The start of the promotion/relegation tournament begins tomorrow as Hybrid eSports, Looking for an Org, NVision Esports and EJBY Brotherhood all clash for a chance to face either DarkSpawn or Bulldogs and qualify for the UKLC Summer Split.
While most expect the original UKLC sides to retain their spot in the competition, there is one side that certainly has the teams worrying. That side is Hybrid eSports UK. This organisation came to the UK Scene with the intent to qualify, and their performance at Forge of Champions legitimized them as real challengers. Their support, The Heathen believes that not only are his side one of the favourites for promotion, but they are still improving.
He says: “I do consider us a favourite going into the promotion tournament, after beating Bulldog and winning the Forge of Champions qualifiers. We’ve shown that we can beat at least two of the five teams we’ll be competing with, which does a lot for the team morale,”
“I think we showed in Forge of Champions that we are a team able to compete at a very high level, against very good opponents. Opponents who should be better than the teams we are facing in the promotion tournament. And since then we’ve also been practising a lot of stuff, fixing mistakes and weak points we found in the competition.”
Hybrid’s first matchup will be against ‘Looking for an Org’, a team comprised of players who all want to make a statement and solidify themselves as Esports competitors capable of making it to the UK scene. Due to this, they should not be looked over. However, The Heathen feels that his side has what it takes to not just defeat Looking for an Org, but most of the competition in the promotion/relegation tournament.
“We are feeling pretty confident going into our first match against Looking for an Org. We’ve been practising a lot for that match and we’ve got some interesting things we want to pull out in the match, which should hopefully give us a lead. Other than that, I feel like we’re a better team, so we should be able to close it out and win the game convincingly,”
“Being the only team to defeat a UKLC team does give us a lot of confidence going into the tournament, especially as we feel like we were able to give exceL UK a good match as well. A lot of people wrote us off before that match, not thinking we would stand a chance against exceL, so just proving them all wrong, and showing them that we can fight back against one of the best teams in the UKLC did do a lot for the team morale. Even if we lost in the end. Hopefully, we’ll be able to take that confidence with us into the promotion/relegation tournament.”
Nevertheless, while his side may be confident in their ability, you forget sometimes that most of these players, even those in the UKLC, have other commitments. For the Danish support, having a crucial tournament in the middle of May, has made it difficult to balance education and playing League of Legends.
“Personally, I’m not feeling super good about the tournament as a whole. I’ve got exams coming up in a week, so I’m working hard on revision, and therefore not being able to play as much League as I would do normally.”
Still, he does add that while he hasn’t been able to practice as much as he would have liked, his commitment will fully be on getting his side promoted to the UKLC.
He adds: “Being promoted into the UKLC means a lot to me. I’ve been playing league since season one, and following the pro scene ever since. Being able to become part of that semi-pro scene would mean that I’ve achieved something I’ve been dreaming about for years. But yea, let’s see what happens before I get too worked up about it, you don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”
Hybrid eSports created this line-up to get promoted. While they may have beaten one of the UKLC sides in the FoC tournament, when an organisation knows that everything is on the line, those players will always step up. With the amount of talent that seems to be flooding into the UK Scene, perhaps the other three open tournament teams can surprise a few people as well. Only time will tell. One thing that is for sure is that in the UK, nothing should be taken for granted.
By Tom Daniels
Gromp News 