.
“I have to say, they pick their champion compositions well, so during the game they can all engage on us and we tried to deal with it.”
Grey Cabbage’s jungler, Pawp, added: “We will be at the next Insomnia and until then we will have more practice games, but in general we are pretty happy with how we perform. We’ve still got in us, despite slight retirements.”
And finally, Emily ‘Perkz’ Perkins, a teacher previously mistaken for mid-laner Perkz, shared her views on the final with Esports News UK during her first visit to an Insomnia Gaming Festival:
Esports News UK Insomnia esports coverage powered by AGON by AOC and ESI London
