PUBG Esports 2020 Finally Begins
After a little bit of an abysmal mismanagement of PUBG Esports, we are finally rallying and have begun! Esports Vikings have compiled this ...
After a long winter break, major structural changes and a complete roster roulette, PUBG has finally started it’s 2020 season. However, it did not start without problems and without criticism. Nonetheless, viewers have almost overdosed on PUBG in recent weeks. If you're new to PUBG, check out the Beginner's Guide and the Viewer Guide. In 2018, the field was open to different players. PUBG Corp sought the direction of its own tournament structure and rewarded viewers with major international tournaments. In addition to these, quality leagues and international tournaments from other players such as the GLL were seen. And of course, there was a wide variety of local tournaments and leagues below them. Thus, the player had a clear route from the local tournaments to the qualifiers and the qualifiers to the bigger tournaments / leagues. These provided an opportunity to advance to international competitions. And if the qualifying failed somewhere, there was always another slightly smaller option. For 2019, all this changed. PUBG released its own league structure which, at the highest level, forced teams to play only PUBG Corp's own league matches, and at the lower level, the match program hardly made it possible to play other tournaments / leagues. Thus, these national leagues and their challenger leagues basically killed all the major players. The remaining players did either local activities, such as PUBG Finland and Challengermode, or open day tournaments, such as GLL. A huge number of matches were played in the official leagues and the best teams progressed to international tournaments. The year culminated in the PUBG Global Championship, which saw PUBG angry with almost every team in the tournament. Originally, PUBG had promised team specific skins to all participating teams, but during the tournament, it canceled all of these skins and released only generic tournament skins which, of course, distributed money to the teams, but the revenue was quite different from the teams' own skins. Even before the 2020 plans were released, many organizations around the world abandoned PUBG as a game, justifying the decision financially as unprofitable. With 2019 disappointing in viewership (mainly because there were far too many matches to be watched by anyone in the league) and too heavy for PUBG Corp to maintain, it changed its plan to 2020 again, now with the 2018 model, but with an upgrade. Open qualifiers, closed qualifiers and the best of these for the three main international tournaments (PUBG Global Series). The year culminated in the PUBG Global Championship. As such, this plan was very good and I really have nothing bad to say about this. However, is that last year PUBG Corp drove almost all the tournament organizers out. Most teams only have open qualifiers for play every few months. It does not make it very easy for teams to get under organizations and open qualifiers do not offer much to spectators. Adding to this the fact that a very large number of organizations left PUBG during the winter and that this year's structure is completely team dependent on qualifying successes, it is not expected that many of these organizations will return. Luckily, some third-party tournament players have made a comeback, or have stepped up their activity. The most obvious examples are GLL and PUBG Finland The first PUBG esports tournaments of the year in Europe were seen more than a week ago when both Lantrek and GLL overlapped lan tournaments in neighboring countries. I do not know exactly how it is possible for nothing to happen on the tournament front for three months and then when the season opens, PUBG Corp will not be able to schedule the only two tournament organizers for different dates. The 16-team tournament organized by PUBG Finland on the lute tracks and the 16-team tournament organized by the GLL in Stockholm were too close to each other. Both were had open qualifiers (with lure riders also inviting teams) and the tournament was played during the weekend in front of a live audience. One could imagine that these tournaments could support each other and give teams from all over Europe the opportunity to do a mini-tour in the Nordic countries. Instead, the two tournaments were played in complete overlap and not only prevented teams from participating in both tournaments, but also prevented viewers from watching both tournaments live. Of course, local teams and spectators were most affected. GLL's $150,000 prize pool was awarded to the top eight. The top three consisted of European teams and each of them featured a Finnish player. WTSG plays Samu "Sambty" Kauppinen (nowadays also known as Xiong), Omaken Sport plays Valtteri "Vazku" Jussila and Paavo "Pag3" Voutilainen, and Team Liquid plays Anssi "mxey" Pehkonen. 1. WTSG $65,000 2. Omaken Sports $30,000 3. Team Liquid $20,000 4. Shoot To Kill $12,000 5. TORNADO ENERGY $8,000 6. Exalt Gaming $6,000 7. Team Singularity $5,000 8. FaZe Clan $4,000 In Finland's first pro-level PUBG, €10,000 was distributed among the top three. Behind the tournament at Lantrek was PUBG Finland, which organized online leagues in Finland for a couple of years. There were Nordic top names who did not qualify for the GLL Season 4 tournament, a few teams from across Europe and three teams from the qualifying tournament on the lute racket. By the name of Saunabois. Third place was Elgiganten Gaming from Sweden. Until the last second, YMCA Esports, who played in front of the home crowd, also fought for the prize. 1. ENCE 5,500 € 2. EGameStars 3,000 € 3. Elgiganten Gaming 1,500 € The first International Grand Tournament of the Year was scheduled to be played in March, but like many other major esports major events, PGS has suffered from the Corona virus. The new date for the tournament has not been announced, but teams from all over the world are currently being settled. The final round of the European qualifiers was played in Berlin this weekend and featured all of Europe's top teams. Europe has six seats in the PGS Berlin and 24 of them fought, some of whom had entered the lan qualifiers through open qualifiers and some had been invited for last year's success. Renewed Natus Vincere was in the qualifiers at his very own level and will be leaving for one of the biggest advance favorites for the PGS Berlin Main Event, regardless of who qualifies there. In Finnish, three all-Finnish teams and a total of 19 Finnish players took part in the qualifiers. These were followed by ENCE, mxey's Team Liquid and Sambty's Team Liquid. The TSM represented by Jere “Jembty” Kauppinen was on its way to the end of the final map, until ENCE overtook the teams ahead by way of a map win. 1. Natus Vincere 2. Team Liquid 3. Exalt Gaming 4. WTSG 5. ENCE 6. Northern Lights Team Since the jumble of the game, Finland has been one of the top countries in PUBG. The year 2019 was not as successful as one would have expected, and the collapse of ENCE in particular was sad. By this time, almost all the top teams have undergone a major overhaul and as a result, the Finns are either on new teams or equipped with new teammates. ENCE has proven to be in a good position again, as well as Finnish players including WTSG, Team Liquid and TSM. An interesting new name over the last year has been Omaken Sports where two Finnish players are playing. RÄHINÄ eGameStars (formerly Saunabois), who has entered new sponsors, has begun the season with a sluggishness outside of GLL Season 4 and a complete failure to qualify for the PGS Berlin. An interesting new breakthrough is YMCA Esports, who has risen to the top of Europe during the winter. Cameron Carr
PUBG Esports 2020 Finally Begins
PUBG Esports Structrual Changes
Lantrek v GLL
GLL Season 4 Awards
Lantrek 2020 Awards
PUBG Global Series Berlin
Teams qualifying for the PGS Berlin
PUBG In Finland
Finnish players at international level
