Friday is the first day of competing for gamers at Insomnia 69. 21 teams registered and played in the swiss system where eleven teams made it to the playoffs bracket. The Swiss system is a little different than normal with teams not ending at 3-0 or 0-3, but rather they will play all five games. This way we will have one team going 5-0 which will be number one seeded going into the playoffs tomorrow. Things got started a little later than planned due to technical issues, forcing a slower start to the day. In the end games commenced at around midday.
EKO, the favourites and number one seeded, were given a bye in round one and by large, there was nothing unusual here. Swiss system means that the first round we see the ‘best’ teams playing against the ‘worst’. Therefore, you shouldn’t expect any troubles especially considering the skill disparity at BYOC LANs, and that is what happened with no game going higher than 16-9, we even had two 16-0s.
What round one did promise to us was some potentially spicy round two matchups with Leicester 5 vs Horus and 1fredde vs P being the two standouts. Sadly we didn’t see that much competition in the latter game, with a dominant 16-1 win for 1freddie. But the first game did not disappoint. Leicester 5 were not able to provide a clean showing like 1freddie, but when push came shove they took the map 16-12 against Horus.
Among these games The BINMEN thrashed the British Army Esports 16-2 putting them 1-1 which made them quite ecstatic, with their screeches being heard from the press room.
Going into the third round we haven’t had any surprising results yet, but that all was coming to an end. What this round proved to us was the teams that are the favourites going into it, are playing like favourites, apart from Temperate. They came up against ONE HAG for the first qualification round and failed to prove what they have to offer, this is the first proper upset we have seen, the third seeded team dropping a map so early.
However, as mentioned before, we also saw teams like EKO and Leicester 5 who are the first two seeded teams, secure their dominance by going 3-0 fairly decisively.
Leading into the penultimate round, there was a clash of titans, EKO vs Leicester 5. As the dust settled, the mix of Leicester 5 defeated EKO 16-12, with only hours before Jack “Gizmy” von Spreckelsen stated to us “It would be very embarrassing to not win.” With these result coming in, Leicester 5 will be going into the last round 4-0, looking to make a flawless run. However, they do need to get by ONE HAG, the team being led by Shuaib “Shoobie” Saddique who have something to prove and are on fire going into the last matchups.
Looking at some of the other results in the penultimate round, it was good to see Temperate stabilise, same with 1freddie and Horus esports.
As we round off the day, we take a look at the final placements and seeding going into the playoffs double elimination bracket tomorrow. Seeded second, Leicester 5 excel expectations by taking the first seed after going 5-0 with a final victory over ONE HAG 16-11. On the topic of ONE HAG, they equally did a lot better than some would of anticipated, seeded fifth which was very contested, they make their way to beat the first seed team and will finish as third seed.
A very honourable mention has to go to Could Be Your Dad who where seeded 20th and finished today 3-2 with 8th seed. The oldies seemed to step up today with Steveo rolling back the years with his OldMEN crew, gaining a respectable place in playoffs.
We have had an exciting day of Counter-Strike at i69 today, but we still have much more to come. Make sure you tune in tomorrow the beginning of the double elimination playoffs bracket.
The final standings can be found here.
