Hello guys I want to share with everyone my experience with Battle of Africa 2.
As you all know the year started tough for me. Not being invited for NAC3 and not being involved to RedBull Wololo event reminded me of the nightmares from the Maldives all those years ago. At some point I thought I am done when it comes to organising and casting big tournaments. I thought time is close I have to leave the community to be able to support my family.
And than when I got the oportunity to host another event - Battle of Africa 2, I felt so proud and happy. A reminder Age of Empires is not only primary source of income for me and my family but also a passion, a thrill, a love. These incredible competitive games give me goosebumps even after so many years.
It was a big challenge to host this big team tournament on DE2. As You all know the game had some serious issues and we had to go back to the old patch after some games were already played. Luckily this solved the situation. I think the tournament turned out to be great. It gave opportunity to many people, which I think is important for the community and the competitive scene.
The viewer numbers were very good in general and especially during the last weekend. The Grand Final reached a very high peak. According to the data for all channels together it was over 28k viewers in English speaking channels. When you include around 11k viewers in the 2 big spanish speaking YouTube channels and add several hundred viewers in smaller channels we have reached 40k viewers without considering the huge Chinese community. With the end ofthe lockdown and warm weather in many countries , reaching these viewers numbers is even greater achievement.
The quality of the games and overall performance of the teams has been very high. With a lot of very strong games and even complete series in the tournament. But for me the best game in the tournament was Heresy vs YinYang on beachfight. It was just a BRUTAL game. And this reminds me that we have some awesome maps in BoA2. But even the best maps need fantastic gameplay so we have the best games we can see as viewers. And this one game had the perfect mixture of great map and fantastic performance by the teams.
About players I could mention many that I think really shined in this tournament. But I honestly have to say that this tournament 2 players played in a much better level than they usually do in tournaments recently - MbL and Liereyy. Hera of course played strong, he has been doing in last few months but for me aM won because these 2 players finally made that last step that was needed to win a grand final and mr. Dota (Kappa) for me was the MVP of the tournament because except those arambais that I think it were a mistake, I really think he was in almost every game dominating against his opponents.
BoA had the best maps I have seen in a tournament. I think Chrazini is just the best maps creator, sorry others, im biased yes, but it is what i think. There is always something to improve but I think these aggresives maps drive forward AoE as competative Esport what we all strive for. If some day we have the chance to make BOA3, Im sure we will see the maps even more improved and may be some new great maps that help we have more fantastic games.
I have seen the debates about the seeding. And I have to say there is no perfect seeding. I know one group ended up much stronget than the other. Is good the format proved itself and we had what are the best 4 teams in the semifinals. Its only pity for Heresy as if they were in the other group they would be favourites for a quarterfinal. Despite the groups were unbalanced I think it was very important and correct we did not make changes to "adjust" as it would be unfair and wrong to make changes once you know the teams. After all, perfect or not the seeding system allowed every team to change their rank and once present, organisers should not interfere. Of course the split in the Chinese teams and the surprising results helped to have this situation. Having this experience helps us make changes for next tournament. But also I have to say I am glad that PGP and RoR got the chance to play on the highest level and RoR reaching a quarterfinal should be a motivation for them and other teams near the top to improve and challenge the elite teams so we have even strongeer competitions in the future.
Many thanks to the sponsors who believed in me and my team that we are capable of once again delivering a good tournament for the community. Microsoft who supported with 15.000 to the tournament. We added 11.000 of them into the prize pool and with the rest we covered the many expences event like this has. Thanks so much to Oracle455 that added 4k to the prize, PkZ with another 1k, and thew numeroous viewers who subscribed. Without all of them we could not reach the final prize that was 21.250$ in total for the Main event and the Gold League.
I don`t want to finish this without give big thanks to Chrazini for being an amazing admin, also creating the live brackets constantly. Then nkodargas with images, videos, thumbnails well most of the graphics. Nerdragequit also helped me with some stuff related with my stream, transitions and some effects. Resonance22 with his amazing voice working on the special videos. Tarsiz with the speech for those team videos that were great and then Chrazini again for the maps explanations.
Special mention to PKZ that brought to me a special overlay. I didn´t even ask to him to do it, but he wanted to support me with a overlay for this teamgame tournament as he knew it was so important. He also had to update it few times because of the patches changes. Love you man. Also from now on that overlay will help a lot more streamers to cast properly the teamgames. BEAST!
Also thanks So much to every single co caster i had during this event: Ornlu, lidakor, nili, Dave, t90official, NerdRagequit, Spaden, MbL, Liereyy, Hera, TheViper and especially to Nova. Who was not very popular but is very good and he managed to make an amazing co cast with me during the Grand final.
Of course there have been some not as positive things. But I do not want to focus on them now. We are just going to do our best and fix for next time. Also not to forget BIG Congratulations to aM for winning their first major event. And thanks to all the players for participate hope you guys had a great experience.
Last thanks so much to my special community who I like to call them the “loberboys” and special mention to ItsAtreee that also helped me for so long but specially for this event. They so great and have always helped me even in the hard moments I had. And of course the people that just joined thanks to this tournament and wanted to support me as host of the event. Hope we did a good job and you are happy. And dont go too far, we will come even stronger for the second half of the year. King of the Desert 3 is comming, but also at least one more event.
