Posted: Apr 19, 2019

The college grand finals have concluded at Insomnia Gaming Festival and our very first Spring 2019 champions have been confirmed!

 

League of Legends

Starting the day was the League of Legends grand final between Sunderland Seers from Sunderland College and Farnborough Falcons from Farnborough Sixth Form. This took place on the main esports stage courtesy of Belong Arenas.

Seers had a long trip down, with the team having woken up at around 2am to make it to the Birmingham NEC on time, and this may have given Farnborough the advantage.

Despite Seers ADC Toashtie getting first blood in game one as Jinx, Farnborough fought well as a team, with Vi (redsocks048) and Mundo (‘t1 naut fanboy) causing Seers problems in team fights in particular. They stormed ahead 13-3 with a 10k gold lead and secured game one.

In game two, Farnborough continued their dominance with some superb team play and some great plays by Nunu (that man redsocks again) and Xerath in the mid lane (sonardy) who picked up ten kills. Despite some early successful ganks by Seers jungler TooneXx (and a brilliant barons steal) as Kha’zix, it wasn’t enough to stop Farnborough, who won the match 2-0.

Farnborough ADC player Nathan ‘bojiman’ Vincent told the British Esports Association: “I feel like it really couldn’t have gone better. Everyone did their part, there were very few mistakes, we talked about objectives and positioning, I don’t think we could have played much better.”

 

WINNERS: Farnborough Falcons

Left to right: Andy Payne OBE – British Esports chair, Ellis ‘12345elli’ Duncalfe – support, Nathan ‘bojiman’ Vincent – ADC, Brad ‘sonardy’ Seals – mid, Paul ‘redsocks048’ Middleton – jungle, Sabin ‘t1 naut fanboy’ Magar – top

 

RUNNERS UP: Sunderland Seers

Left to right (better picture coming soon!): Gary Tibbett – lecturer, Chester King – British Esports CEO, Callum ‘Hypa’ Wood – top, Rob ‘TooneXx’ Catley- jungle, Federico ‘LqeMePage’ Torra – mid, Jeeven ‘Toashtie’ Singh – ADC, Joe ‘S9 zyro’ Anderson – support

Overwatch

It was a chance at redemption for Sunderland Seers, whose Overwatch team would face Farnborough Falcons’ Overwatch side in this best-of-seven grand final.

Seers – who have won both Season 1 and Season 2 of the British Esports Championships (as well as our initial pilot tournament) were too much for the Falcons on the day, and secured a 4-0 victory. But do not let the scoreline fool you – this was a hard-fought final and Farnborough gave the Seers a tough game.

Seers tank Josh ‘Legadith’ Bainbridge told the British Esports Association after the match: “Farnborough have some really good players, we’ve always had a problem getting their Ashe player down for example. The 4-0 means very little to be honest, every game was very close, there was no domination in that whatsoever.

“It was a great experience overall.”

Farnborough DPS/flex player Michael ‘Senseishark’ Kelly commented: “I think all of us during the third game really started picking it up. Our communication was off in the first two matches but then it clicked in the third game.”

 

WINNERS: Sunderland Seers

Left to right: Andy Payne OBE – British Esports chair, Mitchell ‘Ghostdragon’ Armstrong – support, Jake ‘Jark’ McGough – support, Josh ‘Legadith’ Bainbridge – tank, Jake ‘Qwantex’ Gawthorpe – tank, Connor ‘Slim’ Stokoe – DPS, Anthony ‘October’ Lakeman – DPS

 

RUNNERS UP: Farnborough Falcons

Left to right: Andy Payne OBE – British Esports chair, Oli ‘Bobiber’ Davies – tank, Olaf ‘Olafaru’ Madej – support, Michael ‘Senseishark’ Kelly – DPS/flex, Beth ‘Bright’ Wright – support, Ben ‘Cardinal’ Singleton – DPS/flex, Charlie ‘Fusion’ Baldwin – tank/flex

Rocket League

In the afternoon, the Rocket League grand finals (for both colleges and schools – with a report on the latter coming tomorrow!) took place in the Daily Tournament Zone in the BYOC area.

Team Vitality manager and Rocket League coach Mike ‘Gregan’ Ellis made an appearance as a special guest to motivate and inspire the players.

The colleges grand final saw SRCulater from Southern Regional College go up against yet another team from the talented Sunderland Seers.

It was an exciting match with plenty of thrills, spills, close shaves and crossbar deflections, but in the end went the way of SRCulater with a 4-1 scoreline.

Padraigín Tasker, course coordinator of Games, Animation and VFX Skills in Southern Regional College, told the British Esports Association: “We had a fantastic time competing in Season 1 and then following that through to the Grand Finals at Insomnia. We absolutely enjoyed every bit of it, even the travelling from Ireland!

“It was a great experience for our team and we are really looking forward to next year and hopefully we can keep our winning streak going! Thanks to all at British Esports for everything they done this year, it was a great competition to be a part of.”

 

WINNERS: SRCulater

Left to right: Jonathan ‘Rated’ Russell, Ronald ‘DONTHARRASMYKID’ Klamarik, Leonard ‘Klamarik123’ Klamarik

 

RUNNERS UP: Sunderland Seers

Left to right: Ryan ‘Vinny’ Fielder, Bailey ‘Bailey’ Robson, Ryan ‘Dewart’ Dewart, Ethan Henderson

 

Thanks to all of the British Esports Association participants and we’ll be back with more coverage and highlights from the finals soon.

In the meantime, you can check out the VoDs at twitch.tv/belongarenas (LoL/Overwatch) and twitch.tv/dontharrasmykid (Rocket League)

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