The UKLC season may have come to an end but for DarkSpawn Gaming and Bulldog Esports, their journey has not ended yet. Both of these sides fell into the relegation zone and will have to battle it out in a promotion playoff in order to secure their spot in the UKLC next year.
DarkSpawn’s head coach Zvir has faith in his sides ability to bounce back from their regular season troubles. Despite finishing bottom of the league, the organisation will still be considered a heavy favourite to retain their position.
He says: “I expect us to be favourites to win promotion due to the time we have had as a roster compared to new ones being created for this (FoC and playoffs),”
“The UK talent pool was sapped a lot, although there is still talent lurking around due to the ruling of players who have previously competed in ERL’s can’t play in the promotion tournament or Forge of Champions. In fact, I think it’s going to be a lot of second string talent who didn’t make it onto rosters as starters or subs. So, I think the level will be noticeably lower. However, these guys will be extremely hungry and we wouldn’t ever underestimate our opponents.”
DarkSpawn know that it was a disappointing UKLC campaign. The side only claimed one victory all season. Nevertheless, Zvir feels that this split was a test for his inexperienced side and that his team will continue to improve leading up to Forge of Champions and the relegation playoffs.
“We suffered from a lot of growing pains and the reality of having a 5 rookie roster really started to shine through in the later stages but I’m super proud of all the guys at Darkspawn, staff, players, everyone,”
“We knew there was going to be a lot of investment into the UK league this year and this was evident by the level of players which we’ve seen compete in this league. Even Bulldogs who were massive underdogs (no pun intended) really stepped up the game this year and showed that we aren’t the meme league anymore.”
The Brit will certainly be working hard in the offseason as he looks to continually improve his side. One major factor that will help DarkSpawn’s rise will be their assistant coach Richard.
Richard joined DarkSpawn with only a few weeks remaining in the UKLC, with the goal to push their side out of the relegation places. While this may not have succeeded, their performances definitely improved. After seeing the impact Richard had on the line-up, Zvir wishes that he had brought him in a bit sooner.
The head coach says: “Personally, I would have hired our assistant coach, Richard, much earlier on into the split as he has been a massive help to the roster and really showed some improvement in himself and the players from individual work he’s been putting in with them. More structure early doors would have helped also but as a group, we started to get down better strategies and ideologies on how to improve as a team and individuals.”
It was just a bit too late for DarkSpawn Gaming, perhaps if a couple more weeks were added onto the split then circumstances would have been different. Still, after speaking to Zvir, it’s easy to see why many people feel that they will bounce back and secure their spot in the UKLC next year.
By Tom Daniels
Gromp News 