Sri Lanka Institute of Information and Technology (SLIIT) resurrected their Gamefest eSports tournament after an idle 3 years; the last being held in 2015. Time between the tournaments notwithstanding, the event had a turnup of over 600 people which proved even more impressive given the weather conditions that particular weekend. The event took place at the SLIIT campus in Malabe on the 19th and 20th of May and had quite the theatrical essence to it.

Kicking off at 10.00 a.m, the setup showcased at the campus was impressive indeed, the auditorium stage was lit and decorated to great effect along with another setup to greet you as you made your way through the entrance into the campus. With the platform set and the competitors ready, things kicked off smoothly.

The tournament saw a variety of major titles, such as Call of Duty 4,League of Legends,DOTA 2 and CSGO as team games along with Injustice 2,FIFA 18 and Clash Royale as individual games. Curtin University of Australia, Nestle, Koththu Mee, Red Bull, Red Dot Geek and SLT had joined in partnership as the sponsors for the event with each sponsor having set up stalls with some great offers and products.

Speaking to the organisers to get their experience and expectation of the event this is what they had to say;

“We didn’t plan anything unique this time. As the community has been inactive for some time due to graduation of former members, our objective was to “get up from sleep”, to get back in track with the eSports community of Sri Lanka. It is our passion for gaming which makes us stand as one to work for something we all love and we want nothing more than to contribute from our end to the eSports culture of Sri Lanka to help it thrive and develop more”

Our team, especially the board of SLIIT Gaming Community, are not newbies to organizing events, but the thing is, organizing a gaming tournament is something that goes beyond organizing just any event. That is what we felt and learned from GameFest 2k18. And we shall use this as a  learning experience to make GameFest 2k19 the best we have delivered up to date.”

Moving onto the competitive side of things we saw some new and old rivalries as well as some exciting matchups during the course of the two day tournament.

These were the winners and runner ups for the titles;

Call Of Duty 4

Winner        – nA Spite

Runner up  – Maximum pulseCORE

DOTA 2

Winner        – Division Death Sentence

Runner up  – Division Bedtime Samurais

League of Legends

Winner        – PnX Lanka Lions

Runner up  – PnX Meme Masters

FIFA 18

Winner        – Sachin_d

Injustice 2

Winner        – X3 RaSSylZaR

Clash Royale

Winner        – IsuruAmendis

The award ceremony will take place on 23rd of June at SLIIT Premises.

Any gamer who is interested is warmly welcome to attend and be a part of this golden endeavour.

In conclusion, even with the less than stellar weather , seeing many teams fight against rivals and newer teams to come out on top and keep the eSports spirit going strong was truly a sight to behold and we congratulate SLIIT on a job well done, especially with the challenges they faced during the event and hopefully we will see an even better event in the coming years.

eSports has grown immensely in the past few years and has seen some amazing prominence. With the community seeing massive growth in eSports, clans have become an integral part of it.

Today we cover the inception of a new clan “Division eSports” dedicating themselves to better the community with experience gained prior as the members used to be a part of Tech Morph gaming. Getting in touch with one of the admins of the Division clan he told us

“Division is currently a group of players that formerly belonged to the Tech Morph gaming banding together to form the Division. Our current goal for Division is to perform at the highest level because the teams we have at the moment are some of the best performing teams in the current Sri Lankan eSports scene and the teams we have are currently performing at their peaks in DOTA CS:GO League Of Legends and Overwatch”

Clans such as Noob Alliance, Phoenix Gaming, Xiphos eSports and Tech Morph gaming have been at the forefront of the eSports community for a very long period. The introduction of a new clan with some highly ranked and skilled players definitely showcases a lot of potential in fighting for the top spot.

Having gained experience from being a part of a clan we asked the admin what it was that he took away as an experience from his previous clan and his answer was a strong one.

“Definitely it would be the bond we had among the members and the positivity as a family. It was a hard decision to step away from the family we were a part of for so many years but that decision had to be taken and definitely building trust among the members takes a long time too”

Division seems to be taking steps in the right direction following a goal and striving to achieve it as a unit. Showcasing their talented lineup in the recently held GamerFest tournament held at SLIIT where both their DOTA 2 teams had a strong showing becoming the champions as well as the runners up.

