Apex Legends: NA Twitch Rivals Streamer Challenge Event Day 1

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the best on two weeks, you should be fully aware that Respawn Entertainment has hit the ground running with their new Battle Royale game Apex Legends. Having hit 25 Million players in the first 8 days of release, not only have Respawn gone after Fortnite's title as the best Battle Royale game in the market, they are also going to support the game as an esport and will start to do this with the Twitch Rivals was 50k Streamer Challenge Event.

Apex Legends was one of the fastest games to ever receive a Twitch Rivals event after just 8 days and while 24 of the best streamers from Europe battled it out first, with French Squad Team Mane (Corentin “GOTAGA” Houssein, Mickaël “Mickalow” Maruin and Maxime “Robi” Dambrine) destroyed their competition with 399 points in four hours. The North American competition was the main event that had all the hype around it.

Twitch Rivals used the old school Pubstomp format, where participating teams all queued up in public lobbies at the same time and as the format title suggests get as many kills and wins in the four hours of competition. Teams got 1 point per kill and 5 points per win, so diving into populated areas was more high risk, high reward than usual.

There was a trio of teams that were expected to contest for title, each having Battle Royale Legends in their own rights. Vissrespect The Kraft consisted of Herschel “DrDisrespect” Beahm IV with TSM duo Colton “Viss” Visser and Jesse “RealKrafty” Kraft. The Broys trio of Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek, Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham and Justin “Just9n” Ortiz we’re highly topped to be the winners and these two teams added a bit of extra spice to the tournament, with the back and fourth trash talk from DrDisrespect and Shroud.

Finally, Fortnite’s own Richard “Ninja” Blevins teamedc up with another big name from Fortnite in NRG’s Richard “KingRichard” Nelson came in to show that they can hang with the best streamers on other games. The final player of the team name Kings Canyon, was the first Apex Legend player signed to a professional contract in Coby “Dizzy” Meadows who also had 4000+ kills prior to this tournament.

However, it was the team of Reid's Money team (Jake "ChocoTaco" Throop, Sean "VSNZ" Garcia and Jordan "HusKers" Thomas) that fired out of the blocks after a strong first game from ChocoTaco. From that point on wards it was HusKars that went into full carry mode, averaging 12.3 kills a game at one point, with VSNZ providing him the perfect support on their way to a strong outing during the tournaments, becoming the first team to reach 100, 200 & 300 points.

VissRespect The Kraft were trying to hang in with an hour and a half to go, but they, The Broys and Team Pepega (Saqib "Lirik" Zahid, "Shortyyguy" and former Dallas Fuel Overwatch League player Brandon “Seagull” Larned) were fighting it out for third, fourth and fifth place. Neither VissRespect The Kraft or The Broys couldn’t seem to consistently put up the number that Reid’s Money Team and Kings Canyon were, despite having Shroud and Viss leading their teams. Team Pepega on the other hand were having better luck than people expected. After a slow start, Seagull got into the groove on Lifeline and started to pull out consistent numbers, while Lirik and Shortyyguy were rotating in the secondary carry and support kills, when Seagull wasn’t picking up the big rounds.

Things started to get spicy with just over an hour to go, when Kings Canyon stepped it up on a moments notice. After starting with a 21 kill first game, Dizzy started to let the voices from the void take control and went on a rampage. In this period of time, King Richard and Ninja would stay together as a pair while Dizzy went hunting and started to 1v57. With Dizzy on a tear, Kings Canyon took the lead for the first time with an hour remaining off the back of a 22 kill game from Dizzy. Their composition of Bangalore, Bloodhound & Wraith, which was the most popular of all the stream teams, became unstoppable.

In the end it came down to the final games for each team, with HusKars and Dizzy in the limelight for each team. With King Canyon leading and in control, Reid's Money Team had to push and get a big score. However, in their second to last game, their entire team got eliminated early which forced them to have to play one final game. On the other side, Dizzy and King's Canyon had one last game to solidify their lead and the pressure didn't get to them. With Ninja and Kind Richard letting Dizzy do his thing, Dizzy racked up one final 17 kill game for Kings Canyon to finish on 420 points.With the tournament in overtime, Reid's Money Team had one last chance to take the title and while HusKars form seemed to drop at the last moment VSZN's tried his best to step up in his place. However, when it came down to the last two squads, only one player was left. Reid's Money Team quickly shut them down and then had to wait for the final result.

With all the game played and the scores totalled up, it was King's Canyon 420 point from 13 wins and 355 kills  who beat Reid's Money Team into second place on 10 wins and 369 kills, with a grand total of 419 points. The Broys came third with 386 points from 9 wins and 341 kills followed by Team Pepega 11 wins, 313 kills and 368 points and VissRespect The Kraft in fifth with 11 wins, 281 kills and 336 points.

The play of the day came in at an hour and a half, when Vissrespect The Kraft started rolling and were in a game where Viss had taken up the carry role. The last five minutes saw them take out four of the last seven squads in that period of time and Viss 2v1’d the final team on his way to a 17 kill game. Honourable mention also goes to AnneMunition who got an early elimination in the first hour of the tournament pulling of her best Kobe impersonation with a grenade frag.

While Day 1 of the tournament is complete, day two beings at the same time next Tuesday 19th February, once again on the main Twitch Rivals channel.

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(Picture Credit: NRG and Twitch Esports)