Another month has passed and it is that time again to recount the competitions in gaming that occurred in the previous month. In May, there weren’t many tournaments or majors that took place as all scenes are mainly in between phases or splits but that doesn’t mean nothing happened. Leagues wrapping up matches and qualifiers galore, lets go over the events of May!

JD Gaming Wins the Midseason Invitational

The Midseason Invitational is the official halfway point of the League of Legends competitive season. Thirteen teams from each of the major regional leagues along with the runners-up from China, Korea, Europe and North America. The first place teams from the more populated servers, the same regions that got extra teams into the competition. The remaining teams were placed into a double elimination play in where three teams get to qualify into the final bracket stage. China’s Bilibili Gaming and G2 Esports from Europe qualified through the upper bracket. The last spot from the play in came down to the teams who fell into the loser’s bracket. PSG Talon from Taiwan and Golden Guardians of North America made it to the final match of the play in. The Golden Guardians would sweep PSG in the best of five matches to secure the final spot to the final bracket.

The final bracket like the play in was double elimination. All of the matches in the bracket were a best of five games. The two teams representing China; JD Gaming and Bilibili Gaming tore up the competition defeating the likes of Cloud 9, Golden Guardians, T1 and Gen.G. The two teams met once in the upper bracket where JD Gaming swept Bilibili Gaming 3 to 0. JD Gaming advanced to the finals through the upper bracket, while Bilibili battled through the lower bracket. Tournament MVP, knight, helped lead JD Gaming to victory over Bilibili for a second time in the tournament 3 to 1. This left the Korean favorites T1 and Gen G to take third and fourth place respectively.

The Valorant Champions Tour Wraps Up

The main pro circuit for Valorant, the Valorant Champions Tour has finally wrapped up its two months of season play. Divided into three super regions, the Americas, Europe and Middle East and Pacific/Asia, the VCT started up in late March featuring the best teams from last year who were invited to participate in this annual season competition. Each region had ten teams all of whom playing for spots in the upcoming Masters international tournament and even a spot into the World Championship.

Starting in the Americas Region, which takes teams from North America, Brazil and Latin America, Brazil’s LOUD started off great with a win over their fellow Brazilian team Furia and went on to claim first place in the round robin stage with an 8 – 1 record. Meanwhile, North American fan favorites Sentinel and 100 Thieves struggled and failed to make it into the playoffs. Latin America’s KRU Esports failed to even get a single win in round robin play. In the playoffs LOUD continued to roll with their strong performance rattling off wins against Furia again, Evil Geniuses and NRG, dropping only one game out of eight played. LOUD would go on to claim first place earning the 100k prize and a ticket to Worlds and Masters. LOUD’s Saadhak would also earn Grand Finals MVP. NRG and Evil Geniuses, finishing in second and third respectively, will join LOUD at Worlds and Masters.

Moving on to Valorant’s top region of EMEA, which takes teams from Europe and the Middle East, the situation is a little different. Since the UK’s Fnatic won the LOCK/IN tournament at the start of the year, EMEA will send an additional team to Masters. Speaking of Fnatic, they continued their reign as the game’s top team with an undefeated record in round robin play. However in the playoffs, it would be Netherlands’s Team Liquid, who had a long road to the finals to take first place of the league with a 3 – 1 series win over Fnatic. In addition to Team Liquid and Fnatic, Turkey’s FUT Esports and Ukraine’s Natus Vincere round out the four EMEA representatives going to Masters.

Finally, there is the Pacific Region with teams representing Japan, Korea, India, the Philippines, Thailand and Singapore. The Pacific round robin was the closest of the three regions, but Korea’s DRX finished with an 8 – 1 record for the top seed with Japan’s DetonatioN FocusMe finishing without a win. However, Singapore’s Paper Rex would break the Korean dominance in the region by defeating DRX in the Grand Finals after taking the series to five games. However, they would be the only non-Korean team in the top four. They will be joined by DRX and T1 representing the Pacific at Masters.

The ten VCT teams that qualified to Masters will be joined by China’s top two teams, Attacking Soul Esports and Edward Gaming, in Chiba, Japan for the tournament taking place this month. The remaining VCT teams still have a chance to qualify for Worlds in their region’s Last Chance Qualifiers.

