It's that time of the week again, which means it's Monday and time for another Esports Recap for last week! We had a couple awesome things happen in the past week, so let's dive right in!
League of Legends NA Challengers Finals
Let's kick things off with an update to something that we talked about briefly a couple weeks ago, and that's the NA Challengers League finals for League of Legends. We mentioned how the team Disguised (DSG) had an incredible winner's bracket finals performance against the Cincinnati Fear to make it to the Grand Finals. At that time, the lower bracket was being played out, but it turned out that Evil Geniuses Challengers (EGC) made it through to the Grand Finals in the lower brackets, and they were poised to give DSG a run for their money.
EGC got knocked to the lower bracket in the first stage of playoffs by FlyQuest Challengers 2-0, but went on a very strong run through losers, eventually getting revenge on FlyQuest in their best of 5. On top of that, EGC had an LCS caliber jungler in their ranks, Armao, who had previously been in EG's LCS Summer split starting line up.
The match was held at the LCS Arena and actually sold more tickets for than some of the LCS Playoff matches. Goes to show the impact that DSG and what Disguised Toast's play for a spot did for the scene. While EG had a team of very strong players, DSG were ready for the challenge. They end up stomping EG 3-1 in the series, and it did not look close. The games were absolutely incredible and 100% a must watch. You can find all the vods for the matches on the lolesports vods YouTube channel.
League of Legends LCS Summer Split Playoffs Week 3
Keeping in line with League of Legends, last week was week 3 of the LCS Summer Split playoffs. Only 6 teams remained in contention the 3 LCS Finals spots, as well as the potential 4 North American spots for Worlds. Last week, we only talked about 3 of the matches, which are listed above, but there was a 4th match on Sunday which determined who was making it to Finals Weekend.
First up was EG vs Team Liquid. Last week, I predicted that if Pyosik and APA synced up well and stuffed Jojopyun in mid, they had a real chance to take the set. Well, Team Liquid did not disappoint. They pulled off what looked to be an incredible display of skill and really ran circles around EG, taking the series 3-1. This knocks EG out of contention for worlds as well as the finals.
The second match was between Golden Guardians and Dignitas. This match was very important because this was the next step for Jensen and his quest to continue his streak of making worlds. Their hill could not have been higher as GG was one of the strongest looking teams in the regular season, only to be knocked down to losers by NRG the week prior. Unfortunately for Jensen, his streak of making worlds ended, because Golden Guardians came to play, and Dignitas couldn't stand up to the pressure. Dignitas lost the series 3-0.
Saturday's match was the winners bracket finals. The winner of this match would determine who would directly advance to the grand finals of the split next Sunday, and who would have to play another series next Saturday. This match was between NRG and Cloud9, and NRG had been on quite the hot streak. They had won their past 5-6 matches against strong teams and it looked like NRG was making quite a run. Sadly for them, Cloud9 showed why they are the best team in the LCS, and demolished NRG 3-0. This puts C9 in the Grand Finals. But NRG can still take everything home if they win another series next weekend and beat C9 on Championship Sunday.
The final match of the weekend was between the winners of the two lower bracket matches earlier in the week, Golden Guardians and Team Liquid. This match would determine who makes it to Finals Weekend to face NRG on Saturday, as well as the 3rd guaranteed NA spot at Worlds, and who would end up heading to international competition to fight against EU's 4th seed for a spot at worlds.
Team Liquid got off to a rocketing start, taking the first two games in a pretty convincing fashion, with Pyosik getting the first ever Jungler Pentakill in LCS history. Then disaster struck as Golden Guardians rallied to bring the series back 2-2 and were looking like they were going to reverse sweep Team Liquid. But something happened in game 5 that is rarely seen that changed the course of the match.
GG's support Huhi paused the game about 12 minutes in because he encountered a bug. Essentially, the Unsealed Spellbook rune bugged out Huhi's Flash, making it so that he only had 1 summoner spell. This caused a roughly 10-15 minute pause as the issue was investigated. Normally, when bugs happen during LCS matches, the game is usually able to be rewound to just before the bug happened and the game can resume. But the nature of this bug and the fact that some kills had been exchanged between the bug occurring and the game being paused, the entire game had to be remade. The teams would have the same champions, but they had to restart the game from the beginning.
While the first game 5 didn't look all too good for Team Liquid, the remake was a different story, and TL exploded onto the map with a new found surge of energy and decimated GG to take the series 3-2. Team Liquid will go against NRG next weekend to fight for a chance at a title. These matches were awesome so it's definitely worth watching, again over on the lolesports vods YouTube channel.
Super Smash Con 2023
Lastly, this weekend was another big event, Super Smash Con 2023. This is a big convention that celebrates all things Smash, with traditional tournaments for all the major titles, as well as some fan favorite events. There's a lot of events, so we'll detail the top 8 for each event.
Smash Ultimate
1. ZETA|Acola (Steve)
2. Liquid|Dabuz (Rosalina & Luma, Olimar)
3. Fennel|Miya (Mr. Game & Watch)
4. LG|Zomba (R.O.B.)
5. BUZZ|Neo (Corrin, Sheik)
5. SBI|KEN (Sonic, Sephiroth)
7. Marss (Zero Suit Samus)
7. SS|DDee (Steve, Pokémon Trainer, Pac-Man)
Smash Melee
1. MxM|Zain (Marth)
2. Liquid|Hungrybox (Jigglypuff)
3. EGGDOG|Cody Schwab (Fox)
4. Moist|Moky (Fox)
5. C9|Mango (Falco, Dr. Mario, Marth)
5. RB|aMSa (Yoshi)
7. Zuppy (Fox)
7. Nouns|Aklo (Fox)
Smash 4
1. Mistake (Bayonetta)
2. YC|Tyroy (Bayonetta)
3. Jules (Bayonetta)
4. Ralphie (Cloud)
5. Joshathan Gamer (Diddy Kong)
5. UTA|Beastly (Fox)
7. FXG|Machu (Cloud)
7. ODSY|Jesse (Bayonetta)
Smash 64
1. Isai (Pikachu, Kirby)
2. Kurabba (Yoshi)
3. SuPeRbOoMfAn (Kirby, Yoshi)
4. KeroKeroppi (Pikachu)
5. TEW|Nax (Kirby, Pikachu)
5. Kysk (Kirby, Pikachu, Captain Falcon)
7. Wizzrobe (Yoshi)
7. Mercy (Yoshi, Fox)
Smash Brawl
1. 686M (Ice Climbers, Peach)
2. Player-1 (Diddy Kong)
3. Hoenn (Ice Climbers, Meta Knight)
4. Cody (Meta Knight)
5. Gunnermaniac (Pikachu)
5. Mikeray4 (Snake)
7. Bike (Snake, Meta Knight)
7. ChaseTheLux (Ice Climbers, Zero Suit Samus, Pit)
There were also Doubles events for all the games as well, but if you're interested in those results, you can check out the results here.
One of my favorite side events is the Smash64 combo contest, where contestants have to come up with the most insane combos possible in the original Smash. Every year is always a treat to watch, but this year was special. Huntsman came out of nowhere and took the event handedly, getting significantly higher scores than his competitors. He had one of the best combos I've ever seen in one of these events. Definitely go give that a watch. If you want to check out the other matches from the event, you can check them out on VGBootCamp's YouTube channel.
And that does it for this week folks! If you're following the League of Legends scene, let us know in the Discord what your predictions are for next week's finals, and also what your favorite combo from the combo contest was. Also this week is back to school week for a lot of folks, so if that's you, have a great time at school, and we'll see you around!