Johannesburg - While teams like Bravado did unsurprisingly well at the Telkom Do Gaming Championship at the rAge expo this past weekend, there were also some upsets in the battle for the half a million in cash and prizes.
Over 560 gamers from Telkom’s online Do Gaming League participated on the Championships, which was the largest competitive LAN ever in SA.
Ricus Groenewald, Telkom Specialist Gaming, says the prize pool included Alienware X51 rigs, cash and a year’s supply of Monster Energy Drinks.
“This marks the fifth year of the Championships with collective prizes far exceeding the R1 million rand mark. This year gamers are competing for a share of R290 000 in cash and over R250 000 in hardware prizes.”
“To ensure the best gaming experience we installed a dedicated line of 150 MB to ensure the lowest pings possible for the Do Gaming Championships so that Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Starcraft 2 and Gran Turismo 5 gamers could enjoy the events,’ he added.
Through the day on Saturday, the competition progressed through group stages and then knockout stages right up to the completion of the semi-finals.
And at that point, one of the most successful multi-gaming organisations (MGOs) in South Africa, Bravado, looked set to dominate the finals. The MGO was seeded first in each of the four titles they were entered into – Call of Duty 4 (CoD4), Starcraft 2 (SC2), Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (MW3) and Battlefield 3 (BF3).
However, things did not turn out quite as Bravado hoped.
Bravado’s CoD4 team began with a shaky start. In a best of three map final, with each map being a race to 13 round victories, Bravado came up against second seed BFB Regiment and started cautiously. The move proved to be a mistake. The two sides traded rounds until Regiment managed to break into the lead, winning three rounds to move to 8 – 5. The teams continued to trade rounds and BFB stayed in a strong position moving into an 11 – 8 lead in the race to 13 rounds.
A frenzied response saw Bravado pull it back to 10 -11, but then BFB took the next round to place themselves on the verge of winning the first map. Jayden “Phatnoob” Shroeder from Bravado then produced an inspired performance. Being the only Bravado player left in the round, he managed to best four BFB players to take Bravado to 11 – 12. Bravado wrapped up the last round to move the map into overtime.
From there it was all downhill for BFB. Bravado stormed through the overtime rounds and the next map to win the R18 000 for first place along with five Alienware X51 PCs.
Moving on to Starcraft 2, Bravado was again in the final seeded first with Travis “Shase” Weedon, last year’s SC2 Champion. Weedon came up against outsider Radhe ‘DvG?illidanRA’ Stringer and took a 2 – 1 map lead before Stringer clawed his way back to take the next two maps and win the final 3-2. He won R22 500 and an Alienware X51 PC.
Things continued downhill for Bravado in the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 competition. The team was again seeded first and took the first map against Monster Energy 13 – 11. However, Monster Energy came out firing on the second map and Bravado had no real reply. Monster Energy went on to win the second map 13 – 5 and the third 13 – 4.
Monster Energy won R27 000 and five Alienware X51 PC’s, along with Monster Energy Drinks for the year.
However, things were to end on a high for Bravado in Battlefield 3 (BF3) with the Bravado team beating ASF in the final 2 – 1 to win R45,000 and eight Alienware X51s.
In the FIFA titles, played on Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, Riaasat “MOMZAY” Ebrahim was declared the winner of the PS3 FIFA 12 competition and Irshaad 'IRI_007' Mahomed came almost out of nowhere to be declared the winner of the FIFA 12 Xbox 360. Both took home R5850 for their efforts.
Lastly, David “GTAS_Peetham” Peetham won the Gran Turismo 5 competition and R6300 in prize money.
With the largest online league in South Africa with over 2500 players, the Do Gaming League is expected to swell In 2013 with the addition of several more titles including Counter-Strike: GO, DotA 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, League of Legends and Medal of Honor: Warfighter. - Do Gaming