The 27th edition of epicLAN is well underway. The stage has been set for each team to battle it out for their share of £4000 + event tickets, with a full breakdown of the prize pool found here.
The first day has seen some highlights, with strong favorites coming out on top.
The second week of the ESL Premiership has concluded. With teams looking to get their first victory while others were hunting for win number two, competition was rife as some of the UKs top talents did battle once again.
PhoenixUK the show that died, resurrected itself, then died again, is coming back for a special one off episode on Tuesday evening.
The CS:GO tournament at epic23 is due to start soon, and with that, the seedings for the event have just been announced. As always, the seeds have been generated by the tournament admins based on their knowledge and the history of the teams and players involved. They are used to structure the groups to ensure that the tournament is not heavily stacked out with too many “groups of death”. Expect drama.
1st: Bulldog (Business Babes & Brandon)
2nd: fish123
3rd: Stif CeX With Joe
4th: Stickmen
5th: CeX
6th: Enclave
7th: Boys, Beers & Bmagic
8th: ProjectX
9th: Grouped CeX
10th: Cardinals
11th: Cryptick
12th: anime thugs
13th: The Last Resort
14th: OMEN
15th: Devious Gaming
16th: gamevibe
The seeds partially reflect our preview from before the event, which contains all the rosters for the entire tournament. Notably all top four teams are mix teams in a certain sense, although “Stif CeX With Joe” is the closest to an actual team, just substituting Luzuh in for Kray, who’s playing with Bulldog this event. Topping the list of seeds is the team made up of 2/5 of Epsilon, followed closely behind by fish123.
With no other competitions relevant to the UK going on this weekend (sorry StarSeries and Intel Challenge) all eyes will be on the Kettering Conference Centre as the first BYOC LAN of 2018 kicks off with lots of anticipation! The action can be caught on the dedicated CSGO stream.
This post was submitted by Christian earlier this month through our “Submit News” feature.
Impulse Gaming have recently announced they have built a new roster, and with that look to be competing in ESEA Season 27, and other events as and when they get announced. They most likely will be heading to insomnia62 at the end of March.
Last week, we revealed that Reason Gaming faced a suspension and possible ban after allegations of match fixing. As of 15th September, ESL UK have lifted the provisional suspension of Reason Gaming, allowing both them and Radix Esports to attend the LAN final.
The progress of the investigation, which was “expedited” due to the fast approaching LAN finals, discovered no malicious intent from the players of Reason Gaming. After finding preliminary evidence, ESIC felt it was “justified” to suspend Reason from the remainder of the season, and so be it the finals. Since further investigation determined their loss wasn’t intentional, the suspension was lifted and investigation ended. CeX were also under investigation due to their loss against Radix, and after no evidence was found to suspend them the investigation has since been dropped.
All of this means that the table as of the final week of the season, is confirmed to be kept the same. This will see CeX, Reason Gaming, Team Endpoint and Radix Esports pick up the invites for the ESL Premiership Finals, with Method and fish123 once again missing out on competing.
The final standings of the online league of the ESL Premiership.
Esports Integrity Commissioner Ian Smith said, “ESIC would not usually comment on investigations, but, in this case, unfortunately, details were put into the public domain and, in the interests of natural justice and protecting the reputations of those involved, it is only right that we clarify what has happened. Preliminary evidence justified provisional suspension given the stage of the Premiership that had been reached and the time pressures involved. These pressures also prompted us to expedite the further investigation of the allegations, which we did as quickly as possible. The result of those further investigations is that we are satisfied that underperformance by the Reason Gaming team in their match against Radix was not deliberate as originally alleged. Consequently, we have lifted the suspension at the earliest opportunity.”
The ESL Premiership finals will be held at the 5,000 m² ESL Arena at EGX over the weekend of 23rd-24th September. The semi-finals are scheduled for 10am and 1:30pm on the Saturday with the finals set for a midday broadcast on the Sunday where the final two teams will compete for the lion’s share of the £10,500 prize pool.
Gfinity have recently announced two huge deals in the UK to broadcast the Elite Series. In an undisclosed deal, BBC were first to announce on Friday stating that it was the “first deal of it’s kind” and that it would be featured on their online only channel, BBC Three. Meanwhile BT Sport today announced they were joining the hype train and getting involved with UK esports.
It has been a long time since we last did a special show, in fact I believe it was April last year when PhoenixUK was on for a regular time. Over the course of that time, many new faces have not been forced to see this wonderful masterpiece that I have created. However for a few months last year, it was an incredibly successful show that spearheaded epic.LAN’s Stream Team and provided the UK esports scene a talk show that covered a wide variety of talking points.
