Thursday 29 May 2014

Results: MSSA's MWEB 2014 Mpumalanga LAN Championships - 24 & 25 May 2014

Once again HTS Witbank hosted the MSSA's MWEB Mpumalanga

However the growth in the number of gamers at the championships would not have been possible without the herculean efforts of Morizane Boyes, Bianca Henning, and Louis Brown.

The support being given by the schools is proving to be the back-bone of the MSSA  and is the most important part of the MSSA's development programmes.

Championships. The Championships were played on the weekend on 24 & 25 May 2014 and experienced solid growth among all sectors. Not only was there a general increase in the number of gamers present, and the number of games that were played, but there too was an increase in the number of female competitors.

There was no less than a seven fold increase in the number of females competing with  more females playing the game of Tekken Tag Tournament II© than males. Obviously the emphasis that the MSSA is putting on the development of females in gaming is starting to bear fruit. It is hoped that the 2015 championships will see even more female gamers especially now that the MSSA makes provision (in accordance with IeSF rules) to hold competitions in all titles for both female and male teams and/or players.

The support given by MWEB again proved to be invaluable to the MSSA, and as a result of such support members were able to enjoy the benefits of participating in an official LAN championship. It is through the official championships that gamers are able to qualify for colours and for national team trials. In other words, the official championships form part of a year year  long qualification process for gamers to  prove their worth in order to be selected to finally, and officially, represent South Africa in international competition.

Six member clubs from two provinces contested the championships.

At the championships, the Tuks Mindsport Club again dominated the League of Legends and Dota 2 events. However, the rest of the events were divided up among the Mpumalanga based clubs.

Special mention must be made of Kyle Turnbull who pulled out a surprise win over veteran Abubakar 'Mikkael' Ebrahiem at the 2013 MWEB Mpumalanga Championships. Kyle went on to further cement his dominance in the game of FIFA '14© by trouncing all opponents at the 2013 MWEB SA National Championships. Kyle confirmed his mastery of the game at the Mpumalanga Championships by once again winning all of his games at the Provincial Championships to automatically earn himself Provincial Colours.

Nadine Swart also deserves special mention. The diminutive Nadine totally dominated the game of Tekken Tag tournament II©. Her standard of play was indeed most impressive and Nadine lead the championship from start to finish. In fact, there are many of the MSSA officials who strongly believe that Nadine may just have a chance of earning herself a place in the 2014 Protea Team that will go to Baku, Azerbijan in November this year.

Only time will tell!

The winners of the different titles are:

BOARD GAMES

Morabaraba

Female – Premier
Male – Premier
Pos Team Club
Pos Team Club
1 Nomfundo Moyo HTS Witbank
1 Simphiwe Maphumulo Zola Checkers Club

eSPORTS
Call of Duty: Ghosts
Male – Premier (PC)
Pos Team Club
1 TFR All Stars
Male – Premier (PS3)
Pos Team Club
1 Ash Meltdown HTS Witbank

Male – Premier (XBox)
Pos Team Club
1 ELECTRA HTS Witbank

COUNTERSTRIKE GO

Male – Premier
Pos Team Club
1 Delta 5 Gaming All Stars

Dota 2

Male – Premier
Pos Team Club
1 TMSC Sabotage Tuks Mindsport Club
Male – Schools
Pos Team Club
1 Grey Warders HTS Witbank

FIFA '14

Male – Premier (PS3)
Pos Name Club
1 Kyle Turnbull HTS Witbank

Male – Schools (PS3)
Pos Name Club
1 Sibusiso Mathizerd Hoerskool Generaal Hertzog


Male – Premier (XBOX)
Pos Name Club
tie 1 Bomganjala Zwane
Setlabocha Pudi
HTS Witbank

Male – Schools (PS3)
Pos Name Club
1 Armand du Preez
Hoerskool Generaal Hertzog

League of legends

Male – Premier
Pos Team Club
1 Senior Team Tuks Mind Sports Club

OSU

Female – Premier
Male – Premier
Pos Team Club
Pos Team Club
1 Lucille Brown HGH
1 Lejend Muir All Stars

StarCraft 2

Female – Premier
Male – Premier
Pos Team Club
Pos Team Club
1 Morizane Boyes All Stars
1 Jaco Botha HTS Witbank

Tekken Tag Tournament 2

Female – Premier
Male – Premier
Pos Team Club
Pos Team Club
1 Nadine Swart HTS Witbank
tie 1 Legend Muir
Andrè Potgieter
All Stars
HTS Witbank

Female – Under 24
Pos Team Club
1 Riana du Plessis All Stars

Female – Schools
Male – Premier
Pos Team Club
Pos Team Club
tie 1 Nadia Nasson
Zanele Kanye
HTS Witbank
HTS Witbank

1 Martin van Niekerk HTS Witbank


FIGURE GAMES
Ancients

Female – Premier
Male – Premier
Pos Team Club
Pos Team Club
1 Elisha Retief Old Edwardian Wargames Club
1 Donald Mullany Old Edwardian Wargames Club


In total, 29 gamers earned the right to wear Provincial Colours. A further 10 students were awarded Student provincial Colours and 12 learners were awarded High School Provincial Colours. All those that were awarded the various Provincial Colours were immediately given both their certificates and a high quality 195gsm golf shirt to indicate that they had received such colours.

The MWEB championships too saw a total of 95 gamers qualify for National Team Trials. With so many gamers qualifying for trials, there is no doubt that the MSSA will have sufficient teams in order to select teams to represent South Africa.

