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As the dust settles on the inaugural Commonwealth Esports Championships we would like to take the time to look back to where this story begun. This was an opportunity that came as a bit of a surprise this year, British Esports presented us with the opportunity to find Scottish players who would represent Esports Scotland for the chance to compete for gold medals at the very first Commonwealth Esports Championships.
The games and categories were:
Rocket League Open
Rocket League Woman
DOTA2 Open
DOTA2 Woman
eFootball Open
eFootball Woman
We wanted to give Scottish players the chance to compete to play for Scotland, so we created “The Road to Gold: Sponsored by IRN-BRU ENERGY”
To find Scotland’s rosters we ran online and offline tournaments at our Esports Academy room at Dundee & Angus Collage with the winners earning the right to be in the team.
Due to low interest in DOTA2 woman’s and eFootball Woman’s we were not able to create any teams or tournaments for these categories, but we manged to get players interested in eFootball Open, DOTA2 Open, Rocket League Open and Rocket League Woman.
Due to low sign ups in woman’s Rocket League and eFootball across the Commonwealth nations our eFootball Open and Rocket League Woman’s team got byes directly to the playoffs in Nottingham.
After our Road to Gold Campaign, we had our Rocket League Open and DOTA2 Open teams. We now had to compete in the first part of the competition in The Online Commonwealth Esports Championships Regional Qualifiers.
We brought the teams to our Dundee & Angus Esports Academy rooms to compete and played online against the teams in our group, Esports Wales, Esports Northern Ireland and Esports Jersey. We came 2nd in both games and were narrowly pipped by Esports Wales so unfortunately, we did not get our Rocket League Open and DOTA2 Open teams to the next stage.
For the next stage of the competition, we brought on our sponsors GT Omega and Curry’s.
We had eFootball training days at the Curry’s Store in Glasgow and our Rocket League training session and media day at Dundee and Angus Collage where we took team photos and had player interviews.
We had our final Rosters to take down to the next stage of the competition was the Offline Playoffs at Confetti in Nottingham.
Esports Scotland eFootball finals Roster:
eFootball player: Gary McInnes
Substitute: Mikolaj Zietek
eFootball Coach: Adam Ryan
Esports Scotland Rocket Leagues Finals Roster:
Rocket League: Jordan Drummond, Kelly Wyse and Sophie Stevenson
Rocket League Coach: James Hood
In our eFootball Open group we had Esports Malta, Esports Northern Ireland, Esports Bangladesh. We won all three group games, and we then won our semi-final against Esports Gibraltar to reach the Final.
In our Rocket League Woman’s group, we had Esports England, Esports Wales and Esports Kenya. We lost to Esports England and beat Esports Wales and Esports Kenya to set up a semi-Final against Esports Canada. We beat Esports Canada and the way the tournament panned out we were to meet Esports England again, this time in the final!
All the finals of all the games were held at the ICC in Birmingham. The stage was fantastic and with the buzz outside the stadium of the commonwealth games it was fantastic to be a part of the occasion.
In our eFootball Open final we narrowly lost to Esports Malaysia and in our Rocket League Woman’s final we narrowly lost to Esports England.
It certainly did not feel like a loss though as we had won silver medals for Scotland. So many teams never made it to the final, so we knew by getting to the final we had achieved our target. Our players were fantastic throughout and it was a pleasure having them representing Scotland at a medal event.
Looking back now, one week on, it really feels like Esports in Scotland is starting to find its foundations. Everyone talks about the big majors and the tournaments with million dollars+ prize pools but like every sport it starts from the grass roots and builds to the international tournaments.
We want to thank all Esports Scotland Staff and supporters, GEF, the commonwealth games federation, British Esports, Dundee & Angus Collage, AG Barr, Currys and GT Omega for the continued support and we can’t wait to do it all again in Australia in 4 years’ time!
