UK esports winners and achievers: October-December 2021

The UK continues to produce a host of top esports talent and teams in a variety of games – but how have they been getting in over the last few months?

In our latest quarterly achievements roundup, Dominic Sacco looks back through some of the wins between the fourth quarter of 2021 (October, November and December).

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October 2021 – Excellent Endpoint win in CSGO and Rocket League

UK esports organisation Endpoint had a great month in October 2021, with wins in a few different esports titles.

They won the Rocket League EU Fall Regional Event 1, beating favourites Team BDS in an exciting 14-game RLCS European Open grand final, winning 4-3 twice and taking home $30,000. And in CSGO, they won their sixth ESL Premiership in a row – and their eighth overall. To top it off, they wernt unbeaten throughout the entire Autumn 2021 ESL Prem season.

Speaking of going undefeated, LDN UTD also went undefeated in the LVP Rising Series 4 Valorant tournament, and beat fellow UK organisation Tenstar 3-0 in the grand final, though Tenstar came close in games two and three, losing 13-10 and 16-14 respectively.

Tenstar saw their own success this month, with women’s Valorant team Tenstar Nova becoming the first ever champions of VCT Game Changers EMEA after beating fellow UK org Rix in the final, which generated 200,000+ views.

Elsewhere in Valorant, Team Liquid – which features UK players – qualified for Valorant Champions after beating Guild in the EMEA Last Chance Qualifier final. Fnatic, also with UK talent, had already qualified for Champions.

And aalso, UK CSGO player Smooya helped Fnatic reach the IEM Closed Qualifier, after forming a  UK trio with Alex and Mezii.

Finally, UK Overwatch player Fusions retired from pro play, with Boston Uprising thanking him for ‘being a rock for the team’.

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November 2021 – UK talent recognised at Esports Awards, plus big wins in Halo, Street Fighter & more

Towards the end of each year, several esports and video games awards ceremonies take place. One of the most prominent, the Esports Awards, recognised UK talent in terms of both winners and nominations.

UK LEC caster and streamer Caedrel won Esports Analyst of the Year, while finalists included a host of other UK talent, such as coaches Mac and MarkyB, colour casters Vedius and Johnnyboi_i, and play-by-play casters Machine, ODPixel and Pansy.

UK winners at the separate the*gameHERs awards also included Shoubna Naika-Taylor, aka Queenbeesenpai, curriculum lead of creative and digital at Coventry College, who won Top Educator in the Rising Star category, and Staffordshire University esports student Ellis Celia (aka Ellibear) won Rising Star – Best Intern.

One of the biggest wins for the UK this month saw UK Street Fighter V player Benjamin ‘ProblemX’ Simon beat a host of talent from around the world to emerge victorious as the greatest player at Red Bull Kumite in Las Vegas.

The first major Halo Infinite EU tournament also saw experienced UK player Snipedrone win with French players Shaady, Sica and Lqgend.

In Valorant, Tenstar Nova become back-to-back VCT Game Changers EMEA champions after reverse sweeping Oxygen Esports in the Series 2 final, while Team Liquid (with UK talent) emerged victorious at the Red Bull Home Ground Grand Final.

Elsewhere, MNM Gaming reached the Rainbow Six Siege European League promotion/relegation stage after storming the Challenger League, UK orgs Endpoint and SMPR qualified for the Rocket League RLCS Fall Major after facing off in the EU Regional Event 3 grand final, and Coalesce won the CSGO Sigma Esports Cup LAN in Malta.

At Epic.LAN (34), Vexed (Valorant), Coalesce (CSGO) and RiSky (StarCraft II) were among the esports winners.

Finally, 100 Thieves’ UK CoD streamer Tommey set a new world record in the game’s quads mode, where teams of four do battle against one another. With the help of his team he racked up a whopping 64 kills, with a score of 27,375 and damage of 20,295 in a single game of quads.

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December 2021 – University Student Esports Talent Recognised

Both the NSE and Amazon University Esports/NUEL announced the winners of their respective Winter 2021 seasons in a variety of games, plus the NSE announced the 20 students accepted into the 2022 Intel FutureGen programme. In other student tournaments, Staffordshire won the first UK University Hearthstone League and mix team Sleepy Gang secured victory at the Badass University All Stars Rainbow Six Siege esports finals at the University of Roehampton.

Speaking of Rainbow Six, MNM Gaming qualified for the Rainbow Six Siege European League.

In Rocket League, Markydooda joined Guild as their new Rocket League coach. He competed in the British Esports Student Champs at Edinburgh and is a 2x Scottish Cup Champion.

Moving onto FIFA, Team Pacheco won the ShEsports Cup Christmas Special women’s FIFA tournament at London’s Gfinity Arena, while Tom Sorrell from Billericay was crowned champion of the Guild FIFA 22 Cup presented by Subway, taking home the lion’s share of £1,800 and a Golden Sub trophy.

UK Valorant talent reached the latter stages of the top-tier Valorant Champions tournament, with Team Liquid falling to fellow European side Acend 2-0 in the semi-final, while Fnatic lost 2-1 to KRÜ Esports in the quarter final.

UK PUBG player TeaBone finished runner-up at the Global Championship with Heroic, and named in the All-PGC team.

And last but definitely not least, the Great Britain women’s Dota 2 team secured a second-place finish at the Global Esports Games (GEG) 2021 medal event in Singapore.

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Did we miss anyone? Please let us know if there are other UK esports talent that had some impressive achievements in Q4 2021 – and we can update this article! We’ll be back in April with our next roundup, covering January to March 2022.