Gaming
esports
Deman takes us inside the IEM PUBG Invitational
The PUBG Invitational at IEM was one of the best PUBG LANs we've ever seen. We sat down with legendary caster Leigh ‘Deman’ Smith to get an exclusive look at the competition.
At the Intel Extreme Masters in Katowice, one of the biggest esports event of the year, the main competitions were taking place in the iconic Spodek Arena. Thousands of fans watched top-level Dota 2 during the ESL One Major competition over the weekend and many more were gearing up and getting hyped for the huge CS:GO and StarCraft 2 tournaments yet to come. However, during the first weekend of the multi-game event, hidden away at the back of the exhibition hall where brands showed off their latest products, was the Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds stage.
It featured a few hundred seats for spectators, three huge screens (one of which always showed the map and team line-ups) and 16 of the best PUBG teams in the world stacked on top of each other in two rows of eight. With some on the ground floor and some above them on the upper level, it was an impressive sight to behold.
Compared to the massive set-up for PUBG at IEM Oakland at the end of last year, this felt like a much smaller event – but it was all the better for it. Fewer teams made it much easier to keep track of what was going on. The smaller size allowed the crowd to really get into it and the short distance between the players and the fans made it easy for them to connect.
All of this, combined with some incredible action that literally came down to the final seconds of the final map to decide a winner, (AVANGAR took home the prize) made the IEM Katowice PUBG Invitational an event to remember. It was easily the best PUBG LAN we have seen yet. To get some insider information, and find out how it went down behind the scenes, we spoke to veteran esports caster Leigh ‘Deman’ Smith who was on hand to call the PUBG action in Katowice.
The event's been pretty impressive so far, at least for those of us watching, but how do you think it has gone? Are you happy with how it’s turning out?
Yeah! I mean, I did the first two games with Keiron ‘Scoom’ [Prescott] who's great to commentate with; if you're gifted the chance to commentate with a pro player that's currently active, you know you're gonna just milk him for information, so that's pretty much what I've been doing – it’s like pumping that cow for information throughout.
From a production point of view, I think it's gone fairly well. I was a little upset with some of the spectating, but I guess we expect that for the first few games. Things settle down and people get used to it. Production companies are all sort of ebb and flow; it improves as it gets going. Overall, the cast has gone perfectly fine and we had some pretty good games for the first day as well, some wild circles. Definitely game one was just like, ‘Oh, that's all the way down in the far corner.’
The circles have been a big part of discussion for pro PUBG events, with some people claiming that the circles are decided beforehand to make for the best viewing experience. Is that the case?
You see, this is funny, right, because in Oakland we didn't have any extreme circles. We didn't have any water. And we were even speculating backstage, as casters, we were like, ‘Do you think they added something just so for this tournament that it's all good circles?’
No. All that's rubbish. I spoke to Brendan about it, PlayerUnknown. He was just like, ‘Everybody's stupid.’ He said, ‘A, don't be stupid. B, if we were to do that, that basically spoils the entire event. If you can adapt circles like that, that's the whole point, it's all about the teams adapting to the circle.’
OpTic were so close to winning the event
© ESL/Jennika Ojala
We've had some pretty extreme circles today. I think the game three circle was pretty standard, like the northern one above the hill – I've cast that a million times. It's the same with Mylta Power actually. Games three and four were pretty average but yeah, the first two were pretty extreme, and we've had some extreme planes as well. That was the main thing. Finally in game four, we got the first central plane we've had today. That's just the way it is, that's the beauty of PUBG. It's all about adapting. Sure, everyone can complain about the RNG, but the best teams always still rise to the top.
OpTic were top at the end of day one, but going into the event, they weren’t really one of the teams that everyone was expecting to compete in the upper levels. Do you think that's something that PUBG has as an advantage over other esports? That any team can come to any of them and show everyone up?
I wouldn't say that they've surprised, because they've been a top team in America, they're a very, very good team. They've played and they've qualified. Everyone knew about them anyway – they were one of the teams we were watching in the Oakland qualifiers. So, it's no surprise that OpTic obviously picked them up, I think about a week or two after Oakland, or just before Oakland, even though they didn't qualify. So, we knew they were good players you know – and when the Green Wall gets behind you, you've got a bit of pressure on your shoulders, right?
Obviously, to come to a tournament like this, to pick up two wins out of the first four, that's pretty bloody impressive. But I wouldn't even they say got lucky, because the first game they made their own luck.
AVANGAR were in the exact same spot, in Georgopol North. AVANGAR came 16th, OpTic came first. One took the west bridge, ran into KSV, ran into Cloud9, ran into Rogue, ran into everyone. One took the east bridge, which was OpTic, came in slower, so they missed out on KSV and Vitality who had a bridge camp set up. They just kind of went straight up the hill to the radar tower and nobody was there. It was like, where Rogue basically should have been, then Rogue allowed them in behind them, effectively. So, a little fortunate, but you make your own luck in this game.
How long do you think it'll be until PUBG sells out the Spodek Arena next door?
We're already seeing 2018 definitely being a lot bigger. I mean, look, we got IEM now, we got StarLadder the next weekend, we've got PGL and GLL coming up, they're both having finals, obviously at the PGL offices in Bucharest and we've just had Korea. So we're already two months into the year, and I'm already seeing five events spread out for it, so it's getting a lot bigger.
When will it sell out the arena? I don't know. We are seeing it’s pretty packed in here, we have been most of days. So that's, in itself, impressive, because if you compare it to, say, Oakland, the crowd was sparse. It was announced pretty late but it was pretty sparse. When will it hit arena levels though? You don't know, right? Because it's got a massive player base, but, I don't know, because that's like an 8,000 spectator arena, or something like that next door?
It's a different animal to CS:GO and Dota, and League of Legends that, obviously, was the original one that sold out that arena. There are very different ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’ moments, so, how does it grip the spectator for five hours, six hours? Whereas you have CS:GO, you've got the quick initial ‘next round, next round, next round, next round. Okay, map done, break, everyone run out and grab a snack and bring it back for the next one.’ Whereas with this you have a 40-minute builder.
It's a very difficult question, and I'd like to say the end of the year, but I don't know, honestly. Because the meteoric rise in the game has just been, it sort of came out of the blue as it is, right? So we'll say 2019. I am kind of leaning to 2019. We're gonna be in the arena next year.
