Over 100 companies from all across the island took part at the largest mercantile sporting event in the country – the Mercantile Esports Championship 2019 held on the 9th and 10th of November 2019 at Stein Studios. After two days of nail-biting Esports action, Orel IT and HSBC Data Processing Lanka (HDPL) qualified for the Grand Finals which will be held on the 1st of December at Stein Studios from 10 a.m. onwards.

Orel IT made a convincing mark at the event making their way to the finals with ease, while HSBC Data Processing Lanka Ltd. (HDPL), Calcey Technologies and Motion Miracles tied for the 2nd spot. After considering the overall participation across many titles, HDPL was sent through to the grand finals. 

The big match style Grand Finals will consist of a full day of activities, giveaways and Esports action as the two companies battle it out across 4 video game titles to earn their rights to the coveted Mercantile Esports Championship trophy. The selected video game titles for the Grand Finals are Call of Duty 4, League of Legends, PUBG Mobile and FIFA 19, with Tekken 7 being the tie-breaker. Tickets for the event will be available for purchase online at mercantile.gamer.lk or at the gate. 

RESULTS

Call of Duty 4

• 1st Place: Orel IT – Team Azul
• 2nd Place: GSS – Bad Boys
• 3rd Place: Motion Miracles – Team Miracles

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

• 1st Place: Motion Miracles – Team Miracles 
• 2nd Place: Butani Capital – Legion
• 3rd Place: Calcey Technologies – Final Resistance

Dota 2

• 1st Place: Pattern Digital – Digital Chaos
• 2nd Place: GSS – Global System Solution
• 3rd Place: Aztech Enterprises – The Unpredictables

League of Legends

• 1st Place: Orel IT – Skull Crushers
• 2nd Place: Pearson – PRSN Back To School
• 3rd Place: Surge Global – Surge

PUBG Mobile

• 1st Place: Butani Capital – Butani Capital
• 2nd Place: HDPL – IMMORTALS
• 3rd Place: Pan Asia Banking Corporation – Team PABG

FIFA 19

• 1st Place: HDPL – Akalanka “Akiiboyy” Perera
• 2nd Place: Seven Media – Shehan Hewawitharana
• 3rd Place: Food Studio LK – Ashan “Aquaman10” Somathilake

Need for Speed: MW

• 1st Place: Calcey Technologies – Mario “xtremer21” Mendis
• 2nd Place: Calcey Technologies – Ruveen “RAT” Thirimanne
• 3rd Place: Orel IT – Harshana “NOISY BOY” Samaranayake

Mortal Kombat XL

• 1st Place: Reliance Insurance Brokers – Praveen “zombi3″ J
• 2nd Place: HealthRecon Connect – Rashad “RaSSyCZaR” Ameer
• 3rd Place: Bluewhale – Dhanuka “amanuensis” Samarakoon

Clash Royale

• 1st Place: RCM Medigain – Rajith “Rn’B” Weerasekara
• 2nd Place: Orel IT – Kavinda “Dr.volcano” Dilshan
• 3rd Place: HDPL – Nadeepa “Lord N” Edirisooriya

Tekken 7

• 1st Place: The Bayleaf Colombo – Roshan “JURA” Jurampathy
• 2nd Place: Motion Miracles – DaddyLongLegs
• 3rd Place: Attune – Malindra “TechPenguin5” Perera

Fortnite

• 1st Place: Fresco Batiks – Fauzaan “SPONGIEZ” Firoz
• 2nd Place: HealthRecon Connect – Rashad “RaSSyCZaR” Ameer
• 3rd Place: HealthRecon Connect – Hirusha “xZ3KEx” Gimhan

Womens – Need for Speed: MW

• 1st Place: WSO2 Lanka – Kaumini “KaWWa” Gunasinghe
• 2nd Place: CocoLuk – Yasara “WarQueen” De Silva
• 3rd Place: Susila Holdings – Angaline “Gracious” Natasha

Womens – Mario Kart

• 1st Place: CocoLuk – Yasara “WarQueen” De Silva
• 2nd Place: Wiley Global – Nadeeshani “FOXY” Jayasinghe
• 3rd Place: Apollo International School – Dhinelka “BitSy” Anthony

Womens – Mortal Kombat XL

• 1st Place: WSO2 Lanka – Kaumini “KaWWa” Gunasinghe
• 2nd Place: Apollo International School – Dhinelka “BitSy” Anthony
• 3rd Place: LSEG Sri Lanka – Sujathani “sujindw” Warnakulasooriya

Earlier this month Lowkey eSports picked up their CS:GO team from Sri Lanka. The American organization has now expanded their horizons by acquiring Sri Lanka’s Lanka Lions (League of Legends) and Team L2k (Rainbow Six Siege). As such, the following athletes will play under Lowkey’s banner :

League of Legends squad:

• Ashik “ASHSL” Saleeth (Captain)
• Bhanuka “XiaoRaven” Ratnayake
• Shalitha “Acelord” Chandraratne
• Achintha “Nightmare” Konara
• Seyed “Willy Wonka” Sajid

Rainbow Six Siege squad :

• Dulshan “Fatalz” Lakvidu, (Captain)
• Tejitha “Frosty” Nanayakkara, 
• Sachethana “SACH” Liyanage, 
• Gayan “JayV” Bandaranayake and 
• Heshan “BL4NK” Virantha
• Malith “ScorpioN” Prasanna (Substitute)
• Gihan “Jay” Jayawardana (Substitute)

The league team has been coupled with Warren “LL Alpacalipstick” Wijayaratnam as their coach. He is an internationally recognized personality for coaching, famous for coupling principles of military science with his training ideology. 

