This past weekend we worked with our zombie, City and EGE friends to start taking esports into City of Cape Town venues. The FIFA 17 and Injustice 2 event at the Sarepta Sport and Recreation Centre in Kuils River ran over two days and offered cash prizes as well as an opportunity for some to experience the competitive rush that others are taking for granted these days.

SATURDAY

Saturday can best be described as the 'open' day. Around 100 competitors were in attendance and featured a variety of familiar tournament attendees as well as new faces. A number of curious onlookers and supporters were in attendance too with various matches being hosted on the stage throughout the day.

As was expected, both the FIFA and Injustice threw up some great match ups and the Injustice specifically drew a lot of audience engagement - especially during the winner's bracket final featuring Jody 'Smokevengeance' Paulse and Kim 'D1gamerkid' Petersen. The match was played as a best of five and saw the two going blow for blow to 2-2 before Paulse landed the winning blow in the final round that was as close as could be.

The best of seven grand final saw the same two players facing off, however, this time after the smoke had settled, it was Paulse that took the top spot in a slightly easier manner than in their previous meeting with a 4-0 win. On receiving his gold medal for winning, it was revealed by Alderman JP Smith of the City of Cape Town that the medal represented the first esports medal to be issued by the city.

Meanwhile, over at the FIFA 17, the action was also heating up with the top eight featuring a fair mix of new faces and regulars in battle. Eventually it came down to a sequence of familiar match-ups that culminated in Brandon 'BOWiE' Bowers facing off against Masoom Fakie in the grand final.

The two have faced each other plenty of times before so expectations were that the match would be a close low-scoring affair, however, Fakie was in no mood to give Bowers any chance and took a strong lead that ended in a 5-1 win to claim the lion's share of the prize pool.

SUNDAY

Sunday was billed as 'development' day, with the city bringing in children from some of their recreation centres around the Cape. The only restrictions were that any FIFA 17 tournament participants be aged 13 to 18 years old, while any attendees older than that were welcome to spectate or try their hand at freeplay FIFA 17 or Injustice 2.

After an introduction to the state of local esports, it was down to action as around 60 FIFA 17 players kicked things off in the double elimination bracket. In the end it was experienced 18 year old Waseem that took the top spot against the valiant Thulani from Gugulethu.

The hope with the event was to discover some hidden talent that over time could be nurtured over a number of tournaments - both local, nationally and ultimately internationally. The good news is that the talent is there and as long as the support is forthcoming perhaps one of the new faces will become the heroes of Cape Town and South Africa in the future.

TOURNAMENT RESULTS

FIFA 17 (Saturday)

  • First: Masoom Fakie [R7,000 cash]
  • Second: BOWiE [R3,500 cash]
  • Third: Hassan [R2,000 cash]
  • Fourth: MOBiZILLA [R1,500 cash]

Tournament bracket. Injustice 2 (Saturday)

  • First: Smokevengeance [R3,500 cash]
  • Second: D1gamerkid [R2,000 cash]
  • Third: UBaciouslee [R1,000 cash]
  • Fourth: DeezyDevil [R500 cash]

Tournament bracket. FIFA 17 (Sunday)

  • First: Waseem [R1,000 cash]
  • Second: Thulani [R500]
  • Third: Javauehn [R250]
  • Fourth: Chevario [R150]

Tournament bracket.

In closing, we would like to thank everyone that made the event possible - from the players to the spectators, the media in attendance, the various roleplayers and most importantly, the crew that made sure everything worked on the weekend.

You can view our photo album from the weekend here. Zombiegamer has their photo album available here and here.

https://youtu.be/nVUDyrsAwmk

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