Prior to EGX, hundreds of gamers competed within the Virgin Media Gaming Hexathlon online ladder held on Gfinity.net, as the search for the ultimate gamer began.
Seven players were discovered via the online qualifiers and automatically secured their spot at the £5,000 Virgin Media Gaming Hexathlon Grand Final, held at EGX 2015. However, the search was not over yet, as the remaining three vacancies would be filled by the highest scoring players from Thursday, Friday and Saturday of EGX
On each of these days qualifying was achieved by competing on three out of the six games that made up the Hexathlon. These games were Hearthstone, Super Smash Bro’s and FIFA 16. In order to present an authentic experience, each participate registered an account with a Gfinity member of staff, allowing them to battle against other contestants in the offline ladder.
Once a match was completed, both contestants would then report their scores to accumulate points in order to climb up the ladder. You win a game, you receive more points.
The person at the top of the table at the end of each day would then qualify for Sundays ten man Grand Final, which incorporated the three qualifying games as well as three further games; Smite, Heroes of the Storm and Destiny.
Thursday
Thursdays saw RibsyFinn battle his way into the first offline qualification spot for the Virgin Media Gaming Hexathlon Grand Final. Seventeen Hearthstone games were enough for RibsyFinn to qualify, winning sixteen of those on the way. He managed to accumulate 1,183 points and that was enough to hold off his nearest contender JackParker (1,174 points) to book his place as the 8th finalist who would compete in Sundays Grand Final.
Friday
Friday proved to be a very exciting day of competition with the two contestants at the top of the leader board finishing only 15 points apart. The competition was even more intense as Dibs competed on Hearthstone, while his nemesis, Darkspinez competed on Super Smash Bros.
However, it was Darkspinez who came out on top, after winning all 27 of his Super Smash Bros games, finishing with an impressive 1,325 points, whilst Dibs fell just short after losing 3 out of his 33 Hearthstone games to end the day on 1,310 points.
Saturday
The final day of qualifying was upon us and the search for the last Virgin Media Hexathlon Grand finalist began.
Saturday flew by with everyone vying for that last spot in the Grand Final. However, there was a clear outright winner in J.Miller who won all 37 of his Super Smash Brothers matches earning himself a huge 1,387 points.
We found our 10 finalists!
Wrong!
Unfortunately, we soon realised that J.Miller was in fact the UK’s Super Smash Bro’s champion and had already booked himself into the Street Fighter tournament on Sunday. Therefore he was unable to attend the Virgin Media Gaming Hexathlon Grand Final.
As a result, the final qualification spot was awarded to Saturday’s runner up, LOM Craizo, who won 24 of his 27 Smash Brothers games, accumulating 1,235 points.
The final twist of the day came one hour before qualifying closed, when we were informed that only four out of the seven online qualifiers could attend the Grand Final. After a frantic hour of gaming, we were able to uncover three more finalists, as we completed the Virgin Media Gaming Hexathlon Grand Final line-up.
RavenHS, Shadalz, TyWalton and Tass who all qualified from the online portion of the tournament via the Gfinity website, would be joined by RibsyFinn, Darkspinez, LOM Craizo, TommyB, A Ronin and Omilana7.
Grand Final Sunday
Now that we had our ten finalists, it was time to start the Grand Finals.
The remaining competitors would compete across the full six titles; Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone, Super Smash Brothers, FIFA 16, Smite and Destiny.
At the end of the first five games the four lowest ranked players would then be eliminated from the competition and the final six would move on to play a Free For All on Destiny, earning points for wins, kills and more.
Heroes of the Storm
Two teams of five contestants were randomly comprised by the admins and the battlefield was ready.
With a huge variation in skill, the game constantly switched back and forth between the two sides, however, after approximately twelve minutes of gameplay the game finally came to an end.
RavenHS jumped out to an early lead, as he managed to accumulate 44 points whilst Darkspinez trailed narrowly behind with 33 points. LOM Craizo had a disappointing start, as he failed to secure a single point in the first game mode.
Hearthstone
Up next we had Hearthstone, as the ten finalists would directly face off against each other for the first time in the competition.
Our leader RavenHS managed to secure a further ten points by winning his match whilst TommyB, A Ronin, Shadalz and Omilana7 all managed to win their matches respectively to push them further up the leader board. Shadalz win propelled him into 2nd after this round of games, yet he still trailed RavenHS.
Super Smash Brothers
After Hearthstone both of the PC games had been played and therefore we switched over to the iconic Nintendo title; Super Smash Brothers.
Once again, each player was pitted against fellow contestants in a 1v1 battle and in rather consistent fashion, RavenHS added another win to his name, as he further strengthened his lead and in turn his grip on the £5,000 cheque.
TommyB was starting to climb his way up the leader board by beating TyWalton in his bout to secure himself a further ten points. Darkspinez came out on top in his match which wasn’t a shock as he qualified for the Grand Finals via Super Smash Brothers without losing a match.
FIFA 16
Moving on from the Wii, it was time for the Xbox one, as the players headed into competition on the newly released FIFA 16.
As the last head to head matchup in the competition, this was the final time the competitors were able to secure a further ten point victory and any additional points from a positive goal difference.
For the first time in the Grand Finals, RavenHS’s weakness began to show as he suffered his first defeat, 2-1, allowing the close pursuing rival, TommeyB to narrow the gap, as he won his game 7-0, securing a substantial 24 points.
Smite
As the final game before elimination, Smite, the team MOBA played on the Xbox One, possessed an incredible amount of tension, significance and more importantly points.
Once again RavenHS was able to reiterate his dominance when playing a MOBA and come out on top with a massive 71 points gained from this crucial match. His closest contender Darkspinez managed to gain a respective 45 points, however with a comfortable 30 point lead, was RavenHS already out of sight?
A Ronin made a late surge in smite gaining himself 37 points but it seemed too little too late.
Destiny
With the final game type ready for launch, it was time to say our commiserations to RibsyFinn, Omilana7, TyWalton and Tass who would be leaving us at this stage.
The stage was set, the game was ready, it was time for the final Virgin Media Gaming Hexathlon game mode, Free For All on Destiny.
While RavenHS still held a convincing 30 point lead heading into the Grand Final, mathematically, it was still possible for a late winner, providing Raven didn’t manage to rack up any kills.
Darkspinez and LOM Craizo flew out to an early lead, as they battled back and forth, whilst RavenHS was struggled to pick up any kills (in amongst controller issues).
In true nail-biting fashion, the game was decided by a final kill, as LOM Craizo secured the final victory with by one kill over Darkspinez.
However, the real question still loomed, had Darkspinez done enough to close the 30 point gap?
Unfortunately for Darkspinez, RavenHS managed to pick up 5 points in Destiny, while he only secured 24, narrowing the gap to a 28 point deficit.
Thererfore, RavenHS was crowned the Virgin Media Gaming Hexathlon Champion! Taking home the £5,000 prize.
All the runners up received a copy of Destiny and a year’s free virgin media broadband so their efforts did not go down in vein.
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