UK eSports and 2014

Snoopeh from Evil Geniuses

The UK eSports scene has been lacking behind others for quite along time now. The UK has 3 players in the LCS (Snoopeh, Impaler, Fredy122), a couple of pro Starcraft players and the odd CS:GO team that could give top teams a run for their money. The UK doesn't have any permanent eSports venues but does have the eSports bar Meltdown. What I am trying to get at is that the UK scene has some kind of base but is no where near it's potential but things are looking up.

Even though the UK scene is small it does have one very good quality, its consistent. The Insomnia Gaming Festival is now on its 51st iteration and epic.LAN is now onto its twelve event. Insomnia's 48th event at the beginning of  2013 had a prize pool mere £2500 for the LoL tournament. Last week Multiplay (Company behind Insomnia) announced that Razer will be sponsoring LoL at all 3 of this years Insomnia events with the largest guaranteed prize pool being £7500 and it will grow with more teams that enter. Its not only the prize pool that are increasing but also the event has had so much demand that they are moving to a new larger venue.

epic.LAN has also been growing with putting more cash prize tournaments with each successive LAN. For a LAN that holds only 400 people and having 4 tournament big cash prizes is very impressive. With the reappearance of ESL UK last year, they haven't been slow of the mark. They are holding a Dota 2 competition with £3000 with 2 sets of online qualifiers. ESL UK have also built a purpose built studio for casting of online events.

UK wasn't really on the international map for eSports until around last year in July when I looked on the back of a magazine and see an advert for Gfinity. Gfinity was a invitational tournament where players from came from all around the world came to London to compete for $55,000 in both LoL and CoD. Since then G2 (the second Gfinity) was only CoD, had an amazing prize pool of $70,000 and saw Twitch number improve. Also have partnered up with MLG and have been doing some qualifiers for the CoD championship. G3 is going to be even bigger with more games involved and will still be in the UK.

Perilous Gaming Rift winning i50

Sponsors are taking note of UK events. epic.LAN the LAN with only 400 people has attracted sponsorship from InWin and more notably Astro Gaming who have provided around £1400 worth of prizes to the LoL tournament at epic.TWELVE. Multiplay have now partnered up with Razer for the last 3 and the next 3 Insomnia events. Multiplay have also partnered with big brands like Mad Catz, AMD and tteSports plus the sponsors for most of i51's events haven't been announced yet.

Hopefully 2014 will bring bigger and  better tournament action from the UK scene. For the UK scene to grow it won't happen over night but with some high quality events with large amount of teams we might just see something happen.

If you want to attended an event this year check out Insomnia Gaming Festival and epic.LAN. Don't forget ESL UK do lots of tournaments and ladders.

UK eSports Weekly News 20th - 26th

UK eSports Weekly News 20th - 26th

League of Legends

Razer will sponsor every Insomnia LoL Tournament in 2014

Multiplay announced that Razer will be sponsoring each 3 of the Insomnia tournaments this year with some impressive prize pools. Both i51 and i53 will have a minimum prize pools £5000 but i52 with have a minimum prize pool of £7500! This is the largest one announced so far in the UK and it's only January. Insomnia is looking like the place to be this year for UK eSports.

Battlefield 4

Battlefield 4 tournament to happen at i51

Not much details was said about the upcoming tournament but it was tweeted about and has a page on the Insomnia site. It will have a minimum of £1000 prize pool increasing with the amount of teams. I can't wait to see how much attention this gets.

Fifa 14

Animate eSports pick up old Fifa player

Animate eSports have been quite quiet in the last half of  but have kicked of 2014 with a bit of a bang. Firstly picking up a CoD 4 team 2 weeks ago and now picking up their old Fifa player David Coolledge. He will attending epic.LAN to compete in Sweetpatch.tv's Winter Championship.

