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Millennium IT being crowned Overall Champions of the Mercantile Esports Championship 2018. A strong showing by their women's team helped them push ahead of Virtusa and Motion Miracles who came in joint second place
This year’s Mercantile-level Esports Championship saw the participation of over 100 companies, making it the largest mercantile sports event in the country
The Mercantile Esports Championship, powered by Dialog Gaming, returned for its third consecutive year on 21 and 22 July at Trace Expert City.
Organised by Gamer.LK - the leader in Esports and digital entertainment experiences in Sri Lanka - this year’s event showcased over 100 companies battling it out for glory, making it the largest mercantile sports event in the country.
The event provided a unique platform by taking the excitement and thrill of Esports to the mercantile level. Millennium IT dominated this year and became the overall champions with a strong show of force from their women’s team who helped push them ahead of Virtusa and Motion Miracles who came in as joint runners-up. Virtusa were the defending champions of the event after securing the title for the past two years.
The championship kicked off with matches being displayed on the giant screen at the venue as well as being live streamed by Gamer.LK on Facebook and YouTube Gaming for viewers not at the venue. Companies faced off against each other over two days across 14 competitive gaming titles, which included the popular team titles Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, Counter Strike: Global Offensive, Dota 2, League of Legends, Overwatch and Special Force 2 as well as individual titles – FIFA 18, Project CARS, Tekken 7, Mortal Kombat XL and Clash Royale while the women’s league, aimed at promoting Esports amongst women, had Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Mario Kart 8 and Mortal Kombat XL.
In addition to the competitive titles, tryouts for Sri Lanka’s Fastest ERacer took place at the event. Complete with Red Bull racing seats, racing wheels and pedals, large-screen TVs and the tracks on Project CARS, this brand-new concept was devised by Gamer.LK and aimed at promoting simulation racing in the country. The tryouts saw the participation of gamers of all ages and genders.
Esports, one of the fastest growing sports in the country, is governed by the Sri Lanka Esports Association, which is a member of the International Esports Federation. With the backing of the National Olympic Committee of Sri Lanka, Esports was introduced at the National Olympic Day celebrations of Sri Lanka as a future sport. Esports has been included in the Asian Games 2018 as a demonstration event, in which Sri Lanka is taking part.
The Mercantile eSports Championship was organised by Gamer.LK, who are also the organisers of successful annual events such as Play Expo (featuring Sri Lanka Cyber Games and Colombo Comic Expo). From 2016, Gamer.LK took the initiative to branch out Esports and digital entertainment into the three tiers of School, University and Mercantile.
The Mercantile Esports Championship is powered by Dialog Gaming, which over the years has provided vital support towards the development of Esports in the country. Dialog Gaming also promoted the competitive title Special Force 2 at the event.
In addition, they will be kicking off the Dialog Gaming League later this year, for which the Special Force 2 champions at Mercantile eSports will automatically qualify. The overall winners of the league will get the chance to represent Sri Lanka at the Special Force 2 World Championships being held in the Philippines.
In addition, Dialog Gaming was showcasing Augmented Reality (AR) experiments with various gaming characters who the participants at the event could interact with.
Red Bull, which has supported the culture of Esports in Sri Lanka during recent years, was the Official Energy Drink for the event. MSI came on board as the Technology Partner for the event.
Frimi, a fast, easy and amazingly cool digital solution to earn, spend, shop and save, while enjoying awesome deals, was the Digital Banking Partner for the event. Frimi was also offering a 35% cashback discount on all registrations paid through the Frimi app at the event.
TRACE Expert City was the Venue Partner for the event. TRACE aspires to transform Sri Lanka into an economically sound, knowledge-based, techno-centric, sustainable business hub by promoting innovation, entrepreneurship and professionalism by technologically reawakening a culture of excellence.
The Mercantile Esports Championship is supported by the Official Radio Sponsor Kiss FM, Official Online Store Play.lk, Digital Media Partner ReadMe and the Audio-Visual and Lighting Partner Elektro Revo.
For more information on all the events visit www.gamer.lk or follow Gamer.LK on Facebook via www.fb.com/gamerlk.
The winners of the titles were:
Call of Duty 4:
Modern Warfare
Counter Strike: Global Offensive
Dota 2
League of Legends
Overwatch
Special Force 2
FIFA 18
Project CARS
Tekken 7
Mortal Kombat XL
Clash Royale
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (Women’s League)
Mario Kart 8 (Women’s League)
Mortal Kombat XL (Women’s League)