Finally we asked the Division what it is that they had to say to the other clans and what we all should be expecting from them in the future.

“If we were to give a message to other clans it would be, bring it on!”

It is safe to say that Division has provided the spark to create more competition and hype in the local eSports culture and have made their mark as a force to be reckoned with. Will they be able to create some major upsets further along the year and be the disruption in Sri Lankan eSports, powerful enough to dethrone the reigning champs to be the best clan in the country? Your answer is as good as mine.

On the first map, Lijang Tower, Blackwatch was able to reign supreme because their win condition was to shut down Yato’s Mcree through the coordination of Madhu and Preebashan on the Winston and DVA, if that was done, Falca’s Phara would be uncontested,allowing him to just drop damage because one projectile from Phara does 120 damage and when damage boosted does a massive 150. However, with the new roster changes to Blackwatch,especially the tank line up, it made their win condition harder to achieve because there was a lack of coordination between the Winston and DVA and they were unable to shutdown Yato’s Mcree completely, which was a problem for Falca’s Phara. However, Syndicate forgot about the other DPS threat which was Bouncy Knight and became so focused on shutting down Falca that they left Bouncy Knight uncontested,allowing him to more than make up for the slack left by his other DPS core being shut down. The map went in favour of Blackwatch because of clutch plays from Bouncy, allowed by Falca drawing so much fire, Syndicate still put up a strong fight because of individual plays made by Acelord, Nishastic and Yato in the first map.

On to the second map. Junker town was all about which team had the better sniper, but Syndicate ran the unconventional double sniper pick of Hanzo and Widowmaker . BouncyKnight was able to come ahead with the widow 1v1 duel but False God’s Hanzo was left uncontested allowing a clutch victory of  the first checkpoint. On the second checkpoint, Falca’s Genji and Bouncy’s Widow as well as the tanks of Blackwatch were able to hold Syndicate off for most of the pushes but Acelord’s DVA bomb at the last second lost them the second checkpoint but Blackwatch was still able to hold off Syndicate at the third checkpoint. Blackwatch decided to attack with a classic dive comp with a Widowmaker and with the momentum of the first picks that Bouncy took in the team fights, Blackwatch was able to push the first 2 checkpoints with relative ease with good plays by the healers of Blackwatch keeping the team alive in key teamfights to keep the steamroll going. However at the last checkpoint, Blackwatch got sloppy and ignored a Winston with primal rage,being played by Nishastic, who was able to use his ultimate along with his health pool of 1000HP, keeping the payload contested long enough to let Acelord come in with a DVA bomb which wiped most of Blackwatch, allowing Syndicate to clean up and clinch the map victory. A special mention must go out to a sleep dart from Dogam’s Ana that shut down Falca’s Pharah,not allowing him to contribute to the final team fight.

The third map was Horizon Lunar Colony, Blackwatch was able to absolutely dominate this map solely because of crucial first picks made by BouncyKnight on his signature Widowmaker, Blackwatch ran a Widow and Phara and their normal dive comp with Winston and DVA and by taking the crucial first picks the rest of Blackwatch was able to play cleanup crew on Syndicate because the combined pick offs by Falca and Bouncy meant Syndicate had no backline supports. Building on their past momentum, they were able to snowball the second point capture as well because Blackwatch did more work and damage in the first point than Syndicate leading to Blackwatch having an upper hand in terms of the ultimate economy and with the help of a rocket barrage from Falca, Blackwatch was able to seal the deal for their attack, having a whopping 5 minutes remaining in their time bank if they had to do a retake in round 3, if it even got to that point. With that card in their arsenal Blackwatch went forth about their defence; the first point was lost relatively quickly due to a crucial pick off by Yato onto Falca’s Genji,crucial because Blackwatch opted out of playing a Mercy for the first point, thus denying the resurrect ability, giving Syndicate the first point.

