STACK January 2017 Issue 147

50 / 68

Despite being the most played
game in the world, League
of Legends doesn’t pay top dollar
in prize money. Not even close.
Those headlines are reserved for
DOTA 2 and Smite, and that’s
due to one thing: crowdfunded
prize pools. While Smite’s over-
the-shoulder action camera and
encyclopedic roster of gods are
attractive in their own right, being
second in the world for prize
money thanks to a $2.6 million
flagship tournament has done
wonders for luring skilled
players.
Teams Pandamonium (Panda)
and Avant Garde fought over
the local share of that prize
money recently, and Panda was
no stranger to tough matches,
having to claw its way back
from deficits all throughout the
competition. Panda’s semi-final
stage vs Legacy featured four
games in which it conceded the
lead, converting three of those
into fairytale comebacks.
The final played out in the exact
same way, with Panda losing
the lead quicker than Inspector
Clouseau, before seizing an
opening for a crowd-pleasing
finish. Exciting for spectators,
infuriating for betters -- and when
Panda finally won, it
confessed routinely
falling behind against
its pre-tourney practice
opponents as well. If
falling behind in MOBAs didn’t put
you at a very real disadvantage, as
if a massive football field could
hydraulically tilt in favour of the
winning team, I’d say Panda
used momentum reversals as
some kind of tactic. But that
would be silly.
Now that the dust has
settled, Pandamonium has
signed with LG Dire Wolves
– an esports organisation some
of them have already played
for – in the hopes of funding and
organising an overseas boot camp
before the Worlds in Atlanta.
It’ll take time and practice to
get used to the strategic trends of
other regions, but if you see them
going down a few points in the
early game, it might not be time
to panic just yet.
Each month, STACK takes a brief look at what’s
happening in esports, both locally and overseas.
esports Round-Up
Junglist
with
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visit
50 JANUARY 2017
GAMES
FEATURE
Smite / DOTA 2
League of Legends
LOGITECH
G933
ARTEMIS
SPECTRUM
SNOW
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