Exeter College win League of Legends All Star Showdown: Full match-recap, VoDs and interviews

In the week beginning February 8th, eight of the top teams from the British Esports Championships battled it out in the League of Legends All Star Showdown, a single elimination bracket tournament.

At the end of the week, the Showdown culminated in a thrilling final match where Exeter College (eXecoll LOL) faced off against East Norfolk College (East Norfolk Knights).

This event followed the success of last year’s Rocket League All Star Showdown, and there are plans to continue these in the future with further titles.

eXecoll LOL closed out the tournament in style using strong teamwork and aggressive gameplay to win the best of five series 3-0. But how did they win? Jack Freeman takes a look in this recap article.

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Tournament summary: How the teams got on in the early stages

It all began with the East Norfolk Knights and eXecoll LOL quickly progressing through the stages of the bracket. Meanwhile, the Conel Cyphers and Hills Road SFC2 took comfortable victories to meet them in the semi-finals on Thursday February 11th.

The semi-finals ended quickly for eXecoll LOL, as they triumphed over Hills Road SFC2 in two highly contested games.

On the other side of the bracket, the East Norfolk Knights tore apart the Conel Cyphers in the first game.

The second game was not as easy, as the Cyphers capitalised on the Knights’ mistakes, slowly clawing their way back into the game and the series. However, it wasn’t enough, as the Knights won the final fight around the elder dragon – securing them the series to meet eXecoll LOL in the finals.

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Finals match recap: eXecoll LOL vs the East Norfolk Knights

The finals kicked off with eXecoll LOL starting out strong in game one, by gaining a few early advantages in every position, with ShyCruelPain securing some early kills in the bot lane.

Pushing this early game lead, they stayed controlling the game and finished it swiftly in just under 25 minutes witha gold lead of over 16k.

Going into the second game, the East Norfolk Knights showed that they wouldn’t go down without a fight. Using istealbrothers’ early game skirmishing with Hecarim and Ignite, the East Norfolk Knights managed to take some early kills to secure an early lead. However, eXecoll LOL stayed in the game by focusing on the objectives around the map.

This led to East Norfolk Knights only getting two kills, while eXecoll LOL gained a dragon, rift herald and half of the mid lane turret plates by the ten-minute mark.

This continued further into the game, as East Norfolk got the kills but Exeter secured the objectives. This all changed when StopAnyAttempt punished Nickolas for being out of position, which led to a favourable team fight for them.

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Check out this highlight above and a full VoD of the final here

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Now in control of the game, eXecoll LOL moved to take both dragon and baron. From this they were able to close out the game with infernal soul and a second baron buff.

The third and final game saw the best action of the series, as both sides exhibited some entertaining champion picks. Nickolas was on his favoured champion Katarina, while ShyCruelPain was playing an unusual jungle pick in Talon.

Of course, the first kills of the game involved both ShyCruelPain and Nickolas bursting into flames when they traded lives only three minutes into the game. However, Nickolas took the extra gold from the first blood, making the trade more favourable for him.

The mid lane continued to be the focus of the early stages of the game, as there couldn’t be a skirmish without one or both mid laners being present. However, eXecoll LOL managed to gain a slight lead which they converted into early dragons.

Once again, the East Norkfolk Knights didn’t make it easy and fought back at every step of the game. Unfortunately, they were plagued with internet issues towards the end of the game which didn’t help the situation.

Eventually only one team could take the crown and it was eXecoll LOL that took the third game and the title – doing so with a solid combination of objective control and team play.

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Post-game interview

After the game, host Vlad ‘WaXeN’ Catusanu caught up with Nickolas and ShyCruelPain to gain some insight into their preparation for the matches and outlook for the spring season of British Esports Championships.

Starting with Nickolas from the East Norfolk Knights, who was in surprisingly high spirits after the match, they said: “I was really happy that I could have a really fun game where I played my favourite character, even if we couldn’t really win.

“Obviously we were a bit outclassed as a team team, cos eXecoll did an amazing job as a team, and honestly we just couldn’t beat them.”

After being asked about how they’re going to use this tournament to prepare for the spring division of the Championships, Nickolas joked: “Well, we know who to look out for now, cos obviously eXecoll whooped us a little bit.”

“We just have to try and do better for the next one and figure out where exactly we fall off, and we need to work on that a little bit.”

Nickolas ended the interview by thanking those that had supported him and mentioned aiming to get partnered on his Twitch channel.

Moving onto ShyCruelPain, who was gracious in victory, saying: “Congrats to East Norfolk College for putting us through such a great series today. It was really fun to play against them.”

“Usually our strategy is just, play to win the first game and then we can allow ourselves, of course you have some fun but still, like play to win.”

After being asked about their somewhat ‘normal’ draft in the first game, ShyCruelPain justified their Graves pick, saying: “I picked Graves I just wanted to keep pressing on the jungle. Seeing what he can do and that’s how we made our strategy for the other games as well.”

ShyCruelPain also alluded to the possibility of Vladimir jungle at some point during the spring season.

You can also follow ShyCruelPain on Twitch here.

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Final thoughts

Overall, there was never a dull moment as both exciting teams brought something to the table, as well as all the other teams that took part.

Keep a look out for eXecoll LOL, and all the teams competing in the Spring Division of the Championships, and see who will climb the leaderboard to take the League of Legends title!

The British Esports Championships Spring Division  has begun! Tune in Wednesday at 4pm GMT over on the British Esports Twitch channel to see teams from schools and colleges across the country battle it out each week!“Congrats to East Norfolk College for putting us through such a great series. It was really fun to play against them.”

ShyCruelPain, eXecoll LOL“I was really happy that I could have a really fun game where I played my favourite character, even if we couldn’t really win.”
Nickolas, East Norfolk Knights