University of Warwick, Win Esports University of the Year Three Years in a Row

The British University Esports Championship (BUEC), powered by Intel, has come to a close for the 2020/2021 academic year. Despite both winter and spring splits happening during a pandemic and various lockdowns, it did not dull your competitive spirit or enthusiasm! Exactly 100 universities participated and earned points, which is the most we’ve ever had competing in BUEC at one time.

The competition has been fierce this year, though one university has stood out and dominated the points table again...

University of Warwick has pulled it out of the bag for the third year in a row and is the Esports University of the Year for 2020/2021!

Warwick took the lead by a staggering 1,021 points and their players have done the unbelievable by almost doubling their points from last year.

The fight for second between Staffordshire University and the University of Southampton has been intense. Staffordshire came out on top last season, but Southampton brought their A-game this spring and earned enough points to take second place.

The Top Five Universities of 2020/2021

See where your university placed in the full points table here.

Warwick’s Top Five Performing Teams

The BUEC season culminated with the Spring Finals, which ran for three days straight from 9th April - 11th April, where we saw a mixture of close games and dominating performances from established teams in the university esports community. 

UWE Sea Stags (University of the West of England’s CS:GO team), Warwick Ducks (University of Warwick’s Dota 2 team) and Neocitadel (Newcastle University’s Rainbow Six Siege team) all won both the winter and spring split, earning a whopping 300 points for their respective universities.

The UWE Sea Stags are a well-known team in university CS:GO. In the past five BUEC seasons, UWE Sea Stags have won three and placed second in the other two. The Finals weekend also saw some exceptional player performances from across the country. Ethan from Bath A team, an 18-year old computer science student from the University of Bath, made some incredible shots to secure rounds for his team, one of which he was the only surviving member winning the round with 2hp but his efforts were still not enough for Bath A to take a game in these competitive Finals.

The finals for Overwatch were the most surprising this spring. In what looked like it was going to be an easy victory for University of York’s team Underwatch, Portsmouth Paladins (University of Portsmouth) managed to pull off the reverse sweep after subbing out some players in their roster of seven. Under the guidance of team captain, Thomas “Sheep” Moles, a 20-year old studying for a masters in Computer Science, they beat Underwatch even though they were down two maps in a best of five.

Another stand out player of the finals was Max "Maximoose" Giles on the side of UEA Bluejays x RootKit (University of East Anglia). The 21-year old Computer Science student, finished both VALORANT maps with almost 30 kills on each. He secured the win for University of East Anglia by closing out the final round with a clutch by hitting two incredible headshots with only six seconds left on the timer.

Heriot-Watt University is crowned top esports university in Scotland with 801 points, placing them 33rd overall. Swansea University finished 11th in the points table with a score of 1,490 making them the most successful university from Wales.

Eight brand new universities joined this year with Queen’s University Belfast being the best performing new contender. They placed 64th after solid performances in CS:GO, Rainbow Six Siege, VALORANT and Teamfight Tactics.

The most improved university was Liverpool John Moores University. With the help of their VALORANT, Overwatch and CS:GO teams competing in the championship bracket, they finished the season in 36th, moving up 41 spots from their previous position, 77th.

Throughout the year, the University of Nottingham was the only university to earn BUEC points by competing in every NSE event, including affiliate leagues like British University Sim Racing (BUSR) and University Fighting Games.

In terms of affiliate leagues, BUSR is a new addition to the BUEC family for 2021/2022. Lancaster University did amazingly well across the BUSR tournaments and collected 132 points from various competitors to help secure 4th place.

Will Warwick continue to dominate the championship next year? With the academic year winding down and the summer just about to start, who’s to say what the next season will bring.

Can’t wait for the winter season to start? Earlier this week we announced the Stay At Home Series sponsored by Monster Energy which takes place over the next few weeks. You can find the schedule, prize details and sign up here. 

As always, a big thank you to our partners, without their support none of this would be possible.

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