Our Favourite Esports Clips From The Last Week

The top highlights from around the esports scene, with some Baron steals thrown in for good measure!

By Joab Gilroy

PAX Australia is kicking off at the end of this week, which will host a heap of awesome esports action! For now though, we've got Aussies and Kiwis going huge in China — the Kings GC secured third place at eXTREMESLAND 2017, and Blank Esports locked in a place at the Finals of the APAC Premier. At home the Rainbow Six APAC Finals saw two teams off to Brazil, and in international esports the League of Legends Worlds continued to thrill and devastate.

Make sure you check out the rest of the esports hub, we've got all the details on the esports going down at PAX Aus this weekend! Remember you can email tips to me esportsau@ign.com or you can just click to send me an email. If you want, you can tweet suggestions at me as well, my twitter is down the bottom of this article.

CSGO - eXTREMESLAND Asia Finals 2017

Kings Gaming Club carried the spirit of Australia and New Zealand with them at the Shanghai based eXTREMESLAND Asia Finals on the weekend, slogging it out in hostile territory as an away team all week. The Kings were knocked out by eventual champions Flash in a three round slugfest featuring some of the closest matches of the tournament, securing third — but they definitely left their mark on the event, with plays like Sico's Ace below showing off ANZ CSGO beautifully.

Overwatch - APAC Premier

Blank Esports are spending a bit more time in Shanghai, as the APAC Premier included a round robin series of play-ins prior to its Finals. Blank successfully made it through the group stages, dropping only in a close match against South Korean team Afreeca Freecs. They've secured a finals berth against the first seed Chinese team Miraculous Youngster now, which is actually a good thing — also in the mix are the top APEX teams from South Korea. The clip below has a bit of everything from the team in their game against AF — Batttle Mercy brilliance from RQT, Trill going huge on Roadhogg and the team pushing through that tough second point on Junkertown, though it wasn't enough to secure the win.

Rainbow Six - APAC Finals

The best teams from around Asia Pacific descended on ESL Australia's Sydney studios this weekend as the APAC region fought it out for two available trips to the Brazil-based World Finals. Two Aussie teams were in the mix — Mindfreak and Corvidae — but they were both knocked out by teams MantisFPS and Eins, from South Korea and Japan respectively. Both played at a pace that the Aussie teams weren't able to accommodate, although Wildman and Warden from Corvidae showed signs of shifting gears towards the end of their match. It's tough to compete with a team full of fraggers like Eins though — watch Aroer1na from Japan go absolutely huge below.

League of Legends - Worlds 2017 Quarter Finals

The League of Legends World Championships — also taking place in China, though this time in Wuhan — have reached the Semi Finals now and only South Korea and China are left. The Quarter Finals saw Chinese team Royal Never Give Up defeat European underdogs Fnatic, SK Telecom T1 beat European juggernauts the Misfits, NA team Cloud9's cinderella story end at the hands of China's Team WE and South Korean titans Samsung Galaxy knocking out heavy favourites (and countrymen) Longzhu Gaming.

The games were super competitive — Cloud9's loss was particularly gutting as they fell after hours of holding on for dear life. But for me the best League highlights are Baron steals, so I've grabbed a couple from the Quarters that I thought were particularly good. In the first, RNG sucks the wind out of Fnatic's sails when they grab Baron and scoot away unscathed. RNG go on to win the game, although they won't three and oh the series — such is the caster's curse.

In this second clip the Misfits have fantastic map control as SKT goes for a very cheeky Baron kill. Thanks to some excellent zone play by the Misfits, SKT doesn't have the support they need — the Europeans snake the Baron kill and trade two for three, going on to win the match and putting themselves in a commanding position over SKT. SKT, however, won the next two games to knock Europe out of the World Championships.

Ping us in the comments or on twitter if you think I missed any of the best highlights, and if you're at PAX Australia this weekend head to the Galah Theatre at 8pm for a PUBG Panel hosted by yours truly!

Joab Gilroy is an Australian-based freelancer that specialises in competitive online games and esports. You can tweet at him here.

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