Photographs can be found on https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152856369719008.1073741880.146018324007&type=3

Monday 26 May 2014

Photo's of the winners at the 2014 MWEB Mpumulanga Championships

TEKKEN

CALL OF DUTY: GHOSTS (XBOX)

CALL OF DUTY: GHOSTS (PS3)

STARCRAFT II


CALL OF DUTY: GHOSTS (PC)

 COUNTERSTRIKE GO

FIFA (PS3)

 MORABARABA


'ANCIENTS' WARGAMES


OSU
DOTA 2


Thursday 15 May 2014

Quotas out - transformation is in!

Xola Magwaza at the 2009 IeSF Challenge

It was pleasing to see that the Sports Minister, the Hon. Fikile Mbabula backed down on the issue of quotas.

Quotas are a very dirty word for many people in South Africa.

Even a recent South African court case declared quotas to be illegal in business,

However, even with the Minister back-tracking on the issues of quotas, the Minister, and SASCOC, are dedicated to the issue of transformation.

Of course, transformation does not just apply to the sporting teams, but to the entire structure of the sports code from the athletes, coaches, technical officials, and administrators.

This of course, poses various problems for the sporting codes as most coaches, technical officials, and administrators are in fact volunteers.

Volunteers are, as we all know, people who do something for free out of the love and passion that they have for the game. Without the volunteers in any sports structure, the federations themselves will surely buckle under the weight of having to find additional resources to pay those who demand to be paid for the jobs that volunteers are doing for free.

Thus in a volunteer organisation, it seems as though transformation will be a slower process as it will take time to develop the ethos of volunteerism?

I do not believe so!

Sporting bodies are no different to churches. Churches often survive in the most adverse of conditions. Churches survive without government aid and purely upon the contributions of the membership. The contributions consist of financial, time, effort and skills.

It all depends in what you really believe, and what you
want to see happen.

For the members of a church group, of any religion, it is the promotion of their beliefs.

Why then do gamers shy away from the same level commitment in promoting eSports? After all more gamers put more time into gaming than into any other activity that they do. Gamers get far more pleasure out of eSports than from any other activity. Gamers should then treat gaming as if it were there religion and put more back.


With more volunteers from across the board, total transformation will be achieved very quickly indeed, and we can then all move on from worrying about politics and getting down to the business at hand, and that is, playing the game!

Thursday 8 May 2014

6th e-Sports World Championship Baku

The Crystal Hall, Baku

The International eSports Federation (IeSF) has moved forward with eSports on an unprecedented scale.

The recognition that the IeSF has earned from 2008 among governments is now beginning to bear fruit.

There was a time when we all thought that the IeSF would only be able to host its events in South Korea. After all, the IeSF, through the efforts of the General Secretary, Mr. W. S. Oh, had earned the respect, and support of the South Korean government.

However, in 2013 the bold move was taken to allow the Romanian member, the PGL, to host the championships in Bucharest in Romania.
The championship in Romania was a fantastic success.

Certainly the South African team thoroughly enjoyed the event.
Thus with the success of the event in Romania, the IeSF decided to allow members to bid for the event.

And so Azerbijan won the bid for the 2014 World Championships.

Thus on the 1st of May 2014 the IeSF signed a MOU for hosting 6th e-Sports World Championship with both the Azerbaijan Cyber Sports Federation and Ministry of Youth and Sports.

Through the MOU, the government of Azerbaijan will be directly involved in hosting World Championship with full support including funding for whole operation.

The 6th e-Sports World Championships shall be played from 12 – 17 November 2014 in the Crystal Hall in Baku.

Apparently the hall boasts an amazing internet speed of 1 GB.
The MSSA has also stated that it will enter its official South African Team to play in such World Championships.

It will the first time that the MSSA will send a team to Azerbijan.

Up to now, the MSSA has only sent eSports teams since 2005 to the USA, Taiwan, China, South Korea, Namibia, and Romania.

According to the MSSA shortly after the IeSF announced the venue, the IeSF announced which titles to be played at such championships in order to allow all member federations to adequately prepare.

The tiles to be played at the 6th e-Sports World Championship Baku are:
Male division Female division
Dota 2 StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Tekken Tag tournament 2
Two to three additional official games can still be added by the host county. 

I'm pretty much hoping that League of Legends and/or CounterStrike GO will still be added to the event.

However, even if they aren't, I estimate that this event is likely to set the MSSA back over two hundred thousand rands to get the team overseas.

Now that is a real commitment to gaming!

Thursday 1 May 2014

Official South African National eSports Teams - 2013

All photographs are taken from the MSSAs facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mindsportssa/photos_albums

The BATTLEFIELD 3 TEAM:

Captain: Barry 'Anthrax' Louzada

Photo on the left shows members from the team from the Gauteng area.

The photo on the right shows members of the team from Cape Town.

StarCraft II Test Match between South Africa and Romania:


Robert 'PandaTank' Botha (South Africa) in action against Silviu 'NightEnd' Lazar (Romania)

Gabriella 'GabyBear' Isaacs at a film shoot on gaming:

Dota 2 Protea Team:

Team captain: Anthony 'Scant' Hodgson

StarCraft 2 - Dreamhack, Bucharest:

Nathan Anderson

Team eSports South Africa - 2013 IeSF World Championships:

Team captain: Lyrene Kuhn
The team participated in League of Legends, Tekken Tag Tournament II, and StarCraft 2.