Over the last few months, we have been working with Stellenbosch University's Sports Department to bring esports to life on the Maties campus. This follows our 2017 pilot project which saw us hosting a series of 2v2 FIFA tournaments at the student shopping centre.

This proving ground filled with feedback led to 2018's project and an increase in titles on offer. The 2018 iteration of the Maties Cluster Esports Series saw Maties students participate in CS:GO, Dota 2 and FIFA across both offline and online qualifiers. All roads led to this past weekend when the top 16 FIFA players and the top two teams from CS:GO and Dota 2 played to be crowned the Maties Esports Champions.

FIFA

The FIFA finals were hosted at The Neelsie in Stellenbosch on Friday (12 October). The top 16 players were decided via a series of bi-weekly qualifiers hosted at the venue from mid-August.

The 16 finalists faced off in a group phase with the top two per group heading into a single elimination playoff bracket. In the end it was the top placed player from the qualifiers, Njaps, that took the championship spot. He went through the entire finals undefeated, taking the final 3-1 over Salahvation.

Final Placings:

CS:GO

Following an online ladder qualifying process, the top eight teams faced off in an online playoff. Once the finalists were decided, the action moved to the MWEB Mcave this past Sunday (14 October), where Blackout Esports and NBC played their final match. 

Blackout Esports took map one (Nuke) with NBC levelling things on Dust. The decider was played on Overpass which went the way of Blackout Esports to see them claim the trophy for 2018.

Final Placings:

 

DOTA 2

Dota 2 followed a similar format to the CS:GO competition with the majority of the tournament played online. The final match of the tournament featured Republic of Flaming and Team Natsuki at the MWEB HQ.

If one was fair, it was a pretty one-sided final in the end with the Republic of Flaming team proving too good for their opposition. the match was over in less than an hour with Republic of Flaming securing the match 2-0.

Final Placings:

Our thanks goes out to Maties Sports, the students of Stellenbosch University and MWEB. MWEB supplied the private servers for CS:GO and the Mcave and all its hardware for the two PC finals.

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