Another awesome week for the world of esports, more deals, more insane competition and some exciting developments for Lupus Ignis (though we can’t say what they are, sorry for teasing!)

So ESL Birmingham was pretty big…..

Just 3 weeks ago Team Secret took home the ESL trophy in Birmingham, beating Evil Geniuses 3-2. But more importantly, the event got quite a bit of traction and set a new viewership record for ESL One Dota 2 events. Over 7.6 million hours were consumed across the week’s competition on top of the 24,000 strong crowd inside the arena. In addition to this, the event saw a peak concurrent viewing of 306,000 fans from around the world, breaking yet another record that was previously held by the 2017 Hamburg major.

This is really positive for UK esports going forward, hopefully this will mean we will be getting more world-class events in the near future! (we better be getting at least something from the League of Legends Worlds…)

ESPN revealed new details for their Apex Legends competition

ESPN has revealed new details of the Invitiational Apex Legends event, taking place at this years edition of X Games Minneapolis. The tournament will be starting with opening qualifiers on the 29th of June, with successful teams qualifying for the final at the U.S. Bank Stadium. 15 pro-teams are going to be invited to compete in Minneapolis, alongside the 5 open qualifier slots for the 20 team event with an eye-watering $150,000 on offer for teams to take home. Sign-ups are now open in North America, Europe and Oceania with the top two sides from NA and EU and the best from OC being invited out to Minneapolis. Sign-ups close on the 28th so don’t miss the deadline!

Team Liquid took home the ESL Proleague Trophy for a third year running

ESL Proleague certainly did not dissapoint last week, nailbiting games from the outset culminated in a grand final between hometown heroes G2 Esports and the number 1. ranked team in the world; Team Liquid. The North American team took home the ridiculously sized trophy (like seriously, who needs a trophy that big?) and have arguably made their statement for the best Counter-Strike team in the world. It’s no suprise that everyone had eyes on Team Liquid, after all they have been nothing but dominant in recent times and arguably G2 was not their biggest competition. Astralis put in a heavy bid for their place in the final on Friday, taking the team to a 3rd game and Liquid even lost in the opening round to North, putting them in to bottom bracket and looking for redemption in sudden-death games.

Rifler Stewie2k decribed the final as a “game of throws” and i think we would have to agree, both teams made a lot of mistakes on the biggest stage. Frankly, Team Liquid should have made that look a lot easier, although Stewie2k did put in a disgusting flick on Dust2 – check it out here!

Fnatic stayed dominant in the LEC… JUST

All the hype in week 3 of the LEC Spring Split was behind the G2 Esports v Fnatic game at prime time on Friday night, who was going to keep an undefeated record? Well it turned out to be Fnatic, but weirdly that was not their biggest scare of the weekend. Bottom place Excel took a shocking 12 kills to just a mere 3 at the 20 minute mark of Saturday’s game and were looking to take the game in shocking fashion, before overextension to take the Tier 3 towers lead to an aggresive counter-attack and ultimately another win for Fnatic. This puts Fnatic at the top of the table going into week 4, with a 6-0 record.

Renault Vitality won the Rocket League Championship Series

Kaydop, Fairy Peak and Scrub Killa lost to G2 in the group stage but there were still enough wins to put them through to the quarterfinals. To get to the final, Vitality had to go through NRG and Cloud9, the two best teams in North America before facing G2 Esports again in the grand-final. By day three, Vitality were the only European Team left but were still more than welcomed by the american fans in New Jersey though it was very clear that the stadium was routing for G2. The grand finals has everything a Rocket League fan could wish for, incredible solo plays, goal-line saves and a zero-second goal to tie the first game. This was Scrub Killa’s first season of eligibility for the championship series but clearly that didn’t hinder his performance, resulting in him being named the Season 7 MVP. Next up in the season is the DreamHack Pro Circuit starting on July 5th.

What’s coming up this week?

The Epicenter Major has a $1,000,000 USD on the line in prize pool money at the DOTA 2 major this week. As usual, all the biggest teams are ready to take it home so buckle in for some down to the wire games from Moscow!

but more importantly, you can start to expect some exciting announcements from Lupus Ignis in the coming couple of weeks so (here comes the plug) make sure to keep up to date on our Twitter for the latest news and announcements. Trust me, you will not want to miss what we have planned!