In this week’s year-end edition of In Case You Missed It:
- 16-year old Bugha wins the Fortnite World Cup Solo Finals
- OG become the first-ever 2-time TI champions
- San Francisco Shock win the Overwatch League Season 2
- FunPlus Phoenix win Worlds 2019
- EVOS Legends win the MLBB M1 World Championship
- Chikurin wins the Tekken World Tour Finals
- iDom upsets Punk in the Capcom Cup grand finals
16-year old Bugha wins the Fortnite World Cup Solo Finals
In August, 16-year-old Kyle “Bugha” Giersdorf dominated the Fortnite World Cup Solo Finals and took home a whopping US$3 million in prize money.
Bugha now holds the record for the most prize money won by an individual player at a single esports event, and rocketed up to number ten in the all-time esports highest earnings list.
Bugha made his mark early in the competition, notching up nine eliminations and the Victory Royale in game one to top the leaderboard with 19 points. Bugha held onto his lead through the remaining five games, finishing with a score of 59 points, 26 points more than second-place finisher Psalm.
OG become the first-ever 2-time TI champions
In August, the first-ever TI Grand Final to feature two past champions saw OG defeat TI7 winners, Team Liquid, 3-1 to become the first-ever double Aegis winners and take home the grand prize of over US$15.5 million.
Team Liquid were looking unstoppable after a historic 11-1 run through the Lower Bracket, and took an incredibly close game one, but OG were able to recover, and took the next three games in a row to seal victory.
Anathan “ana” Pham, Topias “Topson” Taavitsainen, Sebastien “Ceb” Debs, Jesse “JerAx” Vainikka, and Johan “N0tail” Sundstein etched their names behind the coveted Aegis of Champions for the second-straight time.
San Francisco Shock win the Overwatch League Season 2
In September, the Overwatch League’s San Francisco Shock completed an incredible season — which included the first-ever perfect stage — with a dominant Grand Finals performance that saw them steamroll the Vancouver Titans, 4-0.
With their win in the Grand Finals, the Shock have now won 20 consecutive maps, with 4-0 sweeps over the London Spitfire, LA Gladiators, Hangzhou Spark, and New York Excelsior in the Overwatch League playoffs.
For their victory, the Shock won US$1.1 million. San Francisco’s Hyo-bin “ChoiHyoBin” Choi was named the Grand Finals MVP for his oppressive Sigma play.
FunPlus Phoenix win Worlds 2019
China’s FunPlus Phoenix proved that they were the best LoL team in the world this year, starting with first-place finishes at the LPL Spring and Summer standings, and the LPL Summer championship.
They followed it up in November with one of the most dominant runs at Worlds we’ve ever seen, topping Group B, and then taking out Fnatic 3-1 in the quarterfinals, and eliminating reigning champions, Invictus Gaming, 3-1 in the semifinals.
FunPlus Phoenix capped off their season with one of the most one-sided finals ever, stomping G2 Esports 3-0 to win their first LoL World Championship.
EVOS Legends win the MLBB M1 World Championship
In November, Indonesian squad, EVOS Legends, won the first-ever M1 World Championship, coming out on top against 15 of the best MLBB teams from around the world.
In the grand finals, EVOS faced off against fellow Indonesian squad, Rex Regum Qeon, in a rematch of the MPL Indonesia S4 grand finals.
RRQ got off to a great start, pulling out to a 3-1 lead, however, EVOS managed to stabilize, and took the next two games in a row to level the score at 3-3.
In the decisive seventh game, EVOS capitalized on a Lunox-Kaja combination and raced out to a 9-0 turret and 12-3 kill advantage in just seven minutes. A minute later and EVOS took down RRQ’s inhibitor to win the series 4-3.
Chikurin wins the Tekken World Tour Finals
In December, the conclusion of the Tekken World Tour saw Japanese pro, Yuta “Chikurin” Take, take home the prestigious TWT trophy and US$50,000.
Chikurin faced Korean pro, Lim “Ulsan” Soo-hoon, in the Grand Finals. Ulsan played his usual main of Kazumi while Chikurin, who is known as a die-hard Geese Howard player, surprisingly picked Akuma.
The surprise pick worked, and Ulsan found himself unable to deal with Akuma’s overwhelming pressure and damage potential as Chikurin cruised to a 3-0 win.
iDom upsets Punk in the Capcom Cup grand finals
In December, Derek “iDom” Ruffin, an unsponsored and self-supported Street Fighter V player pulled off one of the biggest upsets of the year, defeating CPT number one ranked player, Victor “Punk” Woodley, in the grand finals of the Capcom Cup.
After losing to Punk in the winners final, iDom battled his way back up to the grand final where he came back from 2-0 down in the first set, pulling off a reverse sweep to reset the bracket, and then taking the final set 3-1 to win the title.
For his first-place finish, iDom took home a massive US$250,000 cash prize. He will also get to design a Champion’s Choice skin for the character of his choice.
