Talent highlights from Insomnia i63

Insomnia is the premier UK esports tournament that usually takes place twice a year, the biggest of which being held in the Summer. Held in Birmingham at the NEC it’s the venue for a number of pro-level esports tournaments, including the open and invitational tournaments for CS:GO, League of Legends, Overwatch, Team Fortress 2, Rocket League and Hearthstone.

The SickOdds team headed over for the full weekend and from watching all of the action packed tournaments across the esports stage and smaller stages we’ve put together a list of some of our favourite players who made it to the finals stage. These players made some breath taking shots, held at clutch moments and pulled off some fantastic outplays.

To celebrate some of the incredible talent shown in the UK at the Insomnia i63 event we’re giving away a ASUS Cerberus gaming mouse. All you have to do is head over to our Twitter Competition and vote for your Unofficial SickOdds Insomnia MVP from our shortlist below and we’ll select a random winner next week! If you think we’ve missed anyone who really shined during the tournament be sure to leave a comment at the bottom of the post!

We’d also like to thank Charlotte Peers who was at the event with SickOdds taking pictures of the whole event. Be sure to check out her Flickr account to see more action from the event.

 

CS:GO

The UK Masters Counter Strike tournament had the largest prize pool at Insomnia, featuring a £30,000 pot with £10,000 going to 1st place. The finals saw the premier UK organisation Team Endpoint pitted against the European side Business5, boasting well known pro players kioShiMa and CRUC1AL.

With impressive AWP players and some strong bomb contests, Team Endpoint came out on top against Business5 with a final score 3-1, taking home the lions share of the prize pool and all the glory.

Nominated MVPs

 

Team Fortress 2

If we could vote for a crowd to be an MVP then the TF2 fans would take home the award without question. Filling nearly every seat on the main esports stage, the energy for the finals was immense and the gameplay justified it without doubt. Hosted by Essentials.TF we saw Se7en progress from the losers bracket to take on Froyotech. The action never paused for a second and only became more amplified as the delayed tournament progressed.

Froyotech were the favourites to win from the start and showed us why with their lightning quick gameplay and polished strategies.

Nominated MVPs

 

Overwatch

The Overwatch UK Masters finals once again saw MnM Gaming gracing the stage, making a regular appearance in the finals as arguably the best UK Overwatch esports team. Their competitors Kernow Esports put up a strong fight and contested objectives well, but MnM’s strong teamwork and excellent ultimate economy control allowed them to take the best of 7 finals in a clean sweep.

With the introduction of Brigitte and Hammond to the meta we saw some big champion pool switch ups in comparison to last year and saw both teams include these new champions with great success.

Nominated MVPs

 

League of Legends

League of Legends has been a long standing institution of Insomnia and this year was no exception. With Forge of Champions (FoC), another UK-focussed event, currently in progress many top-tier teams were unable to enter a team at Insomnia due to other time commitments and agreements. ExceL, who are also currently in the top 4 at FoC, however, managed to send a team to the open and made it quite comfortably to the finals and took home 1st place and the £2,500 prizepool.

Their opponents were the Danish organisation Good Game Esport, who gave the premier UK LoL team a run for their money, pushing the best of 5 to a 2-2 match up before exceL managed to take the last game from them. The junglers on both sides played exceptionally well throughout the entire tournament and with stellar teamwork and strategies from each team we were treated to a fantastic series.

Nominated MVPs

 

HearthStone

The Hearthstone tournament is one of the smaller events at Insomnia but still showed some amazing talent through the knockout stages and finals. MnM Gaming made another appearance aside from winning the Overwatch tournament with one of their Hearthstone players Kieran “Toastmonster” Kane taking home the gold.

Going into the finals against Seandk both players dominated in their own rounds, taking the score line to a tense 2-2 before Toastmonster took the final game to claim the 3-2 victory.

Unfortunately we were unable to find a VoD of the Hearthstone event, but if anyone knows of one then please comment below and we will include it here.

Nominated MVPs

 

Remember to enter our Twitter Competition, nominating one of these players as the Unofficial SickOdds Insomnia MVP! If you think we have missed any out who deserved to be on this list them leave a comment below, along with a clip or description of the play that should earn them a spot.