Epic.LAN headed to Kettering Conference Centre once again this past weekend, with a host of UK esports tournaments taking place in CSGO, Valorant, StarCraft II and more. Dom Sacco provides a quick rundown of who won, as well as a classic UK esports moment that’s gone global.
The Valorant tournament at Epic 38 offered teams a chance to promote to Valorant Challengers Polaris, as it’s part of the Valorant Beacon Circuit Split 1 2023.
It was Insight Gaming who won the Valorant tournament at the latest Epic.LAN, beating Next in Line 2-0 in the grand final, as announced by rising UK esports host Conny in the following video:
Other teams that took part in the competition included CTRL, Cognizant, Pixel Bar Esports, Clique Esports and more.
Speaking of Pixel Bar Esports, the esports arm of the Manchester and Leeds-based esports bar became back-to-back champions in the Epic.LAN Valorant Inters tournament.
Moving over to CSGO now, and that was undoubtedly the busiest tournament of Epic 38, with Valorant having some 17 teams taking part according to the website, and CSGO having around double that, with 32.
It was an all-star UK esports final in CSGO, with Coalesce beating Viperio 2-1. Coalesce first formed back in 2021 as six UK orgs merged to form the organisation.
In the CSGO Inters tournament, 7thCore beat 25Avg in the final 2-1.
CSGO bomb defuse blunder at Epic.LAN goes global
Now, a special mention must be given to Kai ‘Faite’ Knight, a player for the team known as Ankara Messi at Epic 38, who was all set to win a round in overtime against 25Avg by defusing the bomb.
But unknown to him, he didn’t have a kit, and was instead shouting at his opposition instead of focusing on his screen. As he sat back down on his seat, he accidentally hit his right arrow key, making his character turn right and get off the defuse. With no kit in overtime, this resulted in him losing the round, and the game.
Our friends at UKCSGO have an entire article on the situation, titled, ‘Shit talker prioritises screaming over defusing, loses game’.
25Avg player Sash’s Twitch clip currently has 90,000+ views:
The news also made it to the ESL Pro League and xQc’s stream!
StarCraft II and other tournaments at Epic 38
Elsewhere, as usual, Epic.LAN also hosted a StarCraft II tournament.
And it was German player ForJumy who beat Brit Razerblader 4-1 in the StarCraft II final at Epic 38.
ForJumy tweeted saying he was happy with his performance:
In other StarCraft II tournaments at Epic.LAN, Voltacus won the Code A finals:
There was also a mix of casual tournaments at Epic 38, and the other usual activities like the pub quiz (won at this event by the Binmen).
The event was powered by headline partner Intel, with other partners including Overlockers UK, Logitech and MSI.
This article is a brief recap, so be sure to check out Epic.LANs social and other channels for more in-depth content.
See all the Epic 38 esports results and final standings on the Epic.LAN website here
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.