The second point was a different story however; the tide was changed simply because of BouncyKnight being uncontested on his Widow, where he shutdown teamfight after team fight with his picks and even made Yato swap from a Widow to a Genji,sending a message,  because when an enemy Widow loses the duel and swaps to Genji to hard counter you.. that just becomes personal man. Mad props to the healers of Blackwatch for keeping their tanks and DPS up to allow them to stay alive through the 1v1s, however, on the back of another clutch DVA ult by Acelord, Syndicate was able to capture both points, but in overtime, this gave them the disadvantage as per assault map rules; if a team defends until overtime, in the third round the defending team (if they have a higher time bank) gets to attack and they just need 25% of capture progress on Point A to win the map. Blackwatch was able to get the job done with a good dive by the tanks of Blackwatch separating the backline from the front, from there it was just a game of divide and conquer.

Moving onto the final map, it started out as Blackwatch on Defence and Syndicate on attack on the map Kings Row, which is a hybrid map that it involves capturing a point from the defenders and pushing it all the way through 3 checkpoints

Blackwatch went for the “Meta Pick” for that map as Madhu22 played Zarya and Prebashan Played Reinhardt, these tanks are signature for this map because the attackers come through a small choke point and Reinhardt can deny entrance through the choke using his shield and Zarya can use her energy bubbles to get charged from the damage the opposing team puts on the Reinhardt which is a very strong syngergybut this comp requires great coordination while  taking the brawl to Syndicate and that is where Blackwatch failed. At the first point they let Syndicate through the choke and backing off hoping to take the fight to them on the point however the Zarya lacked the charge early game and great plays from Nishastic, who was able to just massacre with his aggression, lead to the first point capture. The second point was lost by Blackwatch due to their lackluster ultimate management, the Zarya graviton was wasted without any follow up, allowing Syndicate to win the second checkpoint with superior ultimate management and crucial picks.

The third point was easily captured by Syndicate as well because Blackwatch did not have any way of stabilizing the fight with Nishastic being so aggressive on the attack, denying any counter efforts by Blackwatch, Syndicate was able to push with 4 minutes remaining in the time bank.

For Attack, Blackwatch decided enough was enough, they ran their strongest picks as they did in map 1 with BouncyKnight on the Widow but Syndicate had played 4 maps with them and knew this was coming, so to answer this they played a Junkrat and Soldier for area denial, the Junkrat denies space for the dive tanks by simply blowing them up with his grenades if they come close to him while Yato made sure to keep Falca’s Phara in check with his Soldier.Syndicate also opted to play out of the sight lines of BouncyKnight making it difficult for him to get picks to get an advanatge in teamfights, however Blackwatch was able to crack this defense by identifying the backline of Syndicate and cracking down on it and allowing Falca to clean up with some good anti heal nades coming from Fifty. Great work was done by Sleepy in keeping his team alive through the Junkrat’s damage

Syndicate took so much time from Blackwatch who were already behind on time, the second point was further stalled by keep riptires from FalseGod which completely shut down 2 individual ULT invested  pushes from Blackwatch,however with the help of Falca’s clutch rocket barrages they were able to push the second and third point

Onto the final moments.

Round 3

Blackwatch was on attack again.They had 1 minute to do the impossible;capture the point and get the payload far enough that they could defend it from Syndicate in the 4th round. This was a game of first picks with Madhu22 and Preebashan stepped up to the plate by securing kill after kill on the backline of Syndicate and eventually obtaining the point.

During the push phase ,Blackwatch was on overtime, meaning if they leave the payload, overtime runs out and their attack was over. Syndicate knew this would happen and they had Falsegod on the Junkrat at the start to make sure if the opportunity presented itselfthey would use Falsegod’s riptire to completely blow up Blackwatch again, denying their push this is exactly what happened. The riptire came in and killed most of Blackwatch, leaving the rest of Syndicate to clean up.

The final part was Syndicates’ attack, it must be pointed out that Syndicate could take their attacks slowly because they had 4 minutes in the bank, which is what they did. They took some damage, built ultimates and let Nishastic run wild with his Reinhardt and Syndicate captured the point with 2 minutes remaining to push  less than 200 meters .This do or die for Blackwatch.

Blackwatch had to use 4 Ultimates, to shut down one push from Syndicate with 2 minutes in the time bank left.

