It's been around 8 weeks now since the PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS Invitational action all unfolded on the floors of gamescom and what an epic event it turned out to be. At gamescom, we saw just a glimpse of what is turning out to be one of the most popular and genre defining games of our time which is only continuing to both grow and progress with constant updates and changes to the game.
At gamescom, we saw a huge variety and diversity in skill sets, players, abilities and overall gameplay. The Invitational was a time to celebrate the game and to showcase what has turned out to be one of the most popular games ever on Steam, breaking records left and right while still in its early access period. With players from BR/Survival, FPS, Twitch and YouTube backgrounds to name a few, plus on the floor open qualification players - it was a great time to see what would happen when 80 players hit Erangel Island in a LAN environment.
One organisation in particular that had a cracking event was Cloud 9 picking up 2 medals (pans) for 2 separate days, Borg and Sweaterr took 2nd place in the TPP duos while Chappie and SolidFPS claimed gold in FPP duos, not unexpected but still incredible all the same to see how 1 naturally talented team could perform over 2 different povs.
Now, there's a reason as to why I wanted to speak about C9 and it's not just about the success on the Invitational, but about how times are changing even in such a short period of time. It's no secret that the competitive community heavily favours FPP and now after a few online events made the switch from TPP IEM Oakland (8 games in total over 2 days) has followed suit and will be FPP squads with 10 invited teams and the rest made up of online qualification. Coming into gamescom we knew some members of C9 heavily favoured TPP with many coming from a H1Z1 background, even Borg was a substitute for the roster and honestly the man did not fail to impress with some ridiculous spray control and pinpoint accuracy. In a more recent announcement leading up to IEM we see that Sweaterr and Crunch have parted ways with C9 to build a new team under NiP with the addition of their gamescom sub Borg and Ekkz.
We’re glad to announce our venture in to #PUBG with a brand new team of Ninjas!
Say hello to:@C9sweaterr @Borg_TV @Ekkz_TV @CrunchBruh pic.twitter.com/qDbtk8IN1X
— Ninjas in Pyjamas (@NiPGaming) October 10, 2017
Team changes happen, its zero surprise and nothing new, it certainly won't be the last but already we are seeing the competitive community looking to build upon their rosters and change things up. One of the added bonuses we have with the game been so early in its life is that we haven't even scratched the surface of players and teams yet, their are tons of online leagues now with big names playing weekly but just as gamescom proved with Yukie and THZ, open qualifiers provide a great platform for players and teams to break out and show their true skills. Yukie and THZ played via on the floor on the day qualification and ended up winning the TPP duos event bagging themselves a lot of money, a lot of pride and even a golden pan!
IEM Oakland is a time to look back at gamescom and say, how can we take what was done and make it better. Gamescom was a truly incredible event and the first of its kind, no one had any idea how this event would be but it was a massive success and has paved the way for tweaks and improvements going into IEM Oakland. One of the biggest changes is the fact it's FPP, Gamescom showed us a variety of TPP and FPP but FPP had not been out long and TPP was what people at the time was used to. Now IEM is FPP squads we will see a whole new experience for both player and spectator alike, combine that by the fact the winner is crowned by average of 8 matches to curb any rough games, at IEM Oakland we will truly be seeing the best in the business go head to head at the Oracle Arena.
More information about Intel® Extreme Masters Oakland is available at iem.gg/oakland2017 as well as the IEM Twitter and Facebook pages. For the latest news from ESL and PUBG, be sure to follow @ESLPUBG on Twitter and Facebook as well.
Tickets are on sale now, so be sure to check out iem.gg/oaklandtickets for more information about the types of tickets available.
