There were quite a few major events in esports this weekend. Some of the events that concluded this weekend include: The Winter Premiere (Overwatch), ELEAGUE 2017 Major (CS:GO), and The Frosty Faustings IX (Various Fighting Games). Some of the major events that took place, but have not concluded and will continue in the future, include: NA and EU LCS Spring Splits (League of Legends) and StarLadder i-League Season 3 (Dota 2). It was an exciting weekend for esports fans of all kinds with a lot of great games and great performances. WARNING: Spoilers ahead!
Overwatch
The Overwatch Winter Premiere began earlier this month and reached its conclusion this weekend. In the semi-finals, we saw Immortals vs. Luminosity and compLexity Gaming vs. Ghost Gaming. Both Immortals and Ghost Gaming were able to clean up with 3-0 victories over their opponents and would meet up in the finals on Saturday. With a very strong performance in the Round Robin stages, Immortals was the favorite to take home the win. On the first map, Lijiang Tower, it was actually Ghost Gaming who went strong out of the gate with a surprising 3-0 victory, lead by Babybay’s great plays on Zarya.
The second map chosen was Dorado. Ghost Gaming started off strong yet again, taking a 2-0 lead, eager to prove that their recent sponsorship was well deserved. However, Immortals showed why they are such a strong team and brought it back 2-2. The fifth round went into overtime, and thanks to some very impressive McCree play from Grimreality, Immortals barely managed to take it and tie the series 1-1.
Map 3 was played on Gibraltar. Despite some good plays from Ghost Gaming, Immortals continued with their momentum from the Map 2 comeback to take it 3-1. Grimreality continued his dominance with his McCree to give his team the lead in this Best of 5 series. The fourth map was Nepal, and Immortals continued on to take this map 3-0, taking the overall series 3-1 to win the tournament. Grimreality’s McCree and Tracer play was certainly instrumental to their victories throughout the tournament and was no doubt the MVP.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
The ELEAGUE 2017 Major came to an end this weekend with Na’Vi, Astralis, Fnatic, Gambit Esports, Virtus.pro, North, FaZe Clan, and SK Gaming heading into the playoffs. If you’d like a more detailed look at how each of the matches played out, you can find that on the Liquipedia entry for this event. In the Semi-finals, Astralis was able to defeat Fnatic in a clean 2-0 sweep while Virtus.pro defeated SK Gaming, also in a 2-0 sweep. The two teams met this Sunday for the finals of this exciting $1 million USD tournament.
In this Best of 3 finals, Virtus.pro won the first map on Nuke with a score of 16:12 to put the pressure on Astralis. On the second map, Overpass, VP managed to take the lead at 14:13 after some clutch plays, ready to take home the title and the $500,000 first place prize. However, Astralis managed to pull it back and win the map 16:14. On Train, the third and final map, Virtus.pro began on the T side and managed to start off with an 8:1 early lead. While things were looking grim for Astralis, they managed to regain their composure and kept VP’s lead to a manageable 9:6 for the first half. In the second half, VP started strong again, increasing their lead to 13:7, only 3 rounds away from victory. With momentum being such a powerful factor in CS:GO, many thought the match was over. However, Astralis, with excellent team work, impressive shot-calling from their captain gla1ve, and an impressive display of skill from Kjaerbye, manage to win in the end 16:14. This is Astralis’ first major title, after years of being one of the most consistent teams in the scene. Well played by all teams, and congratulations to Astralis for this win!
Frosty Faustings IX
Frosty Faustings IX also took place this weekend, featuring many different fighting games, old and new. You can check out the full results listing here.
Interesting Notes
The Esports Observer collected data for a Twitch-Only Comparison of Single Top Performing Channel Viewership During Major Event Finals, comparing LoL Worlds 2016, Dota 2 The International 2016, and CS:GO ELEAGUE 2017. With total hours watched, ELEAGUE came out on top with 3.6 million hours compared to Dota 2 and LoL’s 2.8 and 2.5 million respectively. The comparison may not show the whole picture, as this is only comparing the top single streams, while some games may have had multiple streams during their respective events. However, this does show that CS:GO is still going strong, despite many people’s doubts following the drama with betting skins.
