In what feels like a website dedicated to epicLAN events at this point, UKCSGO.com returns to reporting action for epic26. This time around, the tournament is held in the larger confines of the Arena at the Kettering Conference Centre, and with the expansion comes more space and a new layout, as well as a new entrance – so make sure not to get lost on the way in.
This iteration of epicLAN is set to be one of the bigger, and better versions. The prize pool has been bumped to a potential maximum of £6000 thanks to sponsorships from Grosvenor Casinos and Fasthosts, but as always it’s on a scale depending on tournament sign-ups. At writing, the number of teams signed up was 43, leaving just five spots remaining in the tournament and placing the prize pool a current value of £4750. The sign-ups for epic26 remain open until 10PM on Thursday, meaning there is still time for the tournament to hit the maximum prize goal. That’s also not to mention the fact this LAN has a stage set up for tournament finals and other goings-on during the event.
Even without having to wait until Thursday, epic26 will be the largest epicLAN ever, beating the previous record of 30 teams held by epic23 and epic20. This also adds a curious stat, as the next largest epicLAN event was epic17 with 27 teams. The one thing that links all three of those together (besides the fact they’re all epicLAN events) is that they were all held in February, meaning February is the most popular month for an epicLAN event, a fact that sort of goes contrary to the accepted belief that summer events drive the numbers. It is also (at the time of writing) just one team away to be larger than the £30,000 Insomnia 63 tournament back in August.
Before the full preview and analysis later this week (Friday morning… probably), here are two randomly selected teams currently signed up that are worth looking at:
| London Esports | The LDN Slayers |
| Dom “dOMM” Sulcas | Max “MiGHTYMAX” Heath |
| Sam “Astroo” Gresham | Ben “r0m” Smith |
| Adam “ec1s” Eccles | Owen “smooya” Butterfield |
| Aaron “frei” Frei | Tramaine “stan1ey” Stanley |
| Ardis “ardiis” Svarenieks | Thomas “Thomas” Utting |
| Ian “Immi” Harding (coach) |
Like I said, a completely randomly selected pair of teams. On the left there is the current reigning champions of the ESL Premiership and epicLAN Grosvenor Championship London Esports, who have been going from strength-to-strength as of late and continue to impress on a number of online leagues. The right sees a very strong mix team, who’s name very much indicates their main target. Featuring a core of Endpoint mixed in with experience from the old school and international competition. Whenever these two teams will play each other, sparks will most likely fly on the server. It would be expected that these two teams will be the top two seeds.
epic26 will open its doors this Thursday, before the competition gets going on Friday morning. For those not at the event, the action can be caught over on the Twitch.tv channel and GOTV IPs will be made available over the weekend as-and-when required. UKCSGO.com will be providing live coverage from across the weekend. See you all at LAN!
