Every year again! The Christmas tournaments at Unisport
As every year, Unisport has another real highlight in its program at Christmas time - the Christmas tournaments! Traditionally, the Christmas tournaments are usually spread over a whole week and ensure a "sold-out" house at Unisport every evening. Analog sports such as futsal, volleyball and badminton regularly ensure an excellent atmosphere, sometimes well into the night. And the digital offerings as part of the e-sports tournaments have also recently attracted numerous spectators on site. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year's Christmas tournaments had to be limited to e-sports, as these tournaments can be played from home without personal contact. As a result, two exciting tournaments were held in parallel at the beginning of December 2020, which were followed and supported by numerous spectators via livestream.
The well-known and very popular games "League of Legends" and "Rocket League" were played, which have often been part of the e-sports program at Unisport. The latter is a football-like game in which each player controls a small, very agile and fast car and tries to get an oversized match ball into the opposing team's goal by skillfully maneuvering their car. The playing field is protected by barriers in all directions so that the ball remains in play at all times and constant action is guaranteed. The group phase of the Rocket League tournament began on Wednesday, December 9, with a total of four groups battling it out for a place in the playoffs. A total of 34 players competed against each other in a two vs. two format with a playing time of five minutes each. After many great games at a good level, the two best teams in each group qualified for the final day. This took place on Friday 11.12 and was to go down in the Unisport e-sports annals! The quarter-finals and semi-finals were played in best-of-five mode and were clear-cut affairs throughout. However, the final was a best-of-seven duel between the giants, which could not have been more exciting. Team Eier was already leading 3:1 and had victory within their grasp when Team Hart ReingeHanst managed to fend off three match points in a row and finally clinch victory in a nerve-wracking seventh game. Both teams had regular fan clubs in the livestream chat, who cheered energetically and created a final-day atmosphere.
Parallel to the Rocket League tournament, the group phase of the League of Legends tournament began on Thursday, December 10. Each player controls a main character, the "hero", with four different abilities, which can be further strengthened by purchasing items, for example. The aim of the game is to destroy the opponent's main building, the so-called "Nexus". There were 45 players at the start, playing against each other in 5 vs 5 mode on the very compact Aram map, so that constant action was guaranteed here too. It was essential for the players to play well as a team in order to be able to hold their own at the high tournament level. Especially during the final day on Saturday, December 12, numerous supporters were once again there live and the livestream had more than 100 spectators at times, who followed the action enthusiastically. In the end, the Landauer Inferno beat the Bierologen in the final to secure victory.
In addition to endless glory and honor, the first three places in the tournaments received small prizes and a small boost to their in-game account. However, all participants, spectators and organizers were actually winners. Even though there were "only" four tournament days this year, the great interaction between the viewers provided everyone with a great atmosphere and very exciting entertainment. Our live commentator Simon, who was "really out of voice" after both final days, can confirm this!
As a result, Unisport was able to offer participants and spectators sporting competition and the chance to "meet each other" even during the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly pleasing was the broad field of participants, which consisted of students from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, the University of Landau and the University of Applied Sciences Kaiserslautern, who competed together in sports, exchanged ideas and were able to establish and/or maintain social contacts despite the difficult pandemic situation. If you have also discovered e-sports for yourself or simply want to become part of an enthusiastic community, be part of the next Unisport e-sports event, because next year there are again some offers planned for you, which will hopefully take place live on site again!
Author: Sebastian Kelm
