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Affinity and Kuinno return as hosts for Epic 44 (photo from the Epic.LAN Flickr)
Epic.LAN has announced the line-up of Epic.LAN casters, broadcast talent and teams for the upcoming Epic 44 event.
It’s also announced a partnership renewal. More on that below, with lists of casters and teams broken down by game.
First off, let’s start with the hosts at Epic 44: Affinity, Kuinno and ReaperSteve:
CS2 casters and teams at Epic 44
The £5,000 tournament has 42 teams signed up, according to the Epic.LAN website. These are:
- 30AVG
- 3LG
- 8Sins
- 99P
- A Discord Server
- Adept Club
- Alaska
- AmaneKMyself
- Antarctica
- Beep Boop
- Belfast Storm
- BUHM
- Crusaders
- Glitchtech
- Jahwick Jackals
- Nightshift$
- Noreason Gaming
- OzempicLAN
- Pherocious
- Pigeons
- Proqfanclub
- Real Flowstate
- Redacted
- Retrograde
- Rey Esports
- Ross Kemp Bald
- Sharproqs
- Snooze
- Stratbase.app
- Submissive and Readable
- Team Hosky
- Telos
- The Binmen
- The Last Resort
- The Old Guard
- The Pensioners
- Traxxxmania
- Tyreece Simpson
- Utter Woke Nonsense
- Viperio Academy
- Vivid Utd
- Yappachino
The event has been confirmed by Valve as a Tier 2 ranked event, subject to HLTV coverage.
We’ve also been told the Icelandic Esports Federation will also be sending their recent tournament winners over to Epic 44, with Dusty having previously won an Epic.LAN.
Overclockers UK is providing the MVP prizes: the Endgame Gear KB65HE keyboard and Endgame Gear OP1 8k mouse.
Finn ‘Mischief’ Farrer is lead admin for the Epic 44 tournament. He also spoke about how Epic.LAN may affect the Valve Regional Standings (VRS), though we understand this is still to be officially confirmed.
The casters include SeveralSheep, WaXen, oTYL3R, OneWing and sh1n.
This event comes one year after well-known UK CS player smooya was fined for misconduct at Epic 41, and according to a few sources, he also received a soft ban from events.
It also comes a few weeks after Endpoint paused CS team operations partly due to VRS changes, and Into the Breach ceased operations.
Rainbow Six Siege T2 European teams at Epic 44
Last summer, it was confirmed that Epic.LAN will host the LAN finals of Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six Siege T2 EU esports tournament at Epic 44.
The teams for this have been confirmed. They are: Team Secret Academy, Macko Esports, Myth Esports and Project X.
The €15,000 tournament will see the top two teams from Epic also advance to the Challenger Series: Advanced Stage.
There’s more on the T2 European grand finals schedule, tickets and other info on the R6north.gg website.
The casters include Gibson, Chambourine, WhiPPet, Simon Hill and Grace.
The Valorant tournament at Epic 44
Valorant features a prize pool of up to £6,000, with ASUS ROG sponsoring the tournament and boosting the prize pool by £1,000, plus providing a peripheral bundle for the MVP prize.
There are 14 teams signed up at the time of writing:
- 7F
- Ailurus
- Bar speedrun no build
- CONEL
- CTRL Edorks
- Haggis x Moodeng
- No Name
- Olly Ringshalls BMX Club
- Pub Aim
- Rey Esports
- San-sational
- Tech Fleece Troopers
- The Expansion Pack
- Willyg Palace
And the Valorant casters are Maddsbear, Quyxx, Shiba, JackDestroyer4 and PandaRichi.
StarCraft II players and casters at Epic 44
StarCraft II might have been removed from IEM Katowice recently, but it’s of course still going ahead at Epic.LAN, with the event a solid part of the history of UK StarCraft 2 esports.
The prize pool of up to £1,500 is backed by Overclockers UK, which is providing a ThunderX Core Smart chair to the MVP.
There are 14 players signed up at the time of writing:
- Aicy
- figaro
- Gerald
- Magico
- MarsBar
- Molten
- OpTiMiStC
- PigeonWrench
- PsikusPI
- RazerBlader
- reddain
- veniSC2
- WindmillMan
- Zain
Your SC2 casters are Bollard, HaRt and ExoLightning.
Osu! casters at Epic 44
Rhythm game Osu! will also have a presence at the latest Epic.LAN once again.
The casters on board for this are Bubbleman and Eliminate.
The prize pool will be up to £1,000 and there are many players involved. These are:
- addison
- Akaligakill
- Aleph
- AlphaLovesYou
- bazzadwarf
- Cdog-
- chloescent
- cloroxbleach53
- Damarsh
- Doomsday
- EnnJee
- gadrin
- Goombs
- jakk
- jpjtyld
- KSI
- Lilylycorine
- Mahmood
- mangomizer
- MaypleFlower
- Phisyqx
- PVP
- rudj
- Stormur
- Teejay
- TheGlobalLegend
- velcro_shoes
- White_Ears
Unreal Tournament at Epic 44
A real blast from the past now.
Epic 44 will feature an Unreal Tournament 99 tournament with Intel UK.
It might be classed as a ‘social game, not a big game’, but to us old school folks, we know, and we remember. This one matters.
May the best fragger win.
ASUS ROG renews partnership with Epic.LAN
Last but by no means least, as mentioned, ASUS ROG is back sponsoring the Valorant tournament at Epic 44, boosting the prize pool by £1,000 and providing an esports peripheral bundle for the MVP prize.
“ASUS ROG’s involvement goes beyond tournaments,” Epic.LAN said. “Attendees will get exclusive try-before-you-buy opportunities on ASUS ROG peripherals, access to year-round giveaways, and the chance to grab event-exclusive discounts with retail partner Overclockers UK. On top of that, an EPIC.LAN Discord channel will keep the community connected between events.”
There will of course be other tournaments at Epic.LAN, including casual competitions, and tournaments in Tekken 8, the Minecraft Hunger Games, Marvel Rivals 2v2 tournament, Just Dance, and who could forget, beer pong and the pub quiz.
See more Marvel Rivals esports activities in the UK here.
Related article: Epic.LAN extends collaboration with Intel and Overclockers UK, as organisers stress importance of brands that understand grassroots esports
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.