With epic.LAN around the corner, and much debating to be had in the scene, on Sunday evening, for three full unadulterated hours, you wonderful people will be subject to the monotone voice of Tom “Gumpster” Gumbleton, and a panel quickly whipped up in the last week or so. We will be covering, epic.TWENTY in great detail going over the various teams who could win the event, and the form guide of some of the teams at the event. There will also be two interviews as well, with teams I haven’t and won’t be covering in the written interview series I have been doing the last week or so. This is because I felt it best to give as many teams a chance to be seen and heard prior to the event in a bid to shine more light on the UK CS:GO Scene.
Of course, we will be hearing from our panel, which is made up of some rather intriguing names within the scene, and we will also be covering Dota2 in greater detail, and will particularly centre around the ordeal of Multiplay deciding to drop it from the insomnia LAN events, and how the knock on effect will be felt in the UK Dota scene.
PhoenixUK returns to Sunday evening temporarily (Credit: epic.LAN)
The guests will be open to questions from the public, either through our dedicated hash tag on Twitter (#PhoenixUK) or on Twitch chat for the duration of the show. Our panel this week returns with Elliott “Sed” Brown who stems from Team uFrag and has a vast knowledge of the UK Esports landscape currently, having teams in both CS:GO & Dota. We also have various familiar faces such as Ryan “Flakes” Oliver, Michael “Duck” Moriarty, Liam “DOOPZ” Whitehead and Douglas “Zambrella” Todd, so make sure you tune in to a cracker of a show.
Tom “Gumpster” Gumbleton – Host & Content Director
Ryan “Flakes” Oliver – CS:GO Caster
Elliott “Sed” Brown – Team uFrag Owner
Michael “Duck” Moriarty – Journalist
Tom “Gumpster” Gumbleton – Host & Content Director
Douglas “Zambrella” Todd – Dota2 Caster
Elliott “Sed” Brown – Team uFrag Owner
Liam “DOOPZ” Whitehead – UK Dota2 Scene Expert
Jay “f00b” Davenport – Dragon Esports Team Captain (CS:GO)
James “wAVE” Dunn – wAVE’s Money Crew Mix Captain (CS:GO)
Tom “Barguul” Cribb – Enslave Gaming Team Captain (Dota2)
Jordan “MagicTurtle” Abbott – Former Team uFrag/Perilous Gaming Team Captain (Dota2)
If the show is deemed successful, we will try to continue this in a new format and on a slightly different day depending on schedules from various members in the community.
You can tune into PhoenixUK on Sunday evening on the epic.LAN Twitch Stream, don’t forget to get involved too through Twitch chat and through the hashtag #PhoenixUK on Twitter. If you do miss the show, you can re-watch on the epic.LAN YouTube Channel. Some parts maybe used during the epic.TWENTY Streams through the course of the weekend.
ESL UK have stated one of their main aims with the Premiership is to help support grass-roots UK esports. Today, they have gone one step further in this goal by hosting a boot-camp for two CS:GO teams at their venue.
The two teams invited for the event are Team Endpoint and Impulse Gaming, who’ll be attending the venue for three days. Over the 6th-8th February, the squads will play out their ESL Premiership league game on the Monday before focusing on the boot-camp the rest of the days.
This will be the first time George “HudzG” Hoskins will line-up in person with his Team Endpoint colleagues.
After the second week of play, Team Endpoint are currently third in the ESL Premiership with one win and one loss. Meanwhile, Impulse Gaming are currently placing seventh, with one draw and a loss. The boot-camp would benefit both sides, as it would give Endpoint, who are expected to reach the finals, a chance to acclimatise to the Studio conditions. Impulse would, on the other hand, receive three days to focus on CS to try and climb up the table.
Will Attwood, Product Manager for the ESL Premiership:
We’re incredibly pleased to be able to offer this kind of opportunity to the best and brightest teams in the United Kingdom. Developing the skill and cohesion of esports teams in the United Kingdom is paramount to the transition from semi-professional to full-time professional. We’re excited to be part of this journey with both Endpoint and Impulse. We look forward to finding new ways to support the growth of esports in the United Kingdom as move forward through 2017.