“Lowkey Esports is the breakthrough we were hoping for all these years and we are very excited to work with our first coach ever. We are looking to revolutionize league scene in Sri Lanka but our main eye is on South Asian scene.”

– Ashik “ASHSL” Saleeth, Captain of the League of Legends team

“Joining Lowkey Esports has been a tremendous opportunity for us and a much needed change which allows us to discover our full potential as a team.

We can say that we have been dominant in the Sri lankan Rainbow Six Siege competitive scene without sounding too arrogant since we have won almost every single tournament we’ve competed in for the past 2-3 years. We are planning to focus on ESL India tournaments next year as that is currently the highest level of competition we can compete in due to region restrictions. We are lucky to be playing under Lowkey Esports and we are motivated to improve than ever before.”

– Sachethana “SACH” Liyanage, Member of the Rainbow Six Team

Who do you think Lowkey should pick up next? Comment below! 

Seems like the grass didn’t stay green at TechMorph HQ. In a shocking mass transfer 28 members from TechMorph moved to Noob Alliance. This transfer took place last month and below is a comprehensive list of the players involved.

COD 4 players

• Durendra ‘saku?’ Wijesuriya
• Dilan ‘PUNKBUSTER’ Savishka
• Vidura “Arma” Pasan
• Chathura ‘Flasherare <3’ senarath
• Shalika ‘GG son<3’ Dissanayake
• Lakshan ‘Thief’ Sandeepa
• Saranga ‘PR[3]Z’ Kumarasinghe
• Janitha ‘Black<3’ Iroshan
• chathuranga ‘Galpatha’ ranaweera
• Athulsha ‘BullsEYE’ Dulaj
• Bhanuka ‘Showtekk’ Mahendra
• Yatheesh ‘Dr.Wp’ Pasindu

 Dota 2 players

• Samadith “SaMa” Minsilu
• Ishara ‘Drako’ Umayanga
• Rivimal ‘Tempest’ Amarasinghe
• Sanura ‘ SNOW’ Supun
• Thanuka ‘Tk/K317H’ Keith
• Lochana ‘D3MoNAppU’ Perera
• Anuhas ‘Pookieey ?’ Thanthirimudalige
• Pasindu ‘DeNnIS’ Ranasinghe
• Dushantha ‘nightcore’ jayawardana
• Ravindu “OneAboveAll” Thimal
• Kavindu ‘Hetti.jr’ Hettiarachchi
• Buddhi ‘Fearless’ Chathuranga
• Devmith ‘Zen’ Weeraratne
• Kasun ‘kassa’ Viraj
• Kanchan ‘Zhu’ Nuradha
• Sasindu ‘sas’ Sadaruwan

In the past the largest moves would be a team or two joining a rival clan. A move of this magnitude is unprecedented, specially when most of these players have been part of TechMorph for at least four years.
The reason for this, following what seems to be a common trend, was a dispute between clan admins (in TechMorph) and the players. Certain decisions made by such admins amounted to “disrespectful” towards long standing and valuable members. There was also a lack of support is what Durendra ‘saku?’ Wijesuriya had to say.

He went on to say that Noob Alliance was chosen simply because they knew members there.

When we reached out to nA for a statement they had this to say:

“We are thrilled to welcome the new players for COD4 and DOTA 2 coming through from TechMorph. We hope to provide these talented esports athletes the tools and environment to reach their potential. Moving forward these players will surely be ones to look out for.”

TechMorph had the following to say when we reached out for a statement:

“Player transfers have been happening for a long time in almost every clan, and TM has been like a training school in a certain way. lol. We respect their decisions whether they like to stay in the clan or move to another. We have a lot of loyal members who have been around through the good times and the bad, and we will continue to push forward.”

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) developed and published by Riot Games. The game was inspired by the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne mod, Defense of the Ancients. Thus sparking the whole debate of which MOBA is better. Comparatively League has a smaller player base than Dota 2 locally. However since its introduction in 2013 the league community only keeps growing.

In this week’s rendition of Staying on Top we met with PnX | Lanka Lions.

Current Roster

• Top – Bhanuka “XiaoRaven” Ratnayake
• Jungle – Shalitha “Acelord” Chandraratne
• Mid – Rizlan “PhantomCharger” Affridhy
• ADC – Achintha “Nightmare” Konara
• Support – Ashik “ASHSL” Saleeth

Q : What led to the formation of ‘Lanka Lions’?

A: The Lanka Lions name was there for a long time, but the majority of the roster came together last year, when Ashik approached me and Achintha to make a team for the Asian Games Qualifier. The three of us stuck together since then. The addition of Rizlan and Bhanuka was made this year as we saw a lot of potential in both players. I would like to give a shout out to two key players who were in the team, Akthar (Blue Akthar) Hafeez and Hilal (Dew SL) Jismy both these players contributed heavily towards the success of this team although they are not in the roster currently.

Q: A common theme among Sri Lankan teams is that personal schedules conflict with allocating time for practicing. How do you guys deal with this?

A:We take advantage of our solo skills and the ability to read each other when making plays. This makes up for our lack of practice since most of our members have busy schedules that prevent them from committing to constant practice.

Q: What do you guys think sets you apart from the rest?

A:Our biggest strengths is our solo skills and our ability to execute the right decision making and mechanical plays individually. Plus the experience; we have been playing our main roles for a long period of time. Although we could definitely use more practice time and a few LAN sessions to be able to communicate better to help us perform optimally as a team