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The first ever Vainglory World Championship kicks off later today over in Hollywood. Twelve of the best Vainglory teams from all corners of the globe will battle it out over the weekend to be crowned the first ever world champions. The action promises to be incredible, as teams meet for the first time and regions face off against each other with their unique style of play.
Putting together such an event is no easy task, especially when the venue you have chosen is one of the most iconic buildings in the world; the TCL Chinese Theatre. However after running regional events all over the world the Super Evil team is confident they can pull it off. In order to get the lowdown on world and a few predictions we chatted with Kristian Segerstrale, COO & Executive Director at Super Evil Megacorp.
eSports Pro: Why did you chose to host the first ever World Championship in NA and in Los Angeles specifically?
Kristian Segerstrale: “This is our very first world championship, so we will be very excited to bring worlds to different continents different regions, places that are far more complex than LA. But at this point in time, as this is our first year, we wanted to pick a venue that we know would really fit Vainglory and would really work well with the community.”
eSports Pro: The Chinese Theatre certainly seems like a good fit for Vainglory, but why did you choose to host it in such an iconic venue that hasn’t really hosted many eSports events before?
Kristian: “After running the season final events throughout the year, we have a better view of what the world championships needs to look like. It’s not just a competitive event, it’s a broader celebration of the game. It’s where we will be revealing the big winter season update to the game that will be our biggest update ever. We want to show all the different things that will come into the game and for that we need to have a whole bunch of the company present. So we figured the best way to do it would be to pick the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, because it’s a very large venue and we think it will work super well for the game itself. Its also very close to the heartland of the US player community and we know that it is a place that our community is comfortable traveling to.”
eSports Pro: Will this be the home of the Vainglory World Championship every year or are you looking to take it on the road?
Kristian:“ I can see us next year either hosting it in Europe or Asia, somewhere where there are other big player clusters and ultimately, in a long time from now, we will bring it back to LA as a bit of a homecoming.”
eSports Pro: The groups for the event have been drawn, so which do you think looks like the toughest one?
Kristian: “Firstly kudos to Gank Stars to be able to field two teams at worlds, we didn’t think it was possible but they somehow pulled it off. There is a clear group of death, and I think that is group B. You have probably the strongest Korean team [Hack], the strongest North American team [Team SoloMid] and a top team from one of the best regions in the world [Gankstars Cerberus]. It’s going to be great.”
eSports Pro: Do you think there will be any major surprises at the event?
Kristian: “I think some of the Asian teams are harder to work out how strong they are in relation to the European and NA teams because we see NA and EU more on stream, but overall it will makes for some spectacular group stage play. Also these teams will, for the first time, be able to study each other at length given the amount of footage there is of them all. It will be great to see how they chose to use that information and that could have a big impact.
eSports Pro: Thanks for your time Kristian, we can’t wait for Worlds.