MadCatz to sponsor Winter Championship at epic.LAN

Sweetpatch.tv have announced that MadCats will be providing some prizes for the winners of both of their tournaments at epic.LAN. These prizes are on top of the prize pool that hasn't been announced yet.

Don't forget about epic.LAN which is the 14th - 17th with lots of tournament action and a good old LAN. Get your tickets here.

Razer upping the stake at Insomnia this year

Multiplay announced today once again Razer will be sponsoring the League of Legends tournament. The minimum prize pool for i51 is £5000 and will grow if more teams attend. But that isn't the end of it, Razer will also sponsor i52 and i53 with i52 prize pool being £7500 minimum and i53 being £5000 minimum.

i52 will have one of the largest this year and not short of last years £10,000 for a CS:GO tournament at MadCatz Birmingham. I think that people also need to keep in mind that these are only minimums so if the turn out if good then the prize pools can only increase. This can only be a good sign for the UK LoL and eSports scene.

In the nicest way possible, I think with Team Dignitas disbanding that this iseries  is going to be one of the best and most exciting with all the best in UK LoL fighting for such a large prize pool. With teams like Team Infused, fm! eSports and Perilous Gaming and any other talent that pops up in the next coming months.

Source 

UK eSports Weekly News 13th - 19th

13th - 19th UK eSports Weekly News

League of Legends

ESL Intel Christmas (ish) Cup

Last weekend saw the finals of the ESL Intel Christmas (ish) cup where some of the best LoL teams in the UK battled it out for £500. The favorites UK Piffest took the cup with a 3-0 final over FM RaiderZ with Perilous Rift coming in third.

1st: UKs Piffest

2nd: FM RaiderZ

3rd: PerilousVoid 

Dignitas UK Disband

One of the UK's best LoL teams disbanded this week, Team Dignitas UK. Supa Hot Crew XD used Dig UK's jungler during the promotion tournament as a sub but now has taken him on the roster. This was an opportunity that he couldn't miss and with Impaler gone the rest of Dig UK decided to disband. I wish every player luck in the future.

Dota 2

Reason and Rasta with Some Roster Changes

Reason Gaming's carry 'infernokoi' has decided to retire to concentrate on university but Reason swiftly found his replacement in the form of 'Gronors' who will be attending epic.LAN with Reason. Also Rasta.gaming have has some changes with its roster with 3 people leaving but now have rebuilt a full 5 man team. 

UKDota.net going to host a small amateur cup

UKDota have said that they are organizing a small amateur cup for all the new players out there. Hopefull it should go ahead in the next few weeks.

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Gamdias and Multiplay Start Bi-weekly CS:GO Cups

Gamdias and Multiplay have announced that they are going to run bi-weekly CS:GO Cups with cash prizes. £125 and Gamdias peripherals are up for grabs with the tournaments starting today with 8 teams involved.

Rasta.Fivemanistan make changes

Rasta.Fivemanistan have had some roster issues with leaving due to personal reasons they have decided to combined with fm! INC to complete the roster of Rasta.Fivemanistan.

Call of Duty: Ghosts

COD Championship Preliminary Qualifiers #1

Yesterday saw the first of two UK/Ireland preliminary qualifiers for the COD Championship were the prize pool is $1 million. The top 8 teams from both qualifiers will be invited to a LAN in London to fight it out to represent the UK at the COD Championships.

FIFA 14

Sweetpatch.TV to host the Winter Championship at epic.LAN

Sweetpatch.TV have announced that at epic.LAN there will be lots of FIFA competition for everyone with the Winter Championship. They have once again partnered up with MadCatz with prizes to be announced closer to the event.

General

ESL UK announced 3 new ladders

ESL UK have been working hard and produced 3 new ladders for 3 games. LoL, CS:GO and Dota 2 all got their own ladders on ESL network. You can arrange times and find opponents easily.

Don't forget to follow the UK eSports Hub twitter @UKeSportsHub and subscribe to the reddit at http://www.reddit.com/r/UKeSportsHub/