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

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

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!

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 1^st of May 2014 the IeSF signed a MOU for hosting 6^th 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 6^th 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 6^th 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!

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.

Will Kyle still dominate in 2014?

Kyle Turnbull (left) playing against Abubakar 'Mikkael' Ebrahiem

The 2013 MWEB Mpumalanga Championships in May 2013 delivered a number of surprise results where the 'Old Guard' was taken down by the 'New Turks'.

Of the surprising results, probably one of the most notable was the victory achieved by the young Kyle Turnbull.

Even though Abubakar Ebrahiem, who represented South Africa at the 2011 IeSF World Championships in South Korea, competed in the championships, young Kyle Turnbull still dominated the event. The match between Abubakar Ebrahiem and Kyle Turnbull ended in a draw, but the number of outright victories earned by Kyle ensured that he won the 2013 MWEB Mpumalanga Championships. Abubakar Ebrahiem had to, quite uncharacteristically, settle for second place.

Kyle Turnbull then only competed in the 2013 MWEB South African National Championships in December 2013.

Again Kyle showed his true form and skill and totally dominated the rest of the field. At times it seems as though Kyle is at one with the controller.

Kyle waltzed through all of the opposition to win all the games that he played.

As a result, Kyle Turnbull was awarded, apart from first place, his Primary School Provincial Colours, Senior Provincial Colours, Junior National Federation Colours as well as Senior National Federation Colours.

Kyle walked away from the SA National Championships as the most decorated player ever from any one MSSA event.

Now with the 2014 MWEB Mpumalanga Championships just days away (24 & 25 May 2014), all eyes turn towards Kyle Turnbull to see if he can remain unbeaten on his home turf in the popular game of FIFA'14®.

With the MSSA going to be engaging in a number of international on-line test matches in the game, the other top players are all deep in training as without doubt, Kyle Turnbull is now the front-runner in the game and for a place in the official national Protea Team.

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

Registrations are open for MSSA's MWEB 2014 Mpumalanga LAN

Championships.

The Mpumalanga Championships are fast growing in popularity and have grown in size from year-to-year. The 2013 Mpumalanga LAN Championships saw 22 players get awarded provincial colours and 67 players qualify for National Team Trials.

Registrations will close on the 16 May 2014. Players who wish  to compete in any of MSSA's Championships are advised to complete their annual registration forms so that they may registered as Registered Players as soon as possible. Late entries will be accepted in exceptional circumstances.

All gamers are reminded that the Mpumalanga championships is an open championship.In other words any registered player is entitled to enter the championship – no matter where they live, or their category of membership. If you have any queries, please contact the MSSA.

Championship Details:

Hosting Club: HTS Witbank, Beyers Street, Witbank

• Venue: HTS Witbank, Beyers Street, Witbank
• Date: 24 & 25 May 2014
• Entry Fees: R60.00 per Registered Player per Period
• Computers: Bring your own. Please ensure that all game updates are done prior to arrival.
• Schedule: The LAN Schedule for all 2014 is:
  

SATURDAY:
Time	StarCraft II	Call of Duty: Ghosts	League of Legends (LoL)
09H00	Round 1 Starts	Round 1 Starts	Round 1 Starts
09H45	Round 2 Starts	Round 1 Continues	Round 1 Continues
10H30	Round 3 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 2 Starts
11H15	Round 4 Starts	Round 2 Continues	Round 2 Continues
12H00	Round 5 Starts	Round 3 Starts	Round 3 Starts
12H45		Round 3 Continues	Round 3 Continues
13H00	LUNCH
Time	TEKKEN TTII	Call of Duty: Ghosts	LoL (continued)
14H00	Round 1 Starts	Round 4 Starts	Round 4 Starts
14H45	Round 2 Starts	Round 4 Continues	Round 4 Continues
15H30	Round 3 Starts	Round 5 Starts	Round 5 Starts
16H15	Round 4 Starts	Round 5 Continues	Round 5 Continues
17H00	Round 5 Starts
18H00	Awards Ceremony
19H00	Doors Close
SUNDAY:
Time	Dota	CounterStrike	OSU	FIFA '14
09H00	Round 1 Starts	Round 1 Starts	Round 1 Starts	Round 1 Starts
09H45	Round 1 Continues	Round 1 Continues	Round 1 Continues	Round 2 Starts
10H30	Round 2 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 2 Starts	Round 3 Starts
11H15	Round 2 Continues	Round 2 Continues	Round 2 Continues	Round 4 Starts
12H00	Round 3 Starts	Round 3 Starts	Round 3 Starts	Round 5 Starts
12H45	Round 3 Continues	Round 3 Continues	Round 3 Continues
13H00	LUNCH
Time	Dota (continued)	CounterStrike  (continued)	OSU
14H00	Round 4 Starts	Round 4 Starts	Round 4 Starts
14H45	Round 4 Continues	Round 4 Continues	Round 4 Continues
15H30	Round 5 Starts	Round 5 Starts	Round 5 Starts
16H15	Round 5 Continues	Round 5 Continues	Round 5 Continues
17H00
18H00	Awards Ceremony
19H00	Doors Close

Rules and Regulations: All Rules and Regulations pertaining to eSports are available from the MSSA. Players are strongly advised to familiarise themselves with the LAN League Bylaws and all Period Specific Rules. If any Player wishes to provide advice regarding the drafting of the Period Specific Rules they are encouraged to contact the eSBoC who will take all comments into account.

The following Medals may be awarded at the MSSA's 2014 North West LAN Championship:

• PREMIER: Medals shall be awarded to the first three players who are registered players.
• SCHOLARS: Medals shall be awarded to the first three high school scholars, provided they have not received any Premier medals.
• UNIVERSITY:Medals shall be awarded to the first three players who are currently registered at any officially recognised University, provided the players have not received any Premier Medals.
• WOMEN: Women will be awarded medals as per the same basis as above, that is in all three categories.
  

Colours and National Team Trials:

• National Colours: All Players that win all of their Matches at a National Championship will earn National Colours.
  
• Provincial Colours: All Players that win all of their Matches at a Provincial Championship will earn Provincial Colours. All Players who score within the top 50% in a specific Period at a Provincial Championship, and who also score within the top 50% at a National Championship in the same period and in the same year, will earn Provincial Colours.
  
• National Team Trials: All Players that score within the top 20% or top three places, whichever is greater, in a specific Period at a Provincial or National Championship will earn an invitation to National Team Trials. National Team Trials shall be held in the event that a National Team must be selected to represent South Africa when competing in such Period in an International Championship.

Please note that the MSSA does not carry stock of shirts that are awarded. Registered Players who are awarded colours will thus be awarded at an event that they attend after being so awarded.

The next provincial; event is: The MWEB Eastern Cape Championships that shall be held on 28 & 29 June 2014.