ENCE Become Extreme Masters in Dallas

In the slew of minor tournaments and challenger leagues, the IEM tournament that took place in Dallas was the signature event for CS:GO play in the month of May. Part of the Intel Grand Slam series of tournaments, IEM Dallas is the second of four tournaments that take place over the course of the year.

The tournament featured partner teams, special invites, world ranking teams and qualified teams. Would be winner ENCE was a direct invite as an ESL Partner Team and found themselves in Group B in the first round of the tournament with the likes of Faze Clan and Cloud 9. The Finish team claimed victory against Complexity in their opening game to then go on to defeat Faze Clan and the Danish sleeper team Astralis. Winning their group Ence earned a spot in the semi-finals of the playoffs for a rematch against Faze Clan. They would go on to win 2 – 1 and proceed to the Grand Finals for a second and final series win against MOUZ from Germany.

With their first place finish, ENCE earned the top prize of $100,000 and a direct invite to IEM Cologne, the next tournament I the series. ENCE also earned 2,400 BLAST Premier points to help try to claim a spot in the BLAST Premier World Final to take place in December.

Quick Headlines from May

DOTA 2’s Pro Circuit just wrapped up their Division I Tour 3 to allow the best teams an opportunity to earn a spot to the next major of the year that will take place at the end of the month in Bali. For North America, the Shopify Rebellion and independent team nouns, finished first and second respectively to qualify for the Bali Major. They will be joined by Tundra Esports, Gaimin Gladiators, Quest Esports and Team Liquid from Western Europe; Team Spirit BetBoom Team and 9Pandas from Eastern Europe; PSG.LGD, Invictus Gaming, Team Aster and Azure Ray from China; Bleed Esports, Blacklist International and Execration from Southeast Asia; and finally Evil Geniuses and beastcoast from South America.

The Overwatch League is ready for their own midseason tournament that they call the Midseason Madness. Divided into two conferences, East and West, the Overwatch League played their first half of the season over the course of a month. From the East conference, featuring the teams from China and Korea, the Hangzhou Spark and the Seoul Infernal qualified after strong performances in their conference tournament which introduced teams from the Contenders semi-pro leagues from Korea and China. Meanwhile in the West conference, only Overwatch League teams competed. The Atlanta Reign and Houston Outlaws finished first and second respectively to earn direct spots in the Midseason Madness and avoid the double elimination last chance round. From that mini tournament, the Boston Uprising and the Florida Mayhem emerged to take the final two spots. Unfortunately, the Overwatch League has seen a decrease in viewership, I wonder why?

In PUBG, the Rotation, a third-party tournament that was exclusive to Europe teams took place at the end of May. Though the tournament had a tiny prize pool, it did offer a large amount of PGC points, the culminating points that teams across the world are trying to collect to claim a spot at Worlds at the end of the year. Twisted Minds would come in first place, but the story of the tournament, other than the fact it wasn’t streamed, was that Natus Vincere, the defending world champion, failed to qualify for the finals. This is third straight tournament where the champs struggled and is it a sign of a continued downward spiral. On the other hand, Exalt, a small organizationless team, finished in third and earned a direct invite to PGS 2 EMEA qualifiers. Basically, Exalt gets to skip the tedious open qualifiers to get into the final round for an opportunity to get into PGS 2. Meanwhile, in southeast Asia the Asia Super Cup took place where, either though no PGC points were on the line regional pride and a large cash pool were up for grabs. Thailand’s Theerathon Five, a team that was voted in by the fans of PUBG esports came out with the win and the $20,000 top prize.

Upcoming Events and Tournaments in June

• Valorant: Valorant Champions Tour Masters: Tokyo – June 11^th to 25th
• Valorant: EMEA VCT Ascension – June 22^nd to 27^th
• CS:GO: BLAST Premier Spring Final – June 7^th to 11^th
• DOTA 2: DreamLeague S20 – June 11^th to 25^th
• DOTA 2: Bali Major – June 29^th to July 9^th
• Overwatch: Midseason Madness – June 16^th to 18^th
• PUBG: PGS 2 Qualifiers – starts depending on region
• Call of Duty: CDL Championship – June 15^th to 18^th
• Halo: HCS Arlington Major – June 30^th to July 2^nd