Insomnia Gaming Festival took place at the Birmingham NEC this weekend, and once again saw several Insomnia 69 esports teams go head to head in the BYOC Open.
But which esports teams won at i69 – and which had the best crowds? We provide a recap.
Cobrai Kai’s win i69 Rocket League Open
Cobra Kai’s swept Vitalize Esports 4-0 in the Rocket League final on stage this weekend.
They had Kingjs, Duckz and Crimson on their roster, with Crimson being part of Esports England’s gold medal-winning women’s Rocket League team in the Commonwealth Esports Championships.
Kingjs is also a part of new UK esports org Ailuro Esports.
Pixel Bar’s esports team also came third, narrowly missing out on a stage performance.
@AlphaGlitchGirl said on Twitter: “The crowd was not great sound/chant wise, but there were a fair few people there and the casters were really hype. Probably I’d rate it a 5/10 because the casters were really hype, but the crowd were a big let down. We tried getting chants going but it just never caught on.”
Tom Wade added: “Pretty sparse crowd and mostly passive watching. In fairness the match was pretty clean cut so wasn’t a huge amount to get hyped about, but I’d say 3/10 to 4/10 is legit. Especially being an hour late.”
Audience rating: 4.5/10
RVMS take the i69 Rainbow Six Siege title and qualify for UKIN
RVMS won the Rainbow Six Siege i69 BYOC final after beating Royal Air Force (RAF) team Tonkas in the grand final.
In doing so, RVMS have qualified for the UK Ireland Nationals (UKIN).
Siege was the least populated esports tournament at Insomnia 69, with only four teams signing up.
Audience rating – sadly another quiet final: 3/10
Grey Cabbage win back-to-back League of Legends Insomnia finals
Grey Cabbage defeated Ruddy Esports 3-1 in the grand final of the League of Legends Insomnia 69 BYOC Open final on stage.
Grey Cabbage, which consisted mainly of the Grey Warwick i68-winning roster, went into the finals from the loser’s final a game down, but won three straight games to take the win.
Audience rating – audible proof that League does have fans in the UK. There were cheers, thrills and spills, as the Ruddy fans got vocal and some excellent fan interaction from casters DocDa and GreyHart made this a decent experience: 7/10
Overwatch i69 final sees Air Academy 4-0 ArtoriusCoin
In Overwatch, Air Academy won the final 4-0, after a dominant run through the winners bracket, 3-0ing all their opponents along the way.
Audience rating by Esports News UK i69 social media manager Mika Flynn – the crowd were quite lively at times: 7/10
M4lik win close-fought Valorant i69 final 3-2
Report by Kai ‘Blue’ England
A true Battle of the Brits, the Valorant game showcased some fantastic UK Valorant talent with Into The Breach (ITB) coming from the losers finals and M4lik coming from the winners, and therefore having the one-map advantage, putting them 1-0 in the series before the game had started.
Some in the audience wrote some creative signs (see top of this article), and M4lik player Leare even brought a body pillow onto the LAN stage:
This matchup went all the way to the last round in the last map. ITB looked as though they were about to put the map into overtime, but Calvin from M4lik had other ideas – with his Omen ultimate he managed to get behind ITB and grab a double kill. Calvin put a fantastic performance in over the whole match, even winning a 1v2 clutch on Bind to close out the fourth map.
Audience rating: Good turnout, decent noise, but some might say it was also a TF2 waiting room: 8/10
TF2 crowd make 100+ decibels of noise at i69, as Froyotech and Witness Gaming bring the atmosphere to Insomnia
Report by Kai ‘Blue’ England
With Insomnia 69 being one of the biggest events on the Team Fortress 2 calendar, these finals saw an old rivalry of UK vs NA teed up – and it did not disappoint.
Froyotech (featuring an NA roster) managed to take the win 3-1 over Witness Gaming (with a mainly UK roster), making it a fourth Insomnia Championship for them.
The crowd especially did not disappoint as they were the loudest it had been all weekend long with the crowd making noise over 100 decibels at one point during the game.
The TF2 crowd at #i69 generated over 100 decibels of noise pic.twitter.com/azgQ5mc8Cm
— Esports News UK (@Esports_News_UK) August 29, 2022
Froyotech took the first map which was tightly contested by Witness Gaming, with the first point and the map point in the first King of the Hill game-mode going to overtime for both teams. Domo from Witness Gaming managed to get a seven-kill streak in the first map but unfortunately this wasn’t enough to seal the map win. Silentes and Jay were both stand out players throughout the match consistently dealing damage and hitting some incredible shots.
Audience rating: Unmatched and unmissable. Insomnia is like Worlds to the TF2 community, and it showed: 11/10
Temperate reverse sweep Eko in CSGO i69 final
Temperate turned up the heat in the final of the CSGO BYOC Open at Insomnia 69. They went into the final one game down to Eko, having come from the loser’s bracket.
Eko took the first map (Nuke) 16-12, before Temperate won three games in a row to take the victory 3-2.
Audience rating by UKCSGO editor-in-chief Dafydd Gwynn: “There was a decent amount of screaming – from three individuals, sure! The UK scene is terrible at chants – it’s something we need to get better at.” 6.5/10
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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.