Adam Jessop, CEO of Team Endpoint, had this to say:
Having the opportunity to boot-camp at the ESL studio is a great chance for the team to continue working on their progression. Whilst the majority of the team were in attendance at Insomnia 59, it’s the first time they will have met up together offline with our newest addition, George ‘HudzG’ Hoskins. We are proud to be a part of this seasons ESL UK & Ireland Premiership, and playing our game under the studio lights will provide the team with additional focus and experience.
Lewis James, of Impulse Gaming, said:
At Impulse Gaming we are always trying to provide the best opportunities for our players to support them in the scene, thanks to ESL for inviting us to their upcoming boot-camp our players are again able to experience even more. Thank You.
The rosters of the two teams are:
| Team Endpoint | Impulse Gaming |
| Ian “Immi” Harding | Sam “Samwell” Reynolds |
| Ben “Esio” Doughty | Jonathan “Cynic” Burvill |
| Max “MiGHTYMAX” Heath | Alfie “raY1” Scott |
| Joe “Luzuh” Loose | James “JammyJames” Meadowcroft |
| George “HudzG” Hoskins | Žygimantas “Nukkye” Chmieliauskas |
Note: Michael Moriarty is currently a paid freelancer with ESL UK.
Today, in the biggest shake up of domestic Esports development, sees British Esports Association fully launch their website and project with more information on who is behind the project. Many of us who have been around for many many years in the Esports industry in the United Kingdom, will remember similar projects coming and going (UKeSA!!). However, back in July, British Esports Association announced itself to the UK. No-one really knew what they were setting out to do, what they wanted to achieve and what exactly they were going to do tackling any kind of issues within the domestic scene.
It seemed a massive coincidence that post-WESA (for those who missed out, you should google), there was a lot of speculation that some elements of the industry were going to start their own (specifically in the UK). However, the British Esports Association had been quietly working behind closed doors and had started something with the announcement of Egames at Rio 2016. Although it wasn’t a massive success by usual metrics, it meant they could get a feel of the gaming and Esports industry.
Paul “ReDeYe” Chaloner is part of the British Esports Association Advisory Board for 2017.
We still don’t have very specific information regarding future plans of British Esports Association, however they have today announced their brand new website, some of the goals they hope to achieve, and a rough plan of what they want to do, along with the members of their board.
Taken from the website:
British Esports announces Advisory Board and launches website
6th December, London; The British Esports Association (British Esports) – the UK’s esports national body – established to support, promote and instil good governance for amateur esports players and teams– confirms its Advisory Board and launches its full website.
Led by British Esports Chair, Andy Payne OBE, the board for 2017 includes:
- Paul “ReDeYe” Chaloner, Veteran Esports Host, Caster and Presenter
- Richard Lewis, Esports Journalist of the Year
- Michael “ODEE” O’Dell, President Team Dignitas
- Craig “Wizzo” Fletcher, Founder Multiplay
- Chris Mead, Twitch’s UK Director of Partnerships
- Ryan Hart, World Champion Esports Player
- Ceirnan “Excoundrel” Lowe, Colour Caster
- Josh Williams, Founder, National University Esports League
- Carleigh Morgan, Academic
- Andrew Nixon, Partner at Sheridans
The board, which possess a wealth of experience across all aspects of esports and are some of the leading figures within the industry, will discuss developments and areas of focus for the British Esports Association, and offer their guidance and advice to constantly develop esports in the UK. The first board meeting will take place in January 2017 and each member will sit on the board for a minimum of 12 months.
Andy Payne, British Esports Association Chair, had this to say:
I am really proud and honoured to be taking this role on for British Esports at such an exciting time for the industry. We have assembled a really talented group of esports professionals to interact with the community and guide our activities. There is much to do, but given the talent assembled, we will be able to make a significant difference over the coming 12 months, bring it on.
What seems really positive about the project so far is that they have covered their bases on a wide variety of areas in the UK Esports Industry, they have picked up a journalist, a versatile host, an esports team owner, an event owner, a streaming platform director (in terms of the UK), a player, a caster, the University League founder, an academic, and a lawyer. Much better and much more positive start from British Esports Association than when WESA revealed itself to the world. It should be noted, that there seems to be a few notable exclusions from the original board, one of which being ESL UK.
There are many questions still left unanswered around what they will be trying to enforce, how will they tackle issues in the industry (from paying out prize money in good time to cheating in esports), and whether they will be in actual fact a proper governing body. Whatever happens, will be interesting to see going forward into 2017. We will endeavour to find more out about this project and see if we can get some time with Andy Payne and others on answering some questions around what British Esports Association hopes to do in the local scene.