With no defensive support ultimate,Blackwatch knew they would be vulnerable, however Falca shutdown another Syndicate push alone with his rocket barrage, but  Blackwatch had lost all their cards and Syndicate still had most of theirs.

A quick combination of a riptire and DVA bomb left Blackwatch shattered and lost them the match .“

We congratulate PnX Syndicate on achieving this feat which is in every word the equivalent to scaling the highest mountain and reaching the top besting the reigning champions. We wish both team the best of luck moving forward and hope to some more exciting Overwatch action

1.How has this year treated you when it comes to the competitive Overwatch scene?

Ruvinda

Get Nailed is the first tournament of the year competitive Overwatch wise, so its too early to say much, but many tournaments are ahead this year and we hope to play most of them.

Nishal

It’s too early to say since Get Nailed is the first tournament of the year but till now we’ve had a good run.

2. Are there new teams that are showing potential from this tournament?

Ruvinda

Considering new teams X3.INSAYN showed some good potential.

Nishal

Well for now Team INSAYN has shown a lot of potential after beating last year’s third ranked team.

3. How were the preparations coming into Get Nailed Overwatch League 2018?

Ruvinda

Well we only actually practiced for like a week due to tight schedules, since most of us started new jobs after just finishing campus last year.

Nishal

Personally I started playing League Of Legends which took a lot of time away from Overwatch but once my team threatened to bench me I threatened to shoot them, and later they were forced to play with me.We have practised a lot focusing on our team comps and strategies as much as we could and building our synergy.

4. What changes have you seen within yourselves in the past year?

Ruvinda

One of the key aspects of the game is communication, I think each of us have developed much better ingame communication now.

Nishal

To improve our team synergy and strengthen our friendship we have decided to communicate through memes.

5. Are there any new member who have joined your team since last year?

Ruvinda

Yes, two of our core players had to be replaced due to unavoidable circumstances, that is Fifty replacing Sukiribole as a healer and Ppeekkxxell replacing Jonaboy as secondary tank. Stifmeister played for us as a sub through SLCG and later joined Team Catalyst.

Nishal

As for new members we have recruited our long time 30fps quick play friend Himanshu “Falsegod” Rajinda and former Rival and mimilord Shalitha “Acelord” Chandraratne.

6. How has the Overwatch competitive scene changed over the last few years?

Ruvinda

I have seen some good teams get disbanded last year which was unfortunate, but i have also seen some new teams come together to play very well. Even though the number of teams does not seem to be increasing by much, there are a lot of new players

Nishal

Teams have been gradually improving over the years but there is still abit too much focus on solo plays and not enough team coordination.

7. What was your favorite moment during the tournament?

Ruvinda

Moment that i booped from behind to get a 4k and a demech from Prebashans selfdestruct to secure the win on illios against Catalyst

Nishal

I think it has to be the moment on Temple of Anubis when I was 2v5(ish) with Dogam and I managed to get a good Earthshatter to turn the fight around and secure kills until the rest of my teammates arrived to capture the point. My grandfather died two years ago and left me a lot of money. Now I have even more money then him.

8. What can we expect from you guys in the finals?

Ruvinda

In the semifinals we definitely had some misplays and synergy issues due to new players, I think we have fixed those issues now and gained our confidence back.

Nishal

We hope to play at our best and to repeat our previous result

9. What advice would you give the newer teams?

Ruvinda

Swap roles between players until you find the best pick for each player and the best team comp for your team, and keep practicing.

Nishal

Get Into a Team oriented mindset because you are not playing this Game alone.Understanding the importance of teamwork and being Dedicated is what is really important.

10. What message do you want to share with the opposing team before the showdown on the 16th?

Ruvinda

We’re not done yet, hope ur ready ?

Nishal

#2ez4BW

Staying true to their words, “giving wings when you need them”, Red Bull has been the driving force behind many sports and activities across the world, in Sri Lanka through Gamer.LK, Red Bull has taken the initiative to provide local gaming cafes with Red Bull products and coolers to ensure that players are energized so they can maintain maximum performance and efficiency.

The eSports scene in the second half of the year promises to be an exciting one, so make sure you are all geared up and ready to be a part of the action as Gamer.LK and Red Bull work together to give Sri Lankan eSports the wings it needs to fly.