Last week saw not only the 16th Variety Cup, but also the first four rounds of the Xfire Midlane Masters being played and a team as well as 4 Midlane Masters Finalists emerged out of the tournaments. Let's take a look at them.

Variety Cup #16

13 teams registered for this Cup on Grimm's Crossing, so four rounds in total were to be played, all in a BO3 mode. Unlike many tournaments before, this tournament saw plenty of action right away, as 11 of the 13 registered teams were there on time and eager to play. In the first round we had four matches being played, [Sker]Sker losing to [VISD]Silent Division, [HAX]Unit making it close but eventually winning against [LGz]LaggyGamerz, [EPDS]The Expandables suffering an early out by the hands of [OoO]Repoooooooooooort and [HoNL]HoN Lords losing to the favourite to win the Cup, the slightly renamed [2v2]Grimms (dis)United.[CzSk]The Tyrants had their first test of might in round 2, where they played against Silent Division and triumphed, moving to the semi-finals without problems. The team Unit had much more problems with their new opponent, Repoooooooooooort, who forced them to play out all three games before they could finally move on. [AS5]Acid Squirrel Squad had enjoyed a free win in the first round but had to face Grimms United. They did put up a good fight in the second game, but that was not enough, Grimms United advanced to the semi-finals and the Squirrels had to go home. The final match of the round was a forfeit win for [Huss]Hussars because [PpM]PepsiMaX was unable to play this match.

On Friday then it was time for the semi-finals and two well known teams were playing against far less known teams now. The Tyrants ran into some problems against Unit, it took all three games for the Tyrants to finally achieve victory, Unit did a good job at keeping their opponents on their toes. Grimms United on the other hand proved once more that they are the team to beat on this map, not leaving the Hussars a chance to win, the first game was a complete rout and the second was not much better, but at least they got some kills there. A truly epic finals seemed to be in the making and both veteran teams finally met up on Friday evening to find out who would become the Champion of the Variety Cup this week. The first game in the series was a rather dull 38 minute game with less than a kill per 2 minutes - something you don't see every day on Grimm's Crossing - nor would you want to. Eventually Grimms United won the game and the second game followed shortly after. This game was rather quick and featured many kills, sadly it was completely one-sided and The Tyrants never really got into the game. 15 minutes later, the game and the match were done and the guys from Grimms United stand as the Champions of the Variety Cup once more, and this well deserved despite the rather anticlimactic finals. Congrats to them and thanks to all teams for participating!


Xfire Midlane Masters

Four of the 16 finalists have made it through the gauntlet that is the Qualifiers last week. The first Qualifier was won by Like`A`Luke, who beat NuckleaR` in the finals. Third place went to Haxxme. The second Qualifiers saw Norren emerge victorious. He defeated flsher` in the finals , while mammaskort managed to snatch the third place. Qualifiers #3 featured NuckleaR` once again in the finals, and again he lost, this time to wannabenyhm. Third place was taken by imbaPingu this time. And finally, on Thursday, it was Matamig` who took the bacon and qualified. UglyPotato was unable to defeat him, while Firenzie was happy to score the third place. Congrats to all who qualified and good luck next time to those who failed, it's not easy being mid.

The Xfire Midlane Masters will continue all through the coming three weeks, so if you want to join the fun, visit their website and register right away. The new Variety Cup #17 starts again this Thursday at 12:00 EDT | 18:00 CEST. Signups are still open, so if you and your team are in the mood for some Midwars Banning Draft action and some Gold Coins, go ahead and sign up! Good Luck and Have Fun to all teams!

About the author: Blaze