We love this game.
As you all know the year started tough for me. Not being invited for NAC3 and not being involved to RedBull Wololo event reminded me of the nightmares from the Maldives all those years ago. At some point I thought I am done when it comes to organising and casting big tournaments. I thought time is close I have to leave the community to be able to support my family.
And than when I got the oportunity to host another event - Battle of Africa 2, I felt so proud and happy. A reminder Age of Empires is not only primary source of income for me and my family but also a passion, a thrill, a love. These incredible competitive games give me goosebumps even after so many years.
It was a big challenge to host this big team tournament on DE2. As You all know the game had some serious issues and we had to go back to the old patch after some games were already played. Luckily this solved the situation. I think the tournament turned out to be great. It gave opportunity to many people, which I think is important for the community and the competitive scene.
The viewer numbers were very good in general and especially during the last weekend. The Grand Final reached a very high peak. According to the data for all channels together it was over 28k viewers in English speaking channels. When you include around 11k viewers in the 2 big spanish speaking YouTube channels and add several hundred viewers in smaller channels we have reached 40k viewers without considering the huge Chinese community. With the end ofthe lockdown and warm weather in many countries , reaching these viewers numbers is even greater achievement.
The quality of the games and overall performance of the teams has been very high. With a lot of very strong games and even complete series in the tournament. But for me the best game in the tournament was Heresy vs YinYang on beachfight. It was just a BRUTAL game. And this reminds me that we have some awesome maps in BoA2. But even the best maps need fantastic gameplay so we have the best games we can see as viewers. And this one game had the perfect mixture of great map and fantastic performance by the teams.
About players I could mention many that I think really shined in this tournament. But I honestly have to say that this tournament 2 players played in a much better level than they usually do in tournaments recently - MbL and Liereyy. Hera of course played strong, he has been doing in last few months but for me aM won because these 2 players finally made that last step that was needed to win a grand final and mr. Dota (Kappa) for me was the MVP of the tournament because except those arambais that I think it were a mistake, I really think he was in almost every game dominating against his opponents.
BoA had the best maps I have seen in a tournament. I think Chrazini is just the best maps creator, sorry others, im biased yes, but it is what i think. There is always something to improve but I think these aggresives maps drive forward AoE as competative Esport what we all strive for. If some day we have the chance to make BOA3, Im sure we will see the maps even more improved and may be some new great maps that help we have more fantastic games.
I have seen the debates about the seeding. And I have to say there is no perfect seeding. I know one group ended up much stronget than the other. Is good the format proved itself and we had what are the best 4 teams in the semifinals. Its only pity for Heresy as if they were in the other group they would be favourites for a quarterfinal. Despite the groups were unbalanced I think it was very important and correct we did not make changes to "adjust" as it would be unfair and wrong to make changes once you know the teams. After all, perfect or not the seeding system allowed every team to change their rank and once present, organisers should not interfere. Of course the split in the Chinese teams and the surprising results helped to have this situation. Having this experience helps us make changes for next tournament. But also I have to say I am glad that PGP and RoR got the chance to play on the highest level and RoR reaching a quarterfinal should be a motivation for them and other teams near the top to improve and challenge the elite teams so we have even strongeer competitions in the future.
Many thanks to the sponsors who believed in me and my team that we are capable of once again delivering a good tournament for the community. Microsoft who supported with 15.000 to the tournament. We added 11.000 of them into the prize pool and with the rest we covered the many expences event like this has. Thanks so much to Oracle455 that added 4k to the prize, PkZ with another 1k, and thew numeroous viewers who subscribed. Without all of them we could not reach the final prize that was 21.250$ in total for the Main event and the Gold League.
I don`t want to finish this without give big thanks to Chrazini for being an amazing admin, also creating the live brackets constantly. Then nkodargas with images, videos, thumbnails well most of the graphics. Nerdragequit also helped me with some stuff related with my stream, transitions and some effects. Resonance22 with his amazing voice working on the special videos. Tarsiz with the speech for those team videos that were great and then Chrazini again for the maps explanations.
Special mention to PKZ that brought to me a special overlay. I didn´t even ask to him to do it, but he wanted to support me with a overlay for this teamgame tournament as he knew it was so important. He also had to update it few times because of the patches changes. Love you man. Also from now on that overlay will help a lot more streamers to cast properly the teamgames. BEAST!
Also thanks So much to every single co caster i had during this event: Ornlu, lidakor, nili, Dave, t90official, NerdRagequit, Spaden, MbL, Liereyy, Hera, TheViper and especially to Nova. Who was not very popular but is very good and he managed to make an amazing co cast with me during the Grand final.
Of course there have been some not as positive things. But I do not want to focus on them now. We are just going to do our best and fix for next time. Also not to forget BIG Congratulations to aM for winning their first major event. And thanks to all the players for participate hope you guys had a great experience.
Last thanks so much to my special community who I like to call them the “loberboys” and special mention to ItsAtreee that also helped me for so long but specially for this event. They so great and have always helped me even in the hard moments I had. And of course the people that just joined thanks to this tournament and wanted to support me as host of the event. Hope we did a good job and you are happy. And dont go too far, we will come even stronger for the second half of the year. King of the Desert 3 is comming, but also at least one more event.
We love this game.