We take a look back on the Insomnia Gaming Festival i72 esports winners from the various game opens at the Birmingham NEC.
Insomnia said there were over £28,000 in prizes handed out overall. See more prize pool amounts and other info in our i72 esports preview article here.
Ruddy Painkillers win first LoL iSeries Open as Lionscreed Academy fail to reach final over PC situation
UK esports organisation Ruddy won the League of Legends i72 tournament with their Ruddy Painkillers team (pictured above, player Syn and co-owner DonJake).
The roster consisted of Akkers, Krisyss, Ketsuo, Syn and Jamsu, plus coaches Wolverene and Middlecott.
Middlecott said: “First LAN title as a coach. Taking a group of guys who’d gotten close so many times, but couldn’t get it over the line to where I knew they could be.
“I was the difference.”
Ruddy’s first Insomnia LAN win came after several close finishes in recent years.
It also came as four-time Insomnia winners, Cabbage Corp (their players now playing as Lionscreed Academy, who recently won the UKEL 4Nations), failed to reach the final for the first time in a few years.
i71 saw Cabbage Corp win their fourth back-to-back League of Legends Open, after they beat Ruddy Painkillers in that final.
However, at i72, Lionscreed failed to get PCs to the players on time. We are still expecting a statement from the players, but in the meantime, we reached out to Lionscreed CEO Abdiqani Ahmed.
He told us he sent a car up with two PCs, but the car had a breakdown and the driver didn’t let Abdi know.
“I ended up bringing up my personal PCs up on the day but it was too late,” he said. “They had four games and had to forfeit the first game. I got them replacement PCs for games two, three and four. The fourth game they lost to Ruddy.
“It became multi-way tie and the admin picked in a way we didn’t understand. But yeah, the fault was on me for the first game as I entrusted someone. “I’m super disappointed and I feel bad, regardless of the admin decision, or their last loss – I caused them a unpleasant experience and forfeit.”
We’ll be back with a guest opinion article on the atmosphere and the unity of the UK LoL community from Brod & Friends’ The Governor, soon.
Esports Organisation’s Overwatch 2 win soured by Valorant drama
A UK esports organisation literally called Esports Organisation (EO) won the i72 Overwatch 2 tournament, with their players Sauna, TheHolyPig, Jarew, ANJ and Mickji and coach Duckie beating Supershy Blue in the final 3-0.
However, their victory was overshadowed by the org’s antics in the i72 Valorant tournament, where they reached the final but lost 2-0 to Yari Esports.
Esports Organisation were criticised by some for their tweets not thanking their players:
Valorant players from EO including ianto then posted their experiences on Twitter just now, saying they are owed money by the org and that their reputation was damaged by the org, while the org’s CEO Georgester said it was the other way round: that the players damaged the org’s reputation.
We could go into further detail, with quotes from either side, but we’ve written this story in UK esports a thousand times before. So, we’ll leave the full context below, plus the main quote to note from the players: “There were no contracts signed.”
In other news, time is a flat circle in UK amateur esports, and water is wet.
Ruddy’s DonJake also felt partially responsible for how the drama played out, given he asked Georgester to make a video about the situation, saying he ‘can’t read’.
The Esports Organisation Valorant players said in their statement: “After the backlash on Georgester and his org, he then decided that instead of owning up to his mistakes by making another tweet apologising or so on, that rather he’d ask me to make a video “cleaning up” his mistakes. Which shows his lack of understanding how to run an organisation and how the scene works, even after stating hes following “tier 1 org standards”.
The Goose House win Valorant Women’s Cup
adora, astrixe, Hera, koneko and Miiizzy and sub xel5 won the Valorant Women’s Cup for The Goose House, beating Clique in the final 2-1.
This was a back-to-back win for the team, who were playing as Michelle’s Kittens at i71 and now The Goose House.beCosy at i72.
Verdant and Yari amongst other i72 esports winners
UK esports organisation Verdant emerged victorious in Counter-Strike 2, beating Reason Gaming in the final 2-1.
Verdant’s roster consisted of arTisT, Girafffe, Ducky, Vacancy, Zax1e and coach BisCu.
As mentioned, Yari beat Esports Organisation in the final of the Valorant tournament, 2-0.
According to Liquipedia their players were d3mur, melo, OzzyTK, shinnok and Waken, with coach Rivenary and analyst N-Joy.
A team called 15th March 2025 won the Rocket League tournament after beating Clique Esports 4-3 in the final.
There’s more in this Challengermode i72 Rocket League tournament brackets page.
Team Angelikka win Versus: CoD Showmatch
New to Insomnia, i72 saw the first ever Insomnia Versus: CoD Showmatch.
Teams of the gaming world’s popular content creators faced off against each other in an all-out battle.
Winning the inaugural Showmatch, Team Angelikaa (consisting of Imangelikaa, Just Tia, ItsNicole and Copyrighted) proved victorious versus Team LadyGut.
The Neighbours win UKIC Season 1 Division 1
In another CS2 tournament at Insomnia 72, org-less The Neighbours won the UKIC Season 1 Division 1, beating K10 in the final 2-1.
Their roster was dobbo, bevve, Adam9130, Thomas and eraa.
This comes after K10 won the first UKIC LAN event late last year.
The Neighbours mix team have also played with smooya in other events. They recently won Epic 41, where smooya was fined for misconduct.
NSE British University Esports Championship Spring 2024 winners at i72
Insomnia also played host to university esports tournaments this time around.
The NSE winners were:
- Valorant Women and Non-Binary: University of Warwick
- Valorant: Staffordshire University
- Rocket League: Roehampton University
- League of Legends: Imperial College London
- Overwatch 2: University of Warwick
- CS2: Lancaster University
- Rainbow Six Siege: University of the West of England
Other esports activities at i72: ITB, Endpoint, Tarkov, Scan, TFT and more
Into the Breach showed off their awesome knight mascot cosplay by Karoinna, while there were plenty of other esports and gaming activities at the show. We’ve grabbed a few tweets below.
Insomnia 73 will take place at the Birmingham NEC once again from September 4th to 8th 2024, with the LAN running on those dates and the festival/expo from September 6th to 8th. It will host RuneFest 2024 and a a UK SuperDome esports event will also happen alongside it in Birmingham.
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.
