META High School Esports (META) hosted their League of Legends preseason tournament over the last two weekends, filled to the brim with emerging high school talent.
The tournament saw 16 teams composed of players from high schools across the country face off in a single round robin tournament on March 21-22. The top two teams in the three brackets then moved into a single elimination round on March 28.
The Melbourne High School team sat at the top spot in group one after the first weekend, with an undefeated streak in their five games. They had an impressive no-death, under 20-minute win against the second placed The Seven Shreks on the second day of the competition.
Charles, who competed in the Melbourne High team, admitted his favourite moment of the event was the team’s 8-minute Rift Herald against The Seven Shreks during their rampaging victory.
“It allowed us to get two mid lane towers, leading to complete domination of the enemy’s jungle. The confidence that our team showed over the weekend allowed us to close out all our games within 25 minutes,” he told Snowball Esports after the tournament victory.
Their game was cast by Juves ?— an experienced ex-Oceanic Pro League star ?— and Pabu, who is currently fifth-placed Gravitas’ top laner in the same national competition. The duo shared out plenty of compliments for the Melbourne squad.
In particular, they highlighted the team’s excellent macro, dubbing it “impressive.” The overall map play contributed in a big way to Melbourne’s eventual success, they said.
While Melbourne marched to an undefeated 5–0 victory in Group 1, BOLD secured the top spot in the second group with a similar, 4–0 undefeated record. INT IQ finished in second place in Group 2 with a 3–1 run.
In the third and final group, Cyber Athletes also clocked up an undefeated record to finish top of the pile. The Science Team placed just behind on 3–1.
Day 3 of the META tournament saw games begin at 10AM AEDT. First off the bat in the quarter finals was the Science Team, who faced off against The Seven Shreks. The Group 1 runners-up claimed the all-important win to kick-start their day.
Melbourne High struggled to hit the same heights of the group stage, however, falling to INT IQ in a best-of-one competition in the second quarter finals.
The semi-finals were exciting too. The Seven Shreks were bowled over Cyber Athletes, and BOLD fell to INT IQ. With those two victories, the stage was set for Sunday’s final.
Juves and Pabu were once again on the mic for an action-filled battle. In the end, the game went to 49 kills in just 25 minutes. Unfortunately for INT IQ, 36 of those were for the Cyber Athletes, and they used the mega-gold pile to steamroll to victory.
Impressively, two members of the team ?— Maxamize on Mordekaiser and Exeden on Senna ?— even managed to avoid a single death in the bloody game.
Game 2 saw even more kills, in less overall game time, with 50 total kills across the board in just over 20 minutes. Once again, the Cyber Athletes had the majority of the kills, with 38 of them on their members and this assured their victory, scoring the 2–0 victory in the finals over INT IQ.
Maxamize was a key player on the Cyber Athletes team, and spoke about the tournament and the competition.
He felt “that they were stronger individually” across the board, and going into the weekends matches, “felt confident” that they could take out the overall win.
The only player they were wary of was INT IQ’s mid laner, Totoriffic, who they target banned. He reflected on the tournament, which he felt overall was “easy” due to his team “individually outclassing almost all other players in the tournament.”
After the conclusion of the grand final, the players participating in the preseason tournament also had the opportunity to play on in a showmatch. The two teams facing off were led by Juves and Pabu, aptly named Boomers and Zoomers.
This completion of the tournament marks the way for the upcoming META High School Esports competition, with the Melbourne High School team featuring members who have competed in previous years. They’re looking to make the state title win a hat trick this season, after already claiming the previous two years titles.
The League of Legends competition kicks off on May 5, details at metahse.gg
![Snowball Esports [Legacy]](https://legacy.snowballesports.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/sb-site-botlogo